Queen Elizabeth goes racing to launch anniversary extravaganza - Baltimore Sun
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth marks 60 years on the throne on Saturday with a visit to the races, indulging a lifelong passion for horses and launching four days of nationwide celebrations to honor a monarch riding high in public affection.
The 86-year-old will watch the Epsom Derby in southern England, joining a crowd of up to 150,000 racegoers dressed in their summer best for one of the racing season's highlights.
Millions more are expected to attend street parties across the country as the nation marks the queen's personal milestone under the banner of the "Diamond Jubilee".
"The queen has given incredible service," British Prime Minister David Cameron said.
"She's never put a foot wrong, she's hugely popular and respected here and around the world and it's an opportunity for people to give thanks and to say thank you for the incredible service that she's given."
Across Britain, red, white and blue "Union Jack" flags billow from street lamps, outside buildings, shop fronts and houses, and sales of patriotic souvenirs have rocketed ahead of the celebrations.
To royalists, the occasion is a chance to express their appreciation of a woman who learned she was queen at the age of 25 while on holiday in Kenya with her husband Prince Philip.
For others, the chance of some extra days off work and to enjoy the sort of extravaganza and public ceremony for which Britain is renowned has made it a welcome break from austere times, pay freezes and deep public spending cuts.
Republicans hope the occasion marks the last hurrah of a dying anachronism, while some 2 million people are leaving Britain altogether to go on holiday.
Having acceded to the throne in February 1952 on the death of her father George VI when Winston Churchill was prime minister, Elizabeth is now the longest-lived British monarch.
Only her great-great-grandmother Victoria spent longer on the British throne and is the only other monarch to have celebrated a Diamond Jubilee.
As well as being head of the Commonwealth of nations mainly made up former British colonies, Elizabeth is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
"I think we've been enormously fortunate in this country to have as our head of state a person who has a real personality - a personality that comes through more and more, I think, in her public utterances," said the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church.
THAMES FLOTILLA
On Sunday, a flotilla of 1,000 boats assembled from around the globe will travel 25 miles along the River Thames to accompany the queen and her 90-year-old husband on a royal barge, in the largest such pageant for 350 years.
Thousands of street parties are also planned across Britain, including one on Downing Street outside Cameron's office, as part of a "Big Jubilee Lunch".
The queen's London residence Buckingham Palace will play host to a pop concert on Monday featuring the likes of Paul McCartney and Elton John, before a network of beacons will also be lit across Britain and around the Commonwealth.
The celebrations culminate on Tuesday with a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, a carriage procession through central London and flypast by present and former royal air force aircraft.
Large crowds are expected, with estimates that about a million people will travel to London on Sunday alone. Not all will be cheering for the queen, however, with banner-waving republicans protesting at Tower Bridge during the flotilla.
Officials say there are some 9,500 street parties planned in England Wales and ABTA, the British travel association, said almost 2.5 million Britons were expected to take part.
London's Heathrow airport said some 780,000 people were due to arrive in the next few days, although ABTA also said an estimated 2 million Britons were planning to head overseas to take advantage of the two extra public holidays.
Police said the weekend would include the largest royal security operation ever conducted. Some 13,000 officials including about 6,000 police officers will be on duty for the Thames pageant, which poses challenges never before encountered.
(Editing by David Cowell)
London gets ready to party for the queen - Detroit Free Press
LONDON (USA TODAY) — This is a city ready to party, with all the pomp, patriotism and eccentricity it can muster. And boy, can it muster.
Queen Elizabeth II's four-day Diamond Jubilee celebration gets underway Saturday, and London could hardly be more prepared. Or cleaner.
Spiffed up and shiny, festooned with Union-Jack bunting everywhere, including around park trees, with the queen's smiling visage plastered on every teacup and flat surface in sight, this city knows it will not see a moment like this come again soon.
It's been 115 years since the United Kingdom celebrated the only other monarch, Queen Victoria, to reach 60 years in reign; it won't happen again in the lifetime of anyone alive today.
So a million or more Brits are likely to crowd the streets and the riverbanks of London this weekend to shout, "Well done, Ma'am!" to the 86-year-old great-granny who's spent six decades on their throne, currency and stamps, and in their hearts.
"I have a lot of respect for the queen. I appreciate her dignity, the way she holds things together," says Ruth Pritchard, 62, visiting from Wales where she lives on the same island where Prince William and his wife, Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, live. "(The queen) is a very spiritual person, too, and she's a good role model."
She was wandering in St. James's Park opposite Buckingham Palace on Friday, observing the crowds and watching a marching band of military bagpipers, red-coated soldiers in bearskin hats and mounted troops march down The Mall. Her daughter, Eirian Pritchard, 30, says even young people are paying more attention to the royals, thanks to Will and Kate. "I like a love story," she says. "And Kate seems quite nice."
