Liz Two aka Her Majesty the Queen visited Oxford this morning, so I popped along to check it out and get a few snaps.
She had a bit of a tour of the town by all accounts, opening a memorial garden to her late sister at one end, visiting the Oxford University press at the other, then opening the new castle complex in the centre of town, before heading off to lunch at Christchurch.
I decided to catch her at the castle. And alot of others did too. I arrived to check it out at 10.30 or so. Couldn’t get past at the two back entrances to the old castle – which used to be Oxford prison, but is now a hotel and a variety of restaurants – because they were ticket and guest-list.
They let me in the main entrance to the cordoned off bit for the public. But then we found out she wouldn’t be arriving until 11.45, so we wandered off into town to do some shopping (a hacksaw, some batteries, Almodavar DVDs and a vase as it turned out) and came back.
At which point there was no way of getting into the castle complex because crowds had built up all over the place and on both sides of the road. Anyway, 10 minutes later Liz Two arrived, she got some kind of ceremony, went inside the hotel. About 40 minutes later she came out and walk past the crowd talking to the odd person before hopping in her car (an immaculate Bentley) and driving off.
Needless to say the usual Royal nuts were in attendance. Lots of old women (bless ’em). Onlookers. Council staff. Unemployed arses looking for an argument. And lots of her subjects who got more excited than they thought they would.
I had also had the benefit of textbook examples of good policing and bad policing right in front of me as the local bobbies tried to move the spilling crown around and about barriers. One bloke was calm, courteous, cheeky, friendly and ended up getting huge swathes of people moving around without complaining. The other bloke – a younger and clearly less experienced officer – got a bit of a power trip and got increasingly frustrated as people decided they didn’t like him and refused to listen to him.
But aside from the mindless comments, cooing and continuing rage that foul mothers with enormous super-prams and a massive complex induge these days, it was a nice little experience. I wouldn’t have the Queen’s job though. Must be a very strange world she lives in. Still, Gawd bless yer ma’am, and all that.
