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250 years of the Black Bard

4th October 20234th October 2023 funtime65

Back in the day I penned a paean to rap poet Benjamin Zephaniah so it’s time for another, this time for 250 years of the Black Bard, Phillis Wheatley.

Phillis being a traveller like ourselves, entranced by London’s bright lights.

But as a black teenager of her time, Phillis was a slave, from West Africa via Boston, Massachusetts.

The young poet had arrived in Britain’s capital in 1773, the same year as the Boston Tea Party.

As the chattel of Nathaniel Wheatley, the adult son of the family who had bought her in Boston in 1761.

To see her collection, Poems on various subjects, published by Archibald Bell.

All of which came about through the family’s connections with Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.

A Bostonian abroad

Educated as they were Phillis had clearly learned well her Homer, Horace, Virgil, Pope and Milton.

And had been writing poetry from the age of 12.

With her first published poem appearing in the Rhode Island in 1767.

Although she was unsuccessful in getting her collection published in Boston in 1772 which brought her to London.

That Phillis loved and was inspired by London (and who wouldn’t be?) we know from her letter to a Connecticut acquaintance, Colonel David Wooster, dated October 18, 1773.

Where she goes into some fine and excitable detail about the charms and attractions of London.

Tour of London

‘Grenville Sharp Esqr. Who attended me to the Tower & Show’d the Lions, Panthers, Tigers, &c. the Horse Armoury, small Armoury, the Crowns, Sceptres, Diadems, the Font for christening the Royal Family.

‘Saw Westminster Abbey, British Museum, Coxe’s Museum, Saddler’s wells, Greenwich Hospital, Park and Chapel, The royal Observatory at Greenwich, &c. &c. too many things & Places to trouble you with in a Letter.’

What the humble Phillis didn’t mention though was who she met among the great and good, among them Benjamin Franklin.

While she was beckoned to see King George III, only she was on her way home by then.

Free, free at last

sunset skyline boston dusk — Our cup of tea: Boston Photo by Kristin Vogt on Pexels.com

The said Grenvill Sharp Esqr was an abolitionist who was involved in a test case, the Somersett case.

Where The Lord Chief Justice ruled that enslaved African James Somersett brought to England from Boston by his owner, could not be legally forced to return to the colonies.

All of which helped our heroine and she was freed on her return to Boston.

She went on to marry, but died of chronic asthma at the tender age of 31.

Alas, as is the way with prophets in their own land, Phillis was not published in her adopted city of Boston until the 1830s.

While she remains relatively anonymous, and untaught, in Britain.

As do many black authors as I discovered when I asked in a bookshop if they had any Zepheniah…

All of which sparked me as I prepared for my Forth Stanza poetry show into penning my Ode to Zephaniah.

Ode to Zepheniah

I searched for Zepheniah

I searched lower I searched higher

Along the rows of shelves

Past Wordsworth, Yeats did I delve

Until I reached the Z,

And behind me poets dead,

But it all runs out at Y,

And so deflated, with a sigh,

I went over to reception,

To confront the shop’s deception,

And ask what happened to the Z,

And this is what she said,

‘There’s no-one with that letter,

‘And would you not be better,

‘To try a different author,

‘She didn’t want the bother,

‘Of spelling Zepheniah,

‘And so she did enquire,

‘If I’d read Andrew Motion’

Of him I had no notion.

‘The Poet Laureate I was told.

‘And how many copies has he sold’

‘I’ll check the other store.’

And as she hung on the blower

I thought about the others,

Perhaps Benjamin’s sisters, brothers,

Deleted from the alphabet,

Because poets’ names don’t start with Z.

A word or two from Phillis

On a pedestal: Phillis honoured in Boston

I’d like to think I stand comparison with Phillis… I’d like to.

Judge for yourself with this offering from ‘One Being Brought From Africa to America’.

‘TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

‘Taught my benighted soul to understand

‘That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:

‘Once I redemption neither sought now knew,

‘Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

‘Their colour is a diabolic die.’

