Garden Gnomes

Say what you like about the pandemic, but it cannot be denied that a brief surgical glimmer has been thrown across one or two of the more obtrusive national idiocies; while others have had to be shelved altogether, or at least reduced to a scale more in keeping with our increasingly tiny and buffoonish role in the world. Hence the noisy Ruritanian rah-rah that is the trooping of the colour, which marks the day when all subjects of the Queen - master race, sepoys and and piccaninnies alike - are invited to join in reverent worship of fair play, family values and good clean fun, has been replaced with a sad little parade on one of Her Madge Gawblesser's lawns. The participants were soldiers of the Welsh Guards, who were recently staffing virus testing centres but have evidently been assigned to more heroic duties.