When I first heard the term, I thought it was “tripping the colors.” It all sounded very hippie to me, very un-royal. In fact, it’s trooping, and whatever you call it, it’s about the least hippie, most royal thing I could possibly imagine.

So here’s the deal: Centuries ago, when many of the troops were illiterate and needed to know what their regiment’s flag looked like so they’d be able to rally to it on the battlefield, soldiers would line up to have their “colours” paraded before them.

These days the colors are trooped to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (which is actually on April 21st, though due to crappy English April weather, the official celebration of her birthday is the 3rd Sunday in June). It’s an incredible display of the Queen’s Guard marching in huge formations in their red coats and massive bearskin hats, royals rolling by in Victorian era open-top horse-drawn carriages, and tight, diamond formations of fighter jets flying low overhead.

All of this runs the half-mile or so from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guard’s Parade, where King Henry VIII jousted in his younger, leaner days. Anyway, below is a quick video I shot of the proceedings. Watch for the guards’ feet. They’re put into position by the regiment leader, who you’ll see measuring out precise distances with his walking compass. The guards then do hilarious James Brown-like shuffles and sidesteps to get into place.

So here she is, the Queen, who passed not thirty feet before us. I didn’t think I’d be that impressed, but the pageantry of the thing was overwhelming. As my friend Michael said, “No country in the world does this sort of thing as well as England does.”



Amazingly, up until the 80’s, the Queen would ride down the Mall on a horse. Sidesaddle. I sure wish I’d seen that.

tags: england, travel, video | link to this entry |