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.
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
Pocket it: Blood and his pals
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
Casing the joint: In London
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
To the Tower: With a Beefeater
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.
If my school had had a more liberal attitude to wall art, folks would be talking now about Banksy, Murtsy and a history of graffiti.
After all I was only following in a Classical tradition that dates back to the Romans and Pompeii.
For yesterday’s lewd diagrams to denote their red light district think today’s cock and balls.
Whether the graffiti great of the Classics world had the same celebrity though as Banksy has been lost to history.
An exhibition of yourself
Banksy’s capital: The Flower Thrower
But the shadowy scribbler’s notoriety is richly deserved and are celebrated at a special exhibition in Covent Garden, London.
The Art of Banksy is the world’s largest touring collection of Banksy artworks, boasting over 100 original works.
And it has already been shown in Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Auckland, Toronto, Miami, Gothenburg, Chicago, San Francisco and Sydney.
Whether they have the rat and briefcase piece he drew when I took la famiglia to New York for the first time I’ll have to go along to Covent Garden to discover.
The exhibition highlights works made for charities all over the world.
From the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation to international activists Greenpeace.
Showing pieces from private collections, The Art of Banksy showcases his most iconic pieces.
Alongside rare works never seen by the public before.
American Graffiti
With bells on: Liberty Bell, Philly
Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, lays claim to being the modern-day home of graffiti.
Although, as in most things, New York contests this and insists the City that Never Sleeps is an upgrade.
If you’re a city break fan and seek out the places where the ragged people go then you’ll always glory in graffiti.
Graffiti always explodes where repression reigns and the Berlin Wall was probably the most graffitied surface in history.
Czech this out
Imagine: Prague
We saw it too elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe and particularly in Prague.
Where the John Lennon Wall came to represent the uprising against the Soviet invasion of the Czech capital in 1968.
Put the boot in
The bad guy: Putin
Of course these challenging times have inspired an outpouring of creativity to reflect our support for Ukraine.
And our revulsion at the invasion and our belief that the writing is on the wall for Putin.
The good guy: Zelenskyy
So you have my permission to make your mark on history.
And maybe I’ll get my spray paint out and get my name out there.
It’s got a ring to it, doncha think for the next exhibition…
Banksy, Murtsy and a history of graffiti.
How to get there
Icons: The exhibition
The exhibition at 50 Earlham Street is on Thursday and Friday: 10.00 – 21.00, Saturday: 9.30 – 19.00, Sunday & Monday: 10.00 – 18.00.
And if you don’t know London, the nearest stations are Covent Garden (3 minute walk), Leicester Square (5 minute walk), Tottenham Court Road (8 minute walk) Holborn (8 minute walk) and Charing Cross (10 minute walk).
Tickets are priced from £14.50 and can be booked online at artofbanksy.co.uk or over the phone, on 08440 412001.
It’s not always the official song, so as we all zone in on Tokyo, here’s Rainy Days and Songdays Olympic anthems.
You go, Subo
In the pink: SuBo
Wings to Fly (Tokyo): Were you surprised too to see Scottish nightingale Susan Boyle trilling out Wings to Fly to accompany the release of those doves in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo?
Not bad for a wee lass from Bathgate, Scotland, where the birds disturb the peace by dropping their stuff on you.
And the warbler was the obvious choice for the signature tune for the 1996 Olympics in Georgia. Alas, this had all the saccharine of the city’s most famous soft drink.
What Katy Did Next
And she’ll be in Vegas soon
Rise (Rio): Katy Perry too was stellar, and still is, at the last Olympics in 2016 but she didn’t rise to the occasion with this overproduced piece of schtick.
Too earnest, we’d have far preferred Fireworks. And there are plenty of them in Rio by the sea-o.
Dream Small
Small wonder: Heather
Proud (London): Big hair, big smile voice, Heather Small was Big in the late 80s with dance band M People.
And big again when Heather re-released her solo song Proud as the anthem of the London Olympics in 2012.
We see Heather more now on reality TV, Strictly, the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage but would rather hear That voice.
It’s one of those annoying Government buzzwords so let’s claim it back with a Rainy Days and Songdays Green Lighting megamix around the world. Our favourite songs with ‘green’ in the title and the countries where they transport us.
As a recruiting call for Ireland our pals at Tourism Ireland would have been proud as in true singer style Johnny namechecks everywhere on the Emerald Island.
Quite who the girl from Tipperary town with the lips like eiderdown is Johnny would never say, perhaps because June would have killed him.
The old rogue Burns was pure rock’n’roll and could pen a lyric and a tune which is probably why he is held in such high regard by the greatest singer-songwriters of the latter half of the 20th century.
With Bob Dylan, no less, crediting the Scot as his greatest inspiration.
The Milanese Verdi had the support of Gaetano Donizetti from nearby Bergamo whom he visited in Vienna which, of course, was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And that included Bohemia, or the current-day Czech Republic where the thing to do when you’re in Prague is take in a production at the opera house.
Every nation sacrificed its most promising generation in No Man’s Land but for those from the furthest outposts of Empire… well, it just seems to be all the more pointless to modern sensibilities.
Eric Bogle, a Scots-born Australian, explores the pyschological cost to one survivor ‘young Willie McBride’. And it was all the more poignant after I’d seen the statue of the Scots soldier in northern France.
The story goes that the Stax house band were waiting around for the Sun artist and rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley to turn up and developed the song.
And why Green Onions? Well Booker T. Jones self-deprecatingly said it was because green onions were the nastiest thing he could think of and something you could throw away. We never would.
Either way it’s flag-waving, Americana. And even if you don’t know the song you’ll recognise the tune.
Particularly if you’re a fan of Celtic FC who famously play in green and white hoops and who have adapted the song and lyrics into a favourite fans’ song With a Four-leaf Clover on My Breast.
The evergreen Cliff belts this one out from the Seventies.
The Peter Pan of Pop who was born in India, grew up in England, and has had homes in Portugal and Barbados, though he is selling up in Bim (and yes I’m interested).
