THE SUNDAY SNAP

The Temple of Concorde, from a Jubilee long past

It’s been quite a week. Besides everything else that’s been going on I find myself unable to remember a time when the TV and newspapers in the U.K. were not filled with pictures of beaming royals wearing brocade and watching military parades. Still, a Platinum Jubilee won’t be along again in my lifetime, so I’m not bellyaching.

On the plane earlier today I went looking through the picture archives for images of jubilees gone by. This one caught my eye, as much for the caption as for the image itself.

And here’s the caption:

Colour print showing the fortress in Green Park which was transformed from the Temple of Discorde into the Temple of Concorde, in honour of the Grand Jubilee celebrations on 1 August 1814. The Prince Regent (and future King George IV) declared a Grand Jubilee in celebration of the recent victory over Napoleon and a centenary of Hanoverian rule. Sir William Congreve (1772-1828) devised a mechanism to enable the metamorphosis, which was revealed momentarily amid a cloud of fireworks. Whilst the fireworks display continued, English aeronaut Windham Sadler ascended in his balloon and dropped favors and programmes to the crowd below. Published by Thomas Polser on 24 August 1814.

I’m not sure anything I’ve seen from the House of Windsor this weekend - fine though it has been - can top that. But then, they haven’t beaten Napoleon.

Next week my schedule says ‘Seville, with a day trip down to the Alhambra and maybe over to Cordoba too’. It’s going to be HOT. But historical. I’ll post from what was once the front line of the medieval Reconquista - and get the next edition of First Draft uploaded too.

Have a great week!

Dan