Where Were You When

I was eating a burger with chips and watching Golden Girls on Disney+ when the news came of the queen’s death. Dammit, was my first thought, just when I, for the one and only time in my life, am booked to go to London next weekend, as if I was not anxious enough about that. What the capital city will look like, I cannot imagine. And I have a wild imagination.

Gods are having fun. Grim reaper collecting the monarch literal three days into the new Prime Minister’s premiership. Can’t have two Lizzies at the same time, he said, no sirs. Wonder who has it worse—Liz Truss having to deal with the death of the longest reigning monarch in history in her first week of work, or Boris Johnson missing the chance of making himself the centre of attention during the national mourning?

Imagine coming to UK in 2003 and seeing it go from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown to David Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson to Liz Truss. Rise and fall of a once great nation? Charles Darwin resurrects himself from the dead to scream: “evolution does not work in reverse!”

What is an anti-monarchist supposed to say? Welp, RIP, or whatever. Give me Queen the band instead, anytime. Dum-dum-dum, another one bites the dust.

I avoid BBC already and luckily it happens to be my time off work. I might just be able to escape the whole circus.

They say all will change. Money will have to be different, of course. But also stamps. And the national anthem changes from God Save The Queen to God Save The King. I don’t know the lyrics to that anyway, I’m not British. There’s less snail mail now and cash payments are being replaced by card payments.

Elizabeth II ascended to the throne in 1952. The same year Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap was first performed on stage. Now, here was a real queen! The play is still running and they’re doing a tour for the 70^th anniversary. I went to see it for the 60^th anniversary tour in 2012, and I will be seeing it again later this year.

What was I talking about?

I feel like that meme of tired Ben Affleck smoking. And I don’t smoke.

All hail King Charles, I guess. I wish all the anti-monarchist a very…

Get through this with sanity.

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