‘Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

‘May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.’

So, in this Black History Month, a mark of 250 years of the Black Bard, Phillis Wheatley.

Countries, Music, UK

Musical Thames

20th July 202320th July 2023 funtime65

They’re the musical Thames we live in, played out in London’s West End, and brought to you by Keith Browse Attractions,

And Mamma Mia (see what we’ve done there) does Keith have some all-singin’, all-dancin’ treats in store for us.

Keith will get you into the Skopelos spirit (ours is an ouso efcharisto).

With dinner at Nikos Taverna and, of course, two nights hotel accommodation for travel in September from €379pps.

Which, of course, leads us nicely into the show they’re all talking about this year, Abba Voyage.

Keith will give you two nights in a central London hotel from €365pps.

Give in to Temptation

Now, everybody loves Motown too, right?

And no, it’s not just my imagination running away with me.

It’s many a moon ago but I well remember catching the legendary combo in a cabaret in Ibiza on a Western Med cruise.

The next best thing is the musical, Ain’t Too Proud following their journey.

Hamilton’s a rap

One odyssey we all go back again for is Hamilton the Musical, whose home, of course, is New York.

But as a half-Scot, by his own admission, a Hamilton production in Britain is a coming home of sorts.

Although for those of a Scottish variety then we’ll be looking put for Miranda’s masterpiece coming north.

Keith pairs the London show with two nights in a nearby hotel, from €309pps.

Countries, Deals, UK

England’s heartland

4th June 202312th June 2023 funtime65

A journey through England’s heartland is a step back through time but that’s enough politics, on with Travel Department’s invitation to visit Olde England.

It’s a world I know well from cutting my teeth as a scribe in the Royal County of Berkshire.

Where the royal family were neighbours down the road in Windsor.

The Royal County of Berkshire has given the world its most radiant (no not Waity Katie), English rose but my own succulent Sadie.

And it is ideally placed, and you’d expect the Windsors to bag the best locations, to explore the verdant Cotswolds, Shakespeare country, Royal Berkshire and London itself.

TD will base you in horse racing country, Cheltenham in their five-day guided package.

So without further ado, here’s TD’s skinny on the heart of England.

Cotswolds, Windsor & Bath

You’ll explore Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-Upon-Avon and visit Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.

Spend a day visiting the scenic villages of the Cotswolds (MC Beaton’s Agatha Raisin anybody?)

And travel back to Ancient British Rome and Jane Austen’s England of manners (what happened to them?)

On another full day excursion, you’ll discover Oxford University.

Queen who?

Whatshername? For that car park attendant

And pay a visit to Queen Elizabeth II’s weekend palace, Windsor Castle.

Where back in the day I used to rub shoulders with Her Maj at her beloved country pursuits extravaganza, The Windsor Show.

Lizzie would dress down (headscarf, tweeds, sensible shoes) which threw one car park steward.

When he asked for her pass.

One alert journo, not me but remember I was still cutting my teeth, spotted the scene.

And sold the story to a national newspaper who put a picture of the monarch on their front page.

With a strap: ‘For the only person in the UK who doesn’t recognise this woman… THE QUEEN’.

King who?

And because we here are a public service and because we’ve not seen much of him of late, this is the current monarch.

The TD tour departs on August 10 from €959pp including return flights and transfers.

And five nights’ B&B basis in the 3* Holiday Inn Express Cheltenham with guide.

Countries, Ireland, UK

London’s Paddy’s Day

18th March 202318th March 2023 funtime65

And it’s a racing cert that an English market town is awash with Guinness mid-March but what of down the road and a history of London‘s Paddy’s Day?

We’re all recovering from the last few days when half the population of Ireland got jinglier of pocket through four days at the Cheltenham Festival.

When their favourite, in this case Gallopin des Champs, comes romping home.

Norah’s story: Norah Casey in Trafalgar Square in 2002

Of course Paddy‘s Day has become something of a misnomer over the years.

