Happy Saint George's Day

God Save The Queen.

There should be a public holiday throughout the United Kingdom today, and on Saint David's Day, Saint Andrew's Day and Saint Patrick's Day. Three fall in these Islands' incomparable Spring and early Summer, while the fourth would preclude any Christmas anything until it was out of the way. Away with pointless celebrations of the mere fact that the banks are on holiday. If we had proper holidays, as in other countries, then everyone, even shop workers and distribution drivers, would have those days off, as in other countries.

I have just watched a Scouts' Saint George's Day Parade, led by the Union and Saint George's Flags, march away from a Medieval village green to the edge of the village and into a little Victorian Catholic church. Where, of course, the National Anthem and Jerusalem were sung. Dignum et justum est. 

Even if the Tomb of Saint George at his birthplace, which is now known as Lod and which is the location of Israel's principal airport, has become a shadow of its former self as a major focus of unity between Christians and Muslims in devotion to the Patron Saint of Palestine and Egypt before, and as much as, the Patron Saint of England. Three quarters of those who practised that devotion were violently expelled in 1948.