My Top Fifty Jubilee memories

1. It didn't rain.

2. The atmosphere that hit you coming out of Green Park Tube on Saturday afternoon - the air hazy with warmth and excitement. It felt like a foreign country: one where people know how to have a good time.

3. The big man on security for Prom at the Palace who gave me a stern look and said: "Any keys, metal objects, small nuclear devices?" This being very British somehow.

4. The picnic inside the palace. Feeding the 12,000 by Waitrose, featuring the miracle of the loaves (sun-dried tomato) and fishes (smoked-salmon roulade).

5. Comparing the food today with what it would have been 50 years ago and thinking this, perhaps, was the biggest change in national life - the death of luncheon meat.

6. The man in the queue for the toilets who said the Queen was a person without vanity.

7. The queue for the toilets.

8. Thinking how naff it was when everyone used their mobiles to call home and say: "Guess where I am? Buckingham Palace!î

9. Dress code: the young in chinos, ladies from Cheltenham in frocks that looked like an explosion in a garden centre. (Oddly reassuring that there will always be Englishwomen who have no sense of style whatsoever.) The longer the journey to London, the bigger the effort made with the outfit. Half a century ago, everyone would have been wearing a hat.

10. The reporter for a Chinese news agency who said he was filing for 10,000 newspapers. Blimey.

11. All the seats in the auditorium being full 30 minutes before the concert began, except the Press seats. Press roll up with five minutes to go, many of the precious seats (which normal people would have died for) left empty. Thinking, not for the first time, that journalists are not like other people - no wonder public feeling constantly takes us by surprise. Hacks behave more like royalty than the Queen.

12. Calling my Mum on the mobile and saying, "Guess where I am?î Now seeing this is not naff, but celebratory.

13. On the giant screens flanking the stage, crackly black-and-white footage of the Queen as a girl dancing on the deck of a ship - a blur of youth and happiness. The sad-sweet swiftness of time passing. Now the world is in colour. It was simpler in black and white.

14. Waiting for the Queen to arrive. Same mood as the Centre Court crowd at Wimbledon - people ready to laugh at anything, but especially themselves. This being very British somehow.

15. Royal Family arrives in their box. The Queen wearing a lime suit and a large smile. Look up at her and try to pinpoint what exactly we are applauding. A surprisingly big cheer for Charles. Camilla Parker Bowles sits in the row behind him - softly, softly, edging into the picture.

16. Michael Parkinson hosting with droll aplomb. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in black strafed with sequins, like a map of the universe.

17. The London Adventist Chorale - with one token white face - stealing the show with gospel fervour. Their conductor, Ken Burton, clearly the coolest man in the postal district and probably the planet.

18. Is it an accident that, after the choir finishes There's a Better Day Coming, the camera cuts straight to the face of Camilla?

19. Still no rain. What the hell's going on?

20. Calling the answerphone at home during Land of Hope and Glory so the children can hear the amazing sound in the morning.

21. The gentleness and contentment of the departing crowd - people turning to warn you of steps up ahead. Are we on holiday from our real selves or are our real selves released by the holiday?

22. Me saying: "It was lovely, wasn't it?" to an elderly couple and her saying: "I wish it could start all over again." They were last here on VE Day. For a few hours, invisible old people are allowed back onto the national stage.

23. A novel sensation: being able to feel proud of your country and it having nothing to do with football.

24. Monday morning in Hyde Park with the kids, moving between the World Music stands. My little son being terrified by the 41-gun salute. (How lucky my generation is never to have known other kinds of guns.) There is a powerful sense of people being eager, relieved even, to get together.

25. Two women down from up North admitting in whispers that they are going to tonight's pop concert. "We don't want to get mugged for our tickets."

26. My daughter, aged six, learning Indian dancing. On the way home: "What part of England is India in, Mum?" I grew up in a black-and-white country; I'm glad hers is in colour.

27. Everywhere, the shops open. Fifty years ago, the national religion was C of E, now it's Ikea.

28. White and blue balloons snared in the tree outside our house.

29. Women at a pub party wearing white to show off holiday tans, evidence of the great democratic shift of the past 50 years. We are all travellers now.

30. Watching Party at the Palace on TV. Brian May's hair should instantly be declared a national monument.

31. Zara Phillips wearing shades in the Royal Box. Very pretty dark girl next to her, behind Prince Harry. Girlfriend Alert!

32. Ben Elton whingeing about traffic cones and public services - irrelevant, ungrateful and sounding like Alf Garnett. This was supposed to be a rest from politics. Tony Blair glaring at him from the Royal Box.

33. The Queen wisely hiding inside the palace till the last minute, lest Ozzy Osbourne bites the head off one of the corgis.

34. An occasion so benevolent it even makes you have warm feelings for Baby Spice.

35. Realising that Will Young can always stand in for Prince William in a crisis.

36. Brian Wilson - catatonic, but a complete cat. A Beach Boy in suit and tie - now that's respect.

37. Exhumation of gnarled oldsters - Joe Cocker, Ray Davies - triggers a shocking revelation: rock musicians are natural conservatives. Ray explains that he has only appeared to secure a ticket for his 90-year-old auntie.Yeah, right.

38. Paul McCartney serenading the Queen - one well-loved institution salutes another. How clever of the Palace to join forces with the rock aristocracy and bypass the lower version: politicians.

39. Seeing the expression on the Queen's face when her son thanked her - happy, a little mystified - and realising that the man in the queue for the toilets was right: she is a person entirely without vanity.

40. The Prince thanking the BBC for its efforts. So that's the licence fee safe for another five years.

41. The heart-stopping view down The Mall during the son et lumiËre - a million heads turning and the palace blushing purple.

42. The fact that when the Queen stepped forward to light the fuse, it had the hit-and-miss air of a village fete. This being very British somehow.

43. Those f*** - off - republicans fireworks! Fire falling like sifted gold off the roof of the palace.

44. Comparing it with the fiasco of the Dome. Things organised by the Palace work; things organised by the Government don't.

45. My daughter's obsession with Her Majesty and her Gold Coach. The very young and the very old are natural monarchists. They understand the value both of routine and fantasy.

46. David Dimbleby listening with solemn interest to a woman explaining that the troupe wiggling down The Mall is performing a dance apparently called Shiver Bum-Bum. And this too being very British.

47. Watching the Parade and concluding that any country which can produce the Chelsea Pensioners on motorised trikes to the tune of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang can still hold its head high in the world.

48. Being reminded of the Queen Mother's brilliant timing of her exit. "My mother is a star, my daughter-in-law is a star, where does that leave me?" the Queen once said. Now she has her answer.

49. Thinking, why can't we have a two-day bank holiday every summer? A friend calling from The Mall to say the atmosphere is fantastic, but everyone is covered in dust. She laughs, "What we really need is rain."

50. It didn't rain.