This was the week when most of the world appeared to spend their time watching people in the UK queuing. It was riveting TV fare and a master class in crowd patience and organiser skills. Royal fitness was also impressively showcased. King Charles who is a mere 9 days older than I, managed that march up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh quite magnificently. The day before, his sister was a part of a six-and-a-half-hour motorcade through Royal Deeside and on to Edinburgh. A fascinating but barely noticeable feature of these blue light brigades is how they have perfected the art of creating and managing a rolling roadblock, trying to disrupt the normal traffic as little as possible. They also appear to obey the speed limits! More obvious is that almost none of the motor vehicles involved in events marking this end of the second Elizabethan Era, are of British origin. Most decidedly none are electric vehicles either! Despite having men armed with bows and arrows to guard the coffin there have been some clever uses of modern technology. In London at this moment there is a chap whose job it is always to be at the very start of the line waiting to get into Westminster Hall several miles distant. He is equipped with a cell phone that is continually broadcasting his location using the What 3 Words app – a particular favourite piece of geolocation software for me. He does also have a flag waving above his head flag proclaiming the same thing. Loadshedding backup perhaps?
The news that President Ramaphosa is calling in to meet with President Biden in Washington DC, enroute to the Queens funeral, suggests a considerable ignorance about either geography or the current international situation. Or maybe Cyril just needs the airmiles and an opportunity to move some dollar bills to a couch offshore. The meeting pleasantries will be short as Joe likes flashy American sports cars while Frogboiler is partial to graceful long-horned Ugandan cows. Reportedly Cyril intends to convince Joe and Vice-president Kamala Harris that Russian president Vladimir Putin is a fine fellow and that they need to go and meet with him. And have a chat. This advice is unlikely to go down well with Joe who has been sending shed loads of cash and stuff to Ukraine to help them in their war with Russia. Before things go even more pear shaped the aides will hopefully point out that the bar is now open and that the White House chefs have whipped up some great canapes and biltong nibbles. In any case, both need to get to London in time for the Queen’s funeral on Monday,
This gathering of the great and good has already been described by the UK security folk as a challenge. There are so many people who will want to have a word with other people while they are out and about. Just for a start our own man might want to buttonhole Xi Jinping (yet another BRICS peer) about the details of how his guys manged to drop and damage a critical piece of our only nuclear fuelled power station. Durbanites are suddenly interested in this topic now as our compassionate omission from the power cut schedules following the devastating floods, has ended. We are back to the days of smiling weakly at renditions of the old Garfunkel number “Hello darkness, my old friend”.
Tidemarks would like to offer a new economic indicator of national wealth and status. Any country with a team in the lethally costly and spectacular Sail GP competition is undoubtedly an A grade nation. Not only are the crews fearless heroes and heroines able to sell their skills to the highest bidder in iconic free market fashion but they are on board wind powered identical “foiled catamarans” capable of reaching 100kph on water. Nations like my own will never be that cool or rich.
Safety Hint: Don’t for a few weeks ask a Wallaby fan the time in French. It’s a rugby joke!
James Greener
Friday 16th September 2022.
