Next Monday evening great fires will be lit all around London — or more likely small health and safety compliant candles — to mark one stage of the Diamond Jubilee.
Although much of the media fuss will be on the BIG ONE at Buckingham Palace, there seems to my mind to have been almost no publicity for the local beacons.
Within the M25 there will in fact be a grand total of goes off to count 79 beacons being lit – plus the Buck Palace one.
Rather frustratingly there isn’t a comprehensive list of them, nor any really accurate data about them – but there is a map on the Jubilee Beacon website that is sort of usable.
I say sort of usable – to make it more usable, the first thing you should do is click on the top menu option “basemap” then select “streets”. Much easier to use it then, although I have no idea why it needs to tell you they used the British National Grid Coordinate Reference System on every single pop-up window.
The beacons will be lit at various times depending on who is lighting them between 10pm to 10:30pm.
Then Her Maj lights the last one at Buckingham Palace to signal invasion by the Spanish – or something. The one at Buck Palace will also be triggered by use of a large “Crystal Diamond” which is currently in the Tower of London and was handed over amid some pomp and ceremony a few weeks ago.
