Pomp & Circumstance

Here's a shot. It's a couple of years old, it's scanned and not that brilliant quality but the story makes it worth posting. It is of the Lord Mayor of london's carriage in the annual parade in November.

The story goes that this new carriage was built in the 18th Century - you can see how ornate it is - and the horses harnessed up. It weighed so much that the sleek horses that had been selected to pull it were straining to do so. The Lord Mayor that year owned the Whitbread Brewery, based in the City of London. "No problem" he said "we'll use our shire horses to pull it." As they were used to lugging loads of beer around on their wagons, it was not a problem. Ever since, the coach has been kept at Whitbread's headquarters, and pulled around by the brewery's shire horses each year.

Now, I don't know where - or if - fact and fiction separate in this story. And do you know? I don't care.

The Lord Mayor's parade is a wonderful pageant each year using that wonderful combination of pomp and amateurism that we British do so well. Here is quite a nice page of pictures. (Better than this one which I took by sticking a camera in the air and pressing the shutter!)