Westminster Abbey

 Some years ago here I had a go at deciding on some favourite architecture. It might be a better idea, if one hasn't really got a favourite, not to invent one. I decided on some of those flamboyant wavy lines, not really Gaudi and not really Frank Gehry, that are probably 'inspired by' orchids. But, no it's surely far too showy, garish and trying too hard. It's like selecting the dress sense of Leigh Bowery over Giorgio Armani.

Westminster Abbey put in a great performance today. I don't know why I didn't stick with English cathedrals in the first place. Of course they have to try quite hard, they are art, they need to impose themselves on their surroundings and the little country churches gain plenty of credit for their less assuming demeanour but one needs to be impressed.

Once you get into the splendours of Italy one can be put off by the Catholic showiness, the gold on St. Mark's Basilica. If I had to be Christian, I'd be Lutheran. For all its gloriousness, it does it in a measured way. St. Paul's is 'baroque' whereas the Abbey is 'gothic' with, I would have thought, some 'perpendicular' but whereas baroque is a good thing in music, not all these terms translate across genres.

There is a way of being stunning in art without going flat out to be so and Westminster Abbey achieves it by including the necessary sense of decorum in its magnificence. In their ways, Salisbury, Gloucester and

the litany of great English cathedrals all have their claims but I'm nowhere near ready to make any Top 6 out of them and would want to extend beyond religious buildings but whatever our reservations about religion might be, it can be credited with bringing about some of the most brilliant architecture and music.

It's hardly for me to find anything to add to the millions of words of tributes to Queen Elizabeth II. I was an admirer, of course. I saw her three times, always in cars. Once coming out of Dock Gate 4, Southampton; once coming out of Westminster, possibly having opened Parliament, and once while playing pool in the Dorchester Arms, Portsmouth, one lunchtime when we noticed some out-riders going by, in the direction of the dockyard, and waited a minute for the limousine to follow.

We saw the future King Charles III after a concert in Fairford Church, the big selling point of 'Music in Country Churches' being that he was a patron and attended some. Afterwards, some sleek Daimler or Jag was waiting by the side door and I said, 'we might hang round here for a minute' and then there he was, acknowledging the few that had cottoned on with a wave and a brief word.

Simon Armitage had an unenviable job finding an angle from which to say anything remotely original but that's the job he was glad enough to accept. I heard somebody finding fault with it on the wireless but that turned out to be Giles Coren so nobody need worry about that. Simon's Floral Tribute is possibly a B+ in the circumstances, 6 or perhaps 7 out of 10 as a poem but an 8 or more as a Laureate poem when compared with some of Ted's, so it would have been unrealistic to expect anything better.

I spent some time wondering at the minor roles, the vastness of the legions of those with roles to play and tried to spot my old mate, Princess Alexandra, who presented the degrees at Lancaster University in 1981. But the role played by Westminster Abbey was essential and for the most part taken for granted. 

Say what you will. I'm no fervent monarchist. I'm the equivalent of those who would say they believe in God if pushed to say whether they did or not (and I'm not that, either). But you've got to be impressed. Even if it's not the sort of thing you like, and my main objection would be the tendency towards guns, swords and the military, it was immaculate. The ritual, ceremony, fine-sounding words and music might be an elaborate brocade disguising the point that we just don't know anything, do we.

And that, Lds & Gnlmn, is what art does.