15 JUNE 2002, Page 32

Painful pageants

From Mr Timothy O'Sullivan Sir: The pop concert at Buckingham Palace was certainly grotesque, as Stephen Glover says (Media studies, 8 June), but then so was its 'classical' counterpart, not to mention the people's pageant in the Mall on Tuesday afternoon. An element of the excruciating, together with the threat of bad weather, seems essential to the success of such occasions.

The Tuesday pageant recalled the cinema of my youth, when large parts of the Pathe News seemed to show the Queen sitting under palm or pine watching interminable enactments of local practices. At least our superbly impervious monarch can now undergo such experiences close to home.

Timothy O'Sullivan

Winchelsea, East Sussex