The Japanese have a saying: “After the fireworks, the night is very dark.” When the-fireworks cascaded in the London sky, at the height of the Silver Jubilee celebrations, Britain was suffused for a moment with feelings of loyalty, unity, and genuine pleasure. Huge throngs surged across the flower-beds opposite Buckingham Palace in their enthusiasm to see the Queen and her family when they came out onto the balcony: but the gardeners found next morning that barely a dozen geraniums had been flattened. Almost everybody, it seemed, had stepped over or around the flowers.
It was a very English occasion—as England used to be.
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