Nivriti Butalia is assistant comment editor at The National
September 15, 2022
Since last week, countless flowers for Queen Elizabeth have been placed across the UK, including at Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Sandringham, as well as Balmoral, where she died on September 8. Aerial photographs of the queen's royal residences show row after row of colours dotting peripheries of her estates and castles. Public spaces and parks too have been similarly festooned. The sight of so many bouquets is a manifestation of the sense of loss that Britons, and so many other people in the UK, have felt.
Naturally, the demand for florists is through the roof. One London branch of the high street retailer Marks and Spencer ran out of flowers. The poor manager is bending over backwards to find more.
One wholesale florist I spoke with in the Netherlands, who supplies to the UK and has been in the business for 22 years, says the last time he saw a comparable demand for flowers was in 2012, during the London Summer Olympics. Ahmad Al Mughrabi usually sends €10-15,000 ($15,000) worth of flowers per week to his four customers across the UK, who then supply to a string of florists and supermarket shops. In the week after the Queen's death, his business shot up to €65,000 ($65,000). Going by the size of his pre-orders for the funeral on September 19, Mr Al Mughrabi is anticipating revenue to "double that" by Monday. "For people who are buying flowers, price does not matter at this time," he says.
King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla inspect floral tributes left for his late mother Queen Elizabeth II outside Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland. Getty
A picture of Queen Elizabeth is among flowers left by mourners outside Buckingham Palace in London. AFP
Members of the public leave flowers and tributes at The Long Walk gates in front of Windsor Castle in Windsor, England. Getty
Members of the public look at flowers and tributes left in Green Park in London. AFP
Flowers and tributes placed by mourners at the Cambridge gate outside Windsor Castle, west of London. AFP
A child lays flowers in remembrance of Queen Elizabeth outside the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. AP
As is often the case, naysayers – whether non-monarchists, leftists, or plain cynics – have expressed dismay at the waste of resources. Some say that instead of the few pounds spent on a bouquet, homeless people could have been fed, or that the money could have been donated to charity.
Laying flowers does not mean people are against conserving resources or that they cannot also make a difference in 'more meaningful ways'
While perfectly well-meaning, such sentiments are pragmatic to a fault; people do not have to choose. Academics would call it a false dichotomy. Flowers can be placed and good deeds can be done. If the added lever of UK's ever-rising cost of living must be brought in, the price of a few lilies, steeper than usual though it may be, can be evened out by mourners forgoing some other little indulgence of the month. People coming together in grief, using the prop of a flower, does not mean that they are against conserving resources or that they cannot also make a difference in "more meaningful ways".
For florists across the UK, it is an unexpected bump in business but they