Gratitude Monday: king at last

Well, the multi-million pound coronation is at last in our rearview mirror. Charles—who’s actually been king since last September, although he’s chafed for the job for at least 30 years—has had what is essentially every bridezilla’s dream day. Nothing like parking your butt over the Stone of Destiny wrapped in dead stoat skins and dripping in bling being broadcast to an audience of billions to one-up the Kardashians. There were no leaky pens and, therefore, no visible tantrums. Master level success! Quiche and fizz all around.

Britons will be spending today’s holiday cleaning up all the detritus—I rather imagine the streets of central London are like Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena the afternoon of 1 January in terms of trash pickup. Though maybe no ladders and sofas to be hauled away. The rest of the country—well, maybe just England and parts of Ulster; I’m not really picturing Scotland or Wales being much fussed with the thing—has to pull down the bunting and put out the little Union Jacks for rubbish collection. Maybe dump the remains of the coronation quiche down the garbage disposal, cuz that recipe was whack.

Anti-monarchy protesters—who were arrested by the Metropolitan Police before they even really hit the streets, because Tories don’t hold with no dissent in any form; not the done thing, don’t you know—may be making bail and returning to the multiple jobs they probably need to hold down just to keep up with raging inflation. Along with tens of thousands of their fellow subjects, including staff of the National Health Service, public transport workers, teachers and others who’ve been told that they need to accept the fact that they’re just going to be poorer for the foreseeable future. Hey-ho.

The rest of the world just carries on. For example, in Texas, they marked the occasion in the traditional Texas way with another mass shooting, nine dead (including the gunman) at a suburban Dallas outlet mall. We all have our customs.

Well, Bas Bleu, you ask—why write about the coronation on Gratitude Monday when you don’t seem to care that much for it?

Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you: because I reckon we’ve got one more week of analyzing this event every which way possible and then it will well and truly disappear from the news cycle. That is something to be grateful for.

Texas, though—damn.