6 May

In a world where our collective memory rarely lasts longer than a day, replacing all custom and tradition with what’s ‘trending’ on social media, I think we should pay close attention to the coronation. I’m no monarchist, or republican either, those are dumb sides in the team sports that have replaced understanding. I’m passionate about the continuity of societies. The thing any objective watching of the coronation shows is that none of it, not one bit, was ‘personal’. The King and Queen were bit players in traditions, symbolism and rites going back centuries. I know barely one person who knows one thing about any of those things. The people in these roles have no lives, they’re entirely servants, to the traditions. As Queen Elizabeth 2 often said. Social continuity could be done some other way too, some way that respects custom and traditions. But we don’t have another way, right now. Give me a constitutional system based on thousands of years of accumulated wisdom over a politics driven by social media trends, any day. The music alone at this event was those centuries singing directly to us, unmatchable by any alternative you could dream up.