As the jigsaw-loving Queen settles into the eternal creation of her own 206-piece puzzle in the crypt beneath Windsor Chapel, a bereft and aimless public has already started to fill the void left by the greatest mass participation event since the Poet Laureate invited suggestions to rhyme with ‘Jeremy Hunt’.
Around 2 million people have already formed into an orderly crocodile to pay their respects at the official commemorative site of the end of the queue for the Queen’s lying in state, situated handily and reverentially just outside the Southward Park Pavilion Café public toilets. Currently stretching 350 miles, the new Glorious and Unending Queue is expected to continue for many joyously pointless and economy-sapping years.
‘The Queue is dead, long live The Queue,’ intoned Fiona Gribbons, a full time mum from Hexham until being blissfully taken up by ‘shuffle-along rapture’ last week. ‘I’ve locked my kids in with a pile of McDonalds vouchers from the Metro and, more importantly, my open social media feed. They- and potentially some suspiciously DNA-repeat-to-fade grandchildren by then- are going to be so proud of Mummy when I get home around 2037.’