THERE THEY GO, BARGING IN WITH THE SENSITIVITY OF A HIPPO

Are you worried about the future?


Well don't be. Because by June next year all this austerity stuff will be in the past.


How do I know that?

Simple. We we will be able to afford a royal barge... Well, I hope we will, because we are getting one.


No, I lie, we aren't actually getting one, so much as borrowing a luxury Thames steamer from its owner, a guy called Philip Morrell, (look out for his name in the honours list sometime soon) and doing it up a bit. 

We are taking the boat and making it into one of the splendid barges that transported royals in the 17th century when, presumably, they had plenty of money. And we are going to have a pageant. Well, we are not going to have a pageant. London is going to have a pageant. We are just going to help to pay for it.


Resplendent in Red and Gold, the barge will carry the Queen and the Duke down the river, with a flotilla of 1000 small ships and boats. There is even a Pageant Master, Adrian Evans (look out for his name in the honours list sometime soon). 


The barge will be adorned with flowers from the royal gardens. Floral displays in red, gold and purple will be created by Rachel de Thame (look out for her name in the honours list sometime soon).

Mr Evans said that the royal barge must be a jewel. Well, yes, I can see that. We wouldn't expect any less, rich old lot that we are.


The Queen and the Duke, along with other members of their extended family who will be joining them, will be seated on ornate chairs under a canopy of gold on the top deck of the boat. The sides will be covered in rich red drapes and the Queen's cypher will be engraved on the bow, beneath a crown.


And all this for only a couple of hours' pageant... after which the barge will be handed back to the generous Sir Philip, I mean Mr Morrell (What am I saying? You didn't read it here if anyone asks), and it will be worth at least 100 times what it is worth now.


So, by my reckoning, if we will be able to afford all that by next June, we should be able to afford to leave cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy off our hit list of lazy work shy layabouts. Huh, Mr Duncan Smith?

In truth I don't grudge the Queen a celebration. She has done that stinking job for 65 long years; she's never really had a private life; she's been lumbered with a family from hell and a series of prime ministers (with whom she has been forced to spend time) that you would cross a continent or six to avoid.


And she has gone down in history as the longest reigning monarch since...well you tell me...so I reckon we should give the old dear a big thank you. As Munguin said, other people get a gold watch.


But this ostentatious celebration is surely not right at a time when so many of us are suffering so badly. 


Unless Fred Goodwin and some of his grubby associates would like to volunteer to pay for the junket?

WRONG RIGHTED...AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Well... it came and it went and it cost a fortune.... and of course the Duke of Edinburgh put his big clumping foot in it...

“Hello Ms Goldie. Are you wearing tartan knickers?” said old Phil, betraying a lack of something in his upbringing.

Displaying, in her turn, good humour and quick wit, Annabel replied: “I cannot possibly comment and even if I had, I could not possibly exhibit them.”

Smart old bird is our Annabel. She knows when not to display her undergarments. And I for one am not buying certain reports that she winked saucily at the Duke as she said it...

It's a thought though, that if any other man had said that to any other woman, he would have had his collar felt, spent a night in the pokey out at Saughton, and got himself 5 years on the sex offenders’ register.

However the Duke had to make do with yet another headline proving that, even after all these years, when he is let off the bosses leash for a few seconds, he’s just a dirty old sailor at heart... and Ms Goldie is surely only grateful that he managed not to say it in front of the Pope.

Meanwhile another octogenarian linked "atheist extremism" throughout Europe to Nazism, which was rich coming from an ex Hitler Youth in the form of Pope Benedictus XVI. Remembering that, despite all the Masses he is conducting, this is a State visit, meaning that he is here as the King Pontiff of a small Mediterranean State and thus the visit should be about politics and not religion, that was not the most diplomatic of starts.

To be fair, the good Cardinal Kaspar managed to start it off badly before the poor old Pope had left Vatican City by likening England to a third world country. So, to parody the song, things could only get better.....

Well, this time they did. The Pope was fed haggis, neeps and tatties for lunch, Susan Boyle gave him a blast of her powerful pipes, and the sun shone for him....

Which was just as well as the poor man had to do all this with just his wee white skull cap.

Was it a case of “and then his hat blew off”?

No, I don’t think so. It seems that whist the Pope's motocade was heading down from the Palace, this wee wuman was spotted running hell for leather (if you'll pardon the phrase!) away from the procession clutching a red hat which matched perfectly her red shoes, gloves and bag, and shouting, “Efter a’ thay years.... it's back...it’s mine... IT’S MINE..... as she disappeared down Mary King’s Close.....

No one we know, I suppose!?

Pics: Philip of Edinburgh; Annabel looking cross; His Holiness avec ... and sans said hat.

..........