What started out as a one-day break from Lenten sacrifices when us youngsters got to eat sweets has grown.

A weekend bender

And in these more heathen days it’s a bevvy-up that stretches out over a whole week.

Which is why Cheltenham designated March 16 as their Paddy’s Day which, of course, extended into the real day.

While March 18 at the start of Paddy’s Weekend, has become a recurring celebration of Irish rugby excellence.

Or whenever it lands.

When Ireland win the Grand Slam and in the best possible style with victory over the Old Enemy, England.

Of course, you don’t have to be sporty to indulge in Paddy’s Day revelry.

And Daddy’s Little Girl has been living it up in the Dublin of her youth (insert your own city in here).

Paddy’s Day, of course, has been celebrated around the world by ex-pats for hundreds of years.

The London Irish

Green for go: Ireland regularly win around St Paddy’s Day

But London’s St Paddy’s Day celebration is oddly and shamefully no long-held tradition.

And only within this Fiftysomething’s lifetime.

Its history too is tied up with an old travel companion and Irish businesswoman par excellence, Norah Casey.

For those of you lucky enough to still live in Ireland.

Norah is instantly recognisable from Dragon’s Den.

But she also more than made her mark in 22 years in Britain and at the helm of the Irish Post.

Not least in leaving her legacy with the first St Patrick’s Day Festival in London in Trafalgar Square in 2002 and which you can pencil in your diary for next year.

Livingston, we presume

Greening it up: Global Paddy’s Weekend celebrations

Which she organised with the-then Mayor of London Ken Livingston.

Norah informs us that it had been written into the bye laws of Trafalgar Square that no Irish gathering was to be held there.

Nor was an Irish flag permitted to fly in the square where Nelson looks down on us all.

Maybe the Admiral’s revenge for blown to smithereens on O’Connell Street, Dublin.

It had been written into the byelaws of Trafalgar Square that no Irish gathering was to be held there, nor was an Irish flag permitted to fly.

And so back in 2002 tens of thousands of Irish packed the square to hear The Dubliners and Mary Coughlan sing to the crowds.

As Norah so poignantly put it: “I don’t mind admitting that I cried.. but so did Ken and the whole team.

“Along with everyone else there, I felt so proud that finally we could celebrate being Irish in London.”

So if you’re in Trafalgar Square today as I was last week, and celebrating Ireland’s victory over England and their Grand Slam just remember.

What Norah and Ken and countless others did to ensure you enjoyed your London’s Paddy’s Day.

America, Countries, Sustainable Tourism, UK

London a national monument

14th March 202314th March 2023 funtime65

Take the National Express when your life’s in a mess as Neil Hannon opined… ’appen he was en route to London a national monument.

Now there are many ways to get to London from around Britain.

And I have taken them all… planes, trains, automobiles.

But the most persuasive is by coach which is only around £28.80 on National Express for a 10hr 50mins trip.

Other coach companies pound the roads but ’appened Neil hadn’t opted for Stagecoach and FlixBus didn’t run back in 1999.

The train drain

And you can cut out accommodation costs by kipping on the coach.

Those prices will, of course, as in the words of Neil, make you smile.

While the rest who have been deluded by the machinery of state into believing that ‘the train takes the strain’.

Yes, sure, if you want to lighten the load in your wallet.

Like clockwork

One rider, of course, is the network for trains that go underground, the Tube, which works like clockwork.

And where you can swipe your bank card and so avoid queuing at ticket offices.

While their joined-up Oyster card, like the Leap card in Dublin and across a raft of cities makes a mockery of my own city, Edinburgh’s crumbing transport links.

It’s not the only area Scotland’s capital needs a good clean-up and a new facelift.

On a podium

Piece of history: With Stonewall Jackson in Virginia

Take our statues, those we put on a podium to look down on us.

Something of a hobbyhorse of your chronicler statues, as much as I’d love to see the royals and empire builders brought down to earth I’m realistic.