American tourists Maria and Mike Granatosky of Orlando watched the passing parade of sightseers and the construction workers building the stage for Monday's star-studded concert. They were heading out of London on their long-planned vacation and to "avoid the crowds," but they were still impressed with the buzz around the jubilee. "She's not our queen, but it's important to people here," Maria says. "But it's nice to see all this (preparation) beforehand."
Apart from the genuine desire to celebrate Her Majesty, the Diamond Jubilee is official London's chance to practice for the next big thing to hit town, the 2012 Summer Olympics, opening in July. Crowd and traffic control, not to mention security issues, will be even more challenging during the games, which last longer and are likely to draw more international visitors than the more homegrown jubilee celebration.
Homegrown does not mean humdrum not from the British, justly famous for their ceremonial flourishes. People here are not only proud of the queen, they're proud of their national talent for expressing their pride.
The next few days will see public events that encompass history and modernity, the future of the monarchy and the celebration of all things British. There will be horse racing and river sailing, a star-packed concert, a church service and gilded coach procession, bell-ringing, beacon-lighting and an air force flight over the Buckingham Palace balcony.
Right beside the queen throughout will be her family, with all eyes especially on her grandson and second-in-line to the throne, Prince William, and Catherine, the new royal stars. The jubilee celebrates the queen and all she's done for the country for the past six decades, but she and everyone else here know that Will and Kate are the future.
The Thames River Pageant on Sunday afternoon is the signature theatrical event of the weekend, a bow to history and to the river that has played so central a role in the life of the nation and the monarchy. A million people are likely to line the riverbanks, and millions more will watch at home, as the queen sails down the Thames accompanied by a flotilla of 1,000 ships of all shapes and sizes.
She and close family, including Will and Kate, will be on The Spirit of Chartwell, a luxury river cruiser redecorated in antique style and equipped with tiny robotic cameras operated by the BBC. It's the first time so many senior royals will travel together in one boat. Other members of her family will be on other boats in the flotilla.
Just ahead of them will be Gloriana (as in the first Queen Elizabeth), a 94-foot barge hand-carved and decorated to resemble the sort of barges royals used to travel the river hundreds of years ago. Manned by 18 rowers, including Olympians, it's the first such barge built in more than a century.
"The River Thames used to be the place where royal pageantry took place, and it's not happened for hundreds of years," says pageant master Adrian Evans, a river advocate who came up with the idea and spent two years organizing it. Now the pageant has "really caught the popular mood. It's a one-off event, very unlikely to be done again, and people will say, 'I just have to be there.' "
As is usually the case with the British, there are wacky aspects to the jubilee, with a variety of eccentric ways to honor the queen: Marmite, the yeast-based spread the British unaccountably love, has temporarily renamed itself Ma'amite.
There's bunting draped across Sloane Square and flags at the subway entrances, which would be normal for any national celebration. A giant crown-shaped floral sculpture in St James's Park? Not so much. It tops 12 feet, weighs 5 tons and took five weeks to make in Cornwall using 13,500 individual plants, according to media reports here.
There's a newly updated wax figure of the queen at Madame Tussauds, which is standard fare for any celebrity these days. The tiny Lego figure of the queen with a diamond-encrusted crown set in a miniature model of Buckingham Palace is more unusual. It's at the Legoland theme park a few miles from Windsor Castle. Even more unusual is the sand sculpture of the seated queen by artist Nicola Wood at the seventh annual sand sculpture festival in Weston-Super-Mare, a town about 140 miles west of London.
Even Heathrow Airport got into the jubilee spirit, painting a giant Union Jack with a silhouette of the queen on one of the runways so passengers can see it as they fly in.
Once famously derided (by Napoleon, no less) as a nation of shopkeepers, Britain's retailers are once again in the full roar of souvenir selling mode, just as they were for last year's royal wedding. According to a survey by consumer savings site Moneysupermarket.com, jubilee shoppers could spent nearly twice as much as last year up to $1.3 billion during the jubilee weekend.
Some of that will be souvenirs lots of souvenirs. From the jubilee tea towels sold on the streets to the shop windows cluttered with queen-emblazoned ceramic plates and canvas totes, to the elegant china and other baubles sold by the Royal Collection (royalcollectionshop.co.uk, which helps fund the upkeep of the royal palaces and art collections), queen kitsch is flying out doors and across the Internet.
Diamond Jubilee key chains and teaspoons, cookies and chocolates, hats and jewelery, bells and whistles are for sale for a few pounds (or dollars from the likes of Amazon.com). For pricier fare, the Diamond Jubilee Limited Edition Loving Cup from the Royal Collection is sold out (at about $280), but the Tea Caddy is still available at the same price, and the sky-blue Velvet Cushion is only about $150.
Hotels are selling Diamond Jubilee packages, restaurants and hotels are offering special Diamond Jubilee luxury tea service, pubs are selling Diamond Jubilee beer. Skyscrapers, such as the building Altitude 360 on the river, are selling spectacular sky-high viewing spaces, complete with picnic hampers of Champagne and crumpets, to watch the river pageant Sunday (only $800 per person). A giant portrait of the queen, made of 3,120 little cakes, will be on display (and later consumed) at a festival at the riverside Battersea Park, where thousands are likely to watch when the pageant sails by.
