AP Photo

What a fantastic, glorious, emotional, quite overwhelming spectacle. It wasn’t just that it was flawlessly executed. It wasn’t just that, as billed in advance, it would provide a sight that people would never have seen before.  It was also a triumphant restatement and reaffirmation of a Britain that people love so deeply but which so many fear may have been lost for ever.  Well, here it was still, in all its touching magnificence.