So today I finally cracked. Three days of this Jubilee malarkey is all well and good, but the whole thing started to get on my nerves after a while. By this afternoon I was starting to wonder if the French had had the right idea. Still, if the alternative was President Thatcher then I suppose I can take a Queen for a bit longer, especially with one who has spent much of the weekend looking like she’d rather be sat in front of a roaring fire with a nice cup of tea. And the extra day off has been nice too.

Not that our old chum Morrissey would see things the same way. I’ve been reminded this weekend of the old Smiths classic “The Queen Is Dead”, which inadvertantly ended up being played in the kitchen the other day. The kids seemed to like it. If you don’t know it, listen below:

If you do know it, then, well, it’s nice to be reminded of such a cracking song, eh? All the usual Smiths tropes are there, the maundlin mention of rain, the shared intimacy of talking of precious things, the sly humour (“I’m the eighteenth pale descendant\Of some old queen or other”), the left-wing politics, all finished with the none-more-Smiths “Life is very long when you’re lonely”. And by jove, did I wonder that today when I saw Prince Charles gazing from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Tied to his mother’s apron, indeed.

MP3: The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths

Buy “The Queen Is Dead” Here