And for true luxury shopping, there's the all important Diamond Jubilee shoes. British designer ArunaSeth, whose shoes have clad the tootsies of Kate Middleton's younger sister, paparazzi queen Pippa Middleton, has created a line of limited edition Swarovski crystal-covered wedges in royal blue with Union-Jack trim. They're at Harrods. Only $4,800.
"I wanted to design something that celebrates being really proud to be British," she says. "And what better way than a flag? But they're really comfortable, with Italian nappa leather padding. The queen could wear them."
The queen, a woman famous for her sensible shoes? Maybe not.
Copyright 2012 USA TODAY
London 2012: Heathrow Airport has built a new terminal for athletes arriving for the Olympic Games - Daily Telegraph
Nick Cole, head of Olympic and Paralympic planning at Heathrow, said: "I am delighted to take over the Games Terminal, which will help us meet the challenge of record numbers of passengers and bags that we are expecting on the days after the closing ceremony."
The new Olympics Terminal has been officially handed over to Heathrow Airport's operators, BAA.
The temporary structure, put up in a staff car park, will cater for athletes and officials involved with London 2012 and be used for the three days after the closing ceremony on 12 August before being decommissioned.
Bishop of London warns of divorce 'epidemic' - BBC News
Promiscuity, separation and divorce have reached epidemic proportions in Britain, the Bishop of London has said.
The Rt Rev Richard Chartres said people should use the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to restore strained relationships.
He said although people were better off in many ways than in 1952, material progress had come at the expense of equality and communal life.
The National Secular Society said having a choice to leave unsuccessful marriages was something to be welcomed.
Dr Chartres, a senior Church of England bishop, also called for action to tackle "depressingly high" youth unemployment.
Writing in a Bible Society pamphlet, he said relationships had become more strained, fragile and broken than people cared to recognise.
'Empty church'"Literally millions of children grow up without knowing a stable, loving, secure family life - and that is not to count the hundreds of thousands more who don't even make it out of the womb each year," he said.
"Promiscuity, separation and divorce have reached epidemic proportions in our society."
"Perhaps, then, we shouldn't be surprised that depression and the prescription of anti-depressants has reached a similarly epidemic level."
Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, which aims to challenge religious privilege, said that while Britain had problems, there was no "epidemic" of immorality.
“Start Quote
End Quote Terry Sanderson National Secular SocietyThe bishop is trying to convince us that we are immoral because we have progressed in ways that he doesn't like”
"That people now have the choice to escape from painful and unsuccessful marriages is something to welcome," he said.
"It has not always been so, and women in particular have borne the brunt of sometimes brutal marriages from which they could not escape - mainly because the Church would not let them.
"Like so many other clergymen, the bishop is trying to convince us that we are immoral because we have progressed in ways that he doesn't like. And that is probably why his church is so empty."
Caroline Davey, from charity Gingerbread, which provides support for single parents, said "poverty and conflict" were the most powerful drivers of poor outcomes for children.
"Modern British family life is made up of a range of different family types, all of whom need and deserve support - not criticism - as they bring up their children in these difficult economic times," she added.
Queen praisedDr Chartres presented the biblical understanding of a Jubilee as an opportunity to take a long view, and think about the kind of environment being bequeathed to following generations.
He said it should include a move to living within our means.
Dr Chartres also described youth unemployment in Britain as "appalling" and said we should look to role models and mentors for a solution, as well as government.
The government said it was one of the biggest challenges the country faced, but was determined to tackle it head on.
Recent figures showed the number of 16 to 24-year-olds seeking work was 707,000, down 24,000 on the previous quarter.
Dr Chartres also praised the "quiet dignity" of the Monarch, who he described as the most famous public figure on earth and the most respected.
"The way in which she and her family have reached out to include newly established British communities has provided a focus for continuing but expanding national self-respect," he added.
Usain Bolt wants to 'wow' London - ITV
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt says he is ready to "wow" the London 2012 Olympics and put on a "great show" for the city.
The triple Olympic gold medallist looked in confident mood as he modelled his nation's new Olympic kit on the catwalk during a photocall at Village Underground in London on Friday. Bolt also danced alongside the new kit's designer, Cedella Marley.
Having returned to form to win the 100m in 9.76 seconds in Rome on Thursday and record his quickest time since smashing the world record in Berlin in 2009, the 25-year-old has set his sights on achieving more glory in London this summer.
"I'm really looking forward to competing here. I haven't competed in London in a while so I'm really looking forward to the Games.
"I know all the Jamaicans living here (in the UK) are really looking forward to it also.
"I'm just competing to put on a great show as always and I've explained that at the end of the day I just want to wow people after these Olympics (in London) so I'm looking forward to it."
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