All hands to the pomp

Did you know that Adolf Hitler was a serious contender for the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize? It’s true. Gertrude Stein nominated him, and although the Nobel committee ultimately found a recipient even more deserving than the Fuhrer, the very possibility makes me highly dubious about the value of awards. My own CBE, for example, was obtained not from the Queen but by paying a modest subscription to the Council of Biology Editors, and I’m just a tad sceptical about the announcement that Jamie Oliver has acquired an MBE, for his altruistic charitable work on the restaurant Fifteen.

Her Madge was doubtless impressed by the chef’s noble declaration (in the Radio Times) that "I started the project before Channel 4 decided to film it", but that’s an odd statement, because C4 didn’t film it, Fresh One Productions did. And who are Fresh One Productions, to whom C4 paid a massive fee for the series, and who have subsequently made a fortune out of spin-off deals? They’re a company founded in 2001 as a partnership between Fremantle Media and a Mr Jamie Oliver (MBE). What a pukka phukka.

I’d happily award a CBE to any TV continuity announcer brave enough to declare: "And now on BBC1, Trooping The Colour, with strong language and scenes of a sexual nature from the start, which some viewers may find offensive." But that didn’t happen on Saturday, and I suppose it never will, because although the announcers, commentators, soldiers and royal personages change from year to year, everything they say and do remains pretty much the same.

This Gormen-ghastly ritual is ironically named, of course, because one seldom sees a single person of colour amongst the uniformly white troops who mark the Queen’s official birthday each June. And although everyone involved in the event can tell you exactly what happens and when at every moment of the ceremony, they long ago stopped asking themselves the far more important question of why.

In centuries gone by, protecting the regimental flag on the battlefield was more than a question of honour, it was often a matter of life and death. But function long ago ossified into mere pageantry, and the meaninglessness of the modern ceremony was highlighted by shots of dopey onlookers lounging on the perimeters of Horse Guards, and sipping their lukewarm asti spewmanti as they waited for the royal ballet to begin.

Watching the Grenadier Guards performing Mexican waves with their bear-skinned heads, and strutting around like military Tiller Girls, I was struck by the campness of the proceedings, with hundreds of exotically-dressed men (named after a brand of fags) all performing for an old Queen. Her Majesty, incidentally, arrived in a phaeton, and no longer rides her horse Sidesaddle, as in days of yore. I wonder what happened to poor old Sidesaddle? Gone, long ago, to the royal glue factory, I fear.

To be fair to commentator Huw Edwards, he did try to avoid the purple pompenstance of wilfully archaic Dimblebore-speak ("Her Majesty’s Colobium Sindonis resplendent with the lambent magnificence as two pursuivants take seisin of her dominion"), traditionally associated with BBC royal coverage.

But, to be fairer, he still spoke to us in a language tantalisingly close to English as the ritual unfolded, and although I can understand all the individual words in such sentences as "escort for the colour has become escort to the colour", I have absolutely no idea what they collectively mean. Soldiers marched, stood to attention, saluted, marched some more, and then went home, all under the watchful eye of one of the nation’s leading media moguls, Prince Edward. Perhaps he’s thinking of acquiring the exclusive TV rights for future broadcasts although, as I recall, the only colour he ever trooped personally was yellow, when he got out of the army in record time.

Trooping the colour isn’t really a dance (because the choreography leaves no room for self-expression), nor is it a sport, because the result is never in doubt. No, nowadays it’s just the enfeebled symbol of power of an institution whose strength is steadily dwindling, as the royal family slowly vanishes from the public consciousness like a Cheshire cat, and the tabloid pages that once chronicled its every movement are now occupied by the antics of Posh and Becks, or the latest reality TV star.

That’s inevitable, because the ceremony is a relic of the world as it was before Suez, although as this nation has recently rediscovered a taste for invading Middle Eastern countries on patently bogus pretexts, perhaps such displays of military might do still have a place.

As we celebrated the Queen’s birthday on a day that wasn’t her birthday, and a royal equerry released a flock of qualms, I spotted Tony B-Liar and his wife (sporting a lampshade on her bonce), while God Save the Queen was playing for the fifth time. And I was reminded that, in this country, democracy still works from the top down.