It needs to ensure that the city’s real character emerges, distinguishing it from the other city centres of the north, and making it more than just a capital of consumerism. And it needs to remember that the European capital of culture title does not automatically confer city superstar status After all, it didn’t do much for Graz, this year, did it?. I was standing behind the Queen on Monday morning. Not entirely by chance – I’d been invited to see her unveil the Mall extension of the Jubilee Walkway, the silver-plaque studded circuit that links London’s historical sites like a superior tour bus. It’s not often you get the chance to scrutinise the reigning monarch at such close quarters As I

I was standing behind the Queen on Monday morning. As I
found myself thinking what nice legs she had for a woman of her age, it occurred to me how intensely familiar they are – the Queen and Prince Philip, not her legs – and that I was looking at the royal couple as I would my grandparents: a funny, rather sweet pair of old people.The Queen peered, not dutifully, at the plaque, then met a little girl who wanted to be a princess for a day.

Louisa Harrington is seriously ill, and in need of a heart transplant. For all the set-up qualities of the encounter it was an oddly affecting scene. Not just because it marked the moment, 50 years ago, that she was crowned queen; but because it was hard to believe that this little woman in her primrose yellow suit had reigned over a country for half a century.The contrast between her unassuming figure and the monumental panoply of a once imperial city was acute. For her, the Mall is the equivalent of a suburban avenue; for others, it’s a processional route appropriated in that weird week of mourning for Diana, when the pink gravel was clogging with wax dripping from a thousand votive candles. For me, it is a vivid memory of President Nelson Mandela’s first visit, when the multi-coloured South African flag flew triumphantly from the flagpoles down the thoroughfare – enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of the neck. It’s also the place where, in my punk days, a friend and I staged a site-specific art piece under Admiralty Arch, burning a book in the middle of the road.I suppose that’s why Monday felt so odd.

As a veteran of demos – anti-apartheid, the miners’ strike, the war in Iraq – conducted along those same streets, I half expected the police to move me along at any moment. Yet half of Elizabeth’s reign separates us from the Sex Pistols’ anthems, and now, 26 years later, I’m forced to admit – contrary to what Johnny Rotten sang – that she really is a human being.Perhaps that is the source of whatever power she possesses: constancy in the face of change. Though, in a strange piece of symmetry, I recognised the orb on the floral crown that the little girl presented to the Queen. It was the top from a perfume bottle designed by the queen of punk fashion, Vivienne Westwood. But then, few people attending the Queen’s investiture of the Prince of Wales back in 1969 realised that his crown was actually finished off with a gold-painted ping-pong ball.Photo fitLast week, the rest of London hit the art and party season. At Tate Modern, the massive Cruel and Tender, the gallery’s first photography show, opened with the usual heaving crowds: Alan Rickman, laughing loudly; the patrician features of Nick Serota; the sponsors in their suits. But as the elegantly dressed party-goers sipped vodka and raspberry cocktails spiked with acidic little red berries, the art bit back I’ve seldom felt as emotionally drained by an exhibition.