And know that just like the USA where a raft of Southern states surround themselves with Confederate heroes it’ll take time to change attitudes.

Redress the balance: With Fanny Lou Hamer

And while we do we should be redressing the balance by putting up more statues of our women, animals, cultural, sports, entertainment and international icons.

And maybe even objects of national endearment like the National Express coach.

Because be sure if it had been around in Dick Whittington’s Day he’d have hopped on it.

Out of Africa

It was rewarding too to see a celebration of post-colonial empowerment.

London In the statue of Malawian John Chilembwe which occupies the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.

Where he towers over the colonial ruler and where he is now the only African and person of colour thus celebrated.

The fourth plinth should be something we all hold onto.

It is an idiosyncrasy in the square dominated by Admiral Horatio Nelson, victor of the Napoleonic naval battle, that there is another plinth up for grabs.

Three corners are occupied by the ruling elite, King George IV, Henry Havelock and Charles James Napier.

Havewho, Napiehow? Yes, quite. Havelock and Napier were bigwigs during the Indian Raj.

The fourth plinth

The reason why we should embrace the fourth plinth, originally meant for King William IV, 180 years ago, is that it is now a rolling statue.

No, not like Edward Colston who was rolled into the river in Bristol.

But every couple of years an artist’s new statue goes up.

Mark Wallinger’s Ecco Homo of Christ in 1999 making way to a number of others including an Anthony Gormley erection (stop it)!

To just now and Samson Gambalu’s Antelope which will come down in a year.

To accommodate Teresa Margolles’ 850 Improntas, casts of the faces of 850 trans people from London and the world.

The fourth plinth truly does sound like the solution, the future… London a national monument.

And something I’ll be recommending to Edinburgh council.

To pull down the spaceship of Walter Scott and replace it with the city’s most famous citizen, Sean Connery.

Countries

ABC… of stag and hen parties in Europe

24th February 202324th February 2023 funtime65

As the song goes it’s as simple as ABC… of stag and hen parties in Europe (OK, a bit of poetic licence here, but you try doing this every day!)

The rather clumsy lead-in just gives us an excuse to highlight the charms of our continent’s cities and its appeal to stags and hens.

Now you’ll have your own pick of the pubs but the A-1 for us before we tied the knot was our old stomping ground at the time, Aberdeen, in the north-east of Scotland.

Where the jokers, mostly those who have never been to the Granite or Silver City by the North Sea, will tar the locals with a parsimony that is misplaced.

But for those who have lived there (eight years for me) it is welcoming and best of all the pubs are hubs of good craic.

Too much so on the night in question when I was persuaded by my usher into drinking too much which forced me to retreat from my own do when we got to the Chinese restaurant.

Thankfully we had decided in advance not to have the stag the night before and I’d recovered by the following week.

This could be Amsterdam or Rotterdam

Can I be trusted on a bike? In Amsterdam

Our survey suppliers today Bonusetu (no, us neither) have inexplicably bypassed Aberdeen on their ABC… of stag and hen parties in Europe.

But they do give us some of our favourite cities, starting off with one of the masters, Amsterdam.

And it would be a mistake for revellers to descend on the Red Light district… far better to seek out the cosy, narrow, canalside bars.

The Dutch capital takes top spot for restaurants featured in the Michelin Guide per capita with 70 restaurants making for more than six per 100k population.

Ranking fifth in casinos per capita, sixth for number of five star hotels, and fourth for five star nightlife locations, the Dutch capital has it all.

Now we all have our ideas of romantic getaways and I won brownie points for taking Mrs M to the Dylan where George and Amal go when in Amsterdam.

But just as good I find is taking your loved one down to Rotterdam to see the Dutch Oranje play Greece I find too.

The upside of Continental Europe for your stag or hen is that it’s proper beer and the Belgians make theirs a matter of national honour as we found out in Ieper and Bruges.

Antwerp or Bucharest

But the same goes too for Bonusetu’s pick Antwerp where old friends from Dublin (and more of the Fair City later) await.

They tell us that it contains the second most Michelin Guide restaurants per capita at just over five per 100k, whilst ranking 12th relatively for five starred nightlife locations.

Now, full reveal here, and we’d have imagined that the B Bonusetu would have in mind might have been Barcelona or Berlin or Budapest.

But our guides have pointed us in the direction of Bucharest.

The Romanian capital has a huge amount of top class nightlife with more than 50 bars, clubs and comedy clubs rated over five stars on TripAdvisor.

And it has by far the most casinos with 160 which equates to nearly 9 per 100k residents.

Now you bet that we say where Bonusetu are going with this and what they want us to do when we’re abroad, but we’ll go with it.

Fairytale cities

Heading north Bonusetu clearly know what they think is wonderful about Copenhagen.

The Danish capital sports just over 1.5 casinos per 100k residents, and more than four Michelin restaurants per 100k.

And it has almost 40 five star rated nightlife locations… but the abiding beauty is, of course, the Little Mermaid.

Prague has a fairytale aspect too and its mix of quirky David Cerny Piss Sculpture and historic erections (steady).

But most importantly it claims to have the most beer drinkers per capita in the world.

Bonsusetu helpfully tells us the Czechia capital has the most five star rated nightlife locations per capita of all cities in Europe with 162 across the city.

And that equates to more than 12 per 100k of the population.

Prague also sports the second highest number of casinos with 56 they inevitably tell us.

Eternal cities

Rome needs little build-up and drinking Chianti with a pezzo on the Spanish Steps or Cakestand is to be recommended (guilty).

And our guides tell us of their 124 five-star rated nightlife locations across the city.

As the city with the most top notch hotels per capita in Europe with almost two for every 100k of its population, it’s a sure spot for a fantastic stag/hen do.

As is Lisbon, the jewel of Portugal. Sporting the third most five star hotels per capita at just over one and a half, it maintains a good rank for nightlife.

And we’d of course recommend the Vinho Verde and the sardines whichever fado bar you go into… and a Port to finish.

For those in these island where I live, of course, your question is bound to be which of Britain or Ireland comes out on top in the Bonusetu survey?

London or Dublin

And this time, it’s Laaandon, although we do know that’s because of the Irish influence.

London’s 163 five star hotels puts it second in the per capita rankings with this making for 1.75 per 100k people.

It also features the third highest number of casinos with 53, and an abundance of Michelin Guide restaurants put it at ninth in this category with 0.57 per 100k population.

The Bachelor Boy himself, my own Son and Heir, would only partake in someone else’s stag.

Our own old playground of Dublin has long been on the map for stag and hen revellers, particularly around Temple Bar.

The Fair City ranks third in terms of casinos per capita of these European cities with almost two for every 100k residents, and again in the top ten for five star hotels per capita.

So there you are the ABC… of stag and hen parties in Europe.

You bet!

Countries

Hamilton hols in London

17th February 202317th February 2023 funtime65

Why Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t cast this ‘son of a Scotsman, who grew up to be a hero and a scholar’, is one of musical history’s great mysteries but keep an eye out just in case, on your Hamilton hols in London.

Now there are many reasons to visit The Big Smoke.

And right up there is a night out in the town in Theatreland.

And as rich as the theatre experience is in Ireland fans of the stage relish too getting across the water.

To watch theatre in the West End.

Thankfully we have our dream makers, the travel agents of the Irish Travel Agents Association to put packages together for us.

West End boys and West End girls

And so as an Easter treat they are flagging up Wallace Travel Group’s three nights in London from April 7-10 at the 3* central St Giles Hotel.

Where you’ll be in easy access to the Oxford Street shops.

And the British Museum, Covent Gardens and those West End theatres.

With the best the award-winning Hamilton on April 8 as the highlight of your trip at the Victoria Palace Theatre, bettered only by Hamilton on Broadway in New York.

And direct flights, 10kg luggage, airline taxes, three-nights hotel, room only basis and those gold dust tickets.

Now if that means you leaving a free house for your party-loving teens.

To bring their daft pals around then that’s just a price you’ll have to pay.

The Earth moves

But just for your peace of mind, best maybe to turn off your phones through the production.

Otherwise you might find your enjoyment curtailed when you get a phone call from the neighbours.

Just when the cast of Carole King’s Beautiful are jigging away to I Feel the Earth Move.

And the earth and much else was moving in Greystones, Co. Wicklow.

Or was that just us.

Go on yersel, enjoy your Hamilton hols in London.

Countries, UK

The best mister at Westminster

11th October 202211th October 2022 funtime65

So never mind that they got the date wrong and Charles will be crowned King Charles III on May 6, he won’t be the best mister at Westminster.

There goes my knighthood or MBE, CBE or OBE although I’ll live with that as I don’t want to be part of any empire anyway.

Westminster which pedants will remind you, but not me, is actually separate from London.

And it is familiar territory for kings and queens ever since Norman Willie.

Or William the Conqueror as he has come to be known, was the first English king to be crowned there.

Since then there have been 39.

And while the late Queen is buried next to her husband Philip in Windsor Castle 30 of her predecessors including Elizabeth I have Westminster as their final resting place.

Written in the tombs

So in terms of social oneupman or womanship and social mobility then get buried at Westminster.

And lie for eternity with all those royals would probably rank as the ultimate for monarchists.

Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, David Livingstone and Stephen Hawking are among the 3,000 dead people in the Abbey.

Now for all its royalty, the Abbey does reserve a special place for us scribblers.

And its Poets Corner is much revered and visited.

And boasts 100 of Britain’s greatest writers…

They’ve probably got a special place reserved for yours truly (sorry to disappoint).

Geoffrey Chaucer, him of Canterbury Tales fame was first to be laid to rest here.

And Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, CS Lewis, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin.

Among others have all muscled their way in there too.

What the Dickens!

Whip around for Dickens’ funeral: Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens too though they’ll tell you down in his adopted Rochester in Kent that he wanted to rest for eternity there.

But that the media pushed for Westminster, and won.

It’s not all doom and gloom though with the Abbey witnessing 16 royal weddings.

Including the Queen and Prince Philip and Prince William and Princess Kate.

Although the least said about Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson the better.

Among all the pomp and grandeur and there are some serious attention-seeking tombs in the Abbey one stands out for me.

And he too didn’t really want the fuss either.

Wilberforce of nature

William Wilberforce who did more than any man to bring about the abolition of slavery from Britain and its colonial lands is buried in the Abbey.

But he had chosen a vault in Stoke Newington for his burial.

Before parliament interfered and ensured his body was laid to rest there in 1833.

Of course the once-republican Liz Truss and her appalling Dickensian cast of ministers will be doing their best to be seen at King Charles III’s coronation.

And of course he will be the man, though not my man…

That’s Wilberforce, the best mister at Westminster and one who deserves to be put on a pedestal.

Sport

Marathon mania

2nd October 20221st November 2022 funtime65

Men and women in spacesuits and the front and back of horses, it’s Marathon mania on London Marathon Day.

So we’re going right back to the start to 490BC and Philippedes who famously ran 26 miles 385 yards to warn Athens the Persians were coming.

Because, of course they didn’t have social media back then.

Nor sat-nav, cars or even signposts which of course we all have now.

Marathon, signposts for which you can see in the Greek capital, obviously makes a big thing of Philippedes.

And his modern-day successor Spiridon Louis, the first Marathon gold-medallist of the 1896 Modern Olympics.

All at the Marathon Run Museum.

Phil steam ahead

Of course the most authentic experience of all is to run Philippedes’s route.

Which you can do in the Classic Athens Marathon Race which runs in 12-13 November.

Maybe best not reminding you here of Philippedes’ fate after he’d crossed the finishing line of the first Marathon.

Phil, by which we’d know him now, had just enough puff left in him to write out the word ‘Nenikikamen’ or ‘we won’.

Before he collapsed and died of a heart attack.

Better maybe try a less severe Marathon.

Run the world

Maybe warm up with a London, Boston (the world’s oldest annual Marathon dating vack to 1897), Berlin (the fastest course).

Or if you really want to get left field then make a bucket list holiday out of it in say, Tahiti.

Where you can join the 1,000 runners in the Moorea Marathon, The Islands of Tahiti.

And pound the pineapple plantations and along the pristine white beaches.

So maybe you want to avoid today’s London Marathon mania well just choose your location.

Because everybody wants to run the world.

Culture, UK

London’s Crowning Glory

19th September 2022 funtime65

If like the millions of others watching the Queen’s Funeral you would like to get up more close and personal to the British throne then of course you can at London‘s Crowning Glory.

The Crown Jewels which you see on the Queen’s coffin won’t, of course, be going with her to her final resting place.

As they’ll be needed to put on Charles’s head at the coronation.

While in between they’ll be encased back in the Tower of London.

Royal watchers will see the significance that the new British king has kept his birth name of Charles (he didn’t have to).

Because the crown jewels which we all gawk at were first put on the head of Charles II (his dad Charles I had his chopped off).

The new Crown Jewels

The Crown Jewels were destroyed at the Tower after the Civil War.

But they were remade for Chuck’s Coronation in 1661, which more respectfully was known as the Restoration.

Royalist or Republicans alike can marvel at the aesthetic of the Crown Jewels.

And the greater collection of 23,578 gemstones.

As we have on our travels in Britain’s capital.

Many of which are still used in royal ceremonies today such as the State Opening of Parliament.

And for those who want a greater insight into the new King then his coronet from his investiture as Prince of Wales from 1969 has also been on display since 2020.

It’s gold and platinum and set with diamonds and emeralds with a purple velvet and ermine cap of estate.

Yes, it’s true that Charlie has been preparing for this job all of life and he really will be down with the kids as the King of Bling.

Now if you let your imagination run away with you.

And wonder what they would look like on you, better keep it in your head rather than try and put in on it.

Because security though you might not see it is off the scale.

An Irish heist

Not that that stopped Colonel Thomas Blood (I guess the clue is in the title) try to make away with the crown in 1671.

Yeoman Warder Darren Hardy will tell you the whole dastardly story of London’s Crowning Glory on YouTube.

Of how the turncoat and his companions managed to outwit the Jewel House Keeper in the Martin Tower and snatch the jewels.

Blood, nicknamed ‘The Father of Treasons’ was Irish (naturally) and as they might say in modern parlance was ‘known to the authorities’.

A parliamentarian during the Civil War he had his lands taken after the Restoration and did not take that well.

He and his accomplices tried to seize Dublin Castle only for their plot to fail and his pals get executed…

Blood got away, well they do say Blood will out!

Obviously a man of derring-do he took it to the crown again.

When he hatched his plot to make away with the Crown Jewels.

Bloody Hell

On May 9, 1671, Blood, disguised as a priest duped the Jewel Housekeeper to hand over his pistols.

His three accomplices then emerged and forced their way into the Jewel House.

Only to be caught by the keeper’s son who raised the alarm.

One of the gang shoved the Royal Orb down his breeches.

While Blood flattened the Crown with a mallet and tried to run away.

The gang was arrested and Blood was brought before the king.

Who lucky for him was in a good mood that day…

Perhaps Nell Gwynn had lavished him with oranges or more.

And far from punishing Blood, Merry Monarch Charles restored his estates in Ireland.

And made him a member of his court with an annual pension.

Now we wouldn’t advise testing this Charles as the outcome might be very different this time.

A bit of Blarney

Blood, who had obviously used some Irish Blarney to win Charles around became a bit of a celebrity of his day.

And when he died his body had to be exhumed because the public didn’t believe he was dead.

This and much more, of course, you can find out.

From exploring 1000 years of English and British history at the Tower.

It is without doubt London’s Crowning Glory.