Coffee Space 
As I mentioned previously, the Queen of England has passed, and today is the day of her funeral. As I write, she is likely being buried privately by her family - our thoughts are with them at this time.
We watched it on the TV, specifically the BBC, as it just felt right. My family and I (All but younger family members) watched and spoke as it went on, enjoying the Star Wars-eque music (likely inspired the other way around). The funeral went off without a hitch (thankfully), but I thought I would raise a few of the comments made here.
Honestly, this was one of our largest concerns. Whilst thankfully there was no terrorism, there were a few shitty things that happened.
Adio Adeshine, a 19 year old man from London apparently sexually assaulted two women standing in the queue to see the Queen’s coffin, trying to flee from the police by jumping into the River Thames (of all places). Apparently, this wasn’t even the first time he did such a thing, already having a sexual harm prevention order on him.
Another man, 28 year old Muhammad Khan, another London special, pushed over a young girl to try and rush the Queen’s coffin. He was quickly stopped, likely with intentions to act disrespectfully to the Queen lying in state.
It was a miracle there wasn’t worse, it was a perfect opportunity for terrorism. Pretty much every world leader was present, random members of the public were in close proximity of the main action, and a projected more than 4.1 billion people watched the funeral live. That’s essentially 2/3 of the entire planet - which would likely be minus China (~1 billion people) and others simply not interested or not able. This was one of the largest events in history. The world stopped to pay their respects to a single person.
The horses were were a strong traditional item, but they left a lot of mess on the roads. This caused the procession to have to avoid it, and could potentially have caused other issues.
They also bring an element of risk to the event as they are sentient creatures that are hard to control. You cannot explain to them that they must behave in a certain way, and training only does so much. I believe that now the Queen has passed, they should be reconsidered.
Getting in front of this complaint, probably from US-based media, yes - the crowd and procession was mostly white in skin colour. White is the colour of the native people of England, and the English Monarch is a white tradition.
There are traditions for other cultures, for example, nobody complains that the Chinese New Year celebration has too many Chinese/Asian faces. And yet I don’t doubt we will see it complained that there were too many white faces at the Queen’s funeral.
It is not racist for the white natives of the UK to have and cherish their own culture. The Queen herself played a large part in decolonisation and helped abolish slavery around the world. You couldn’t be more wrong. Stop looking at British culture through an American lens.
On a side note, Meghan Markle is hardly considered black in the UK. The fact that she is supposedly black is not viewed negatively by the British public. What is viewed negatively is her complete disrespect for our traditions and the disrespect to which she showed to the Royal Family, specifically the Queen.
Unfortunately traditions like this are dying. As the ONS consensus report will show (whenever they finally release the 2021 report), white British birth rates are barely at replacement rates, and the 10 million or so growth in the last 10 years has entirely come from first or second generation immigration.
These are people from other Countries with other traditions and cultures, and to be frank, do not much care for ours. This on top of the declining Monarchy’s popularity, means that one of the last English traditions is starting to die. I worry that I am witnessing the end of my culture.
Beyond the tradition, the King/Queen’s position is a permanent guiding hand on the state, that is elevated beyond politics, but still restricted by it. The people could always revolt and become a republic as many other nation has done, but we choose not to, in the understanding that they continue to act in a way that benefits our nation.
Given this broad but clear mandate, the Royals act as a long-standing unchanging guide through history. The Queen for example helped guide Winston Churchill, right up until a few days before her death with Liz Truss. There was an assurance by her presence, no disaster or issue was anything new, simply different.
I found it interesting how China’s CCP refused to air the news of her death on internal state media (much to the protest of their netizens), whilst complaining their officials were banned from the funeral. Queen Elizabeth II was almost as old as the Communist party itself, growing up as a girl she would have seen it in its infancy. She saw one of the most famous leaders, Mao Zedong take office, and subsequently kill his own people with his own pride. The current dictator for life Xi Jinping could have learned a lot from her wisdom, but is doomed to make the same mistakes.
Russia were also banned and complained this was political, which I do agree it was. Whilst they do have respect for tradition and the Monarch, unfortunately they do not respect territory or sovereignty. It was not so long ago that Putin tried to assassinate an ex-spy on British soil with a nerve agent. It would be like the US staging an operation to kidnap Julian Assange to bypass extradition process. (China regularly use secret police in other nations to kidnap/blackmail people and return them to China.)
When we look around us and ask “who will help save our traditions?”, actually the responsibility falls on those of us that still care. We should all do what we can to keep this alive. It could be as simple as maintaining respect and listening to the King’s speech on Christmas day.
For those more financially able, it could be getting your company officially endorsed by the King or another Royal, requesting a family Coat of Arms, or many other ways. We share this responsibility in any way we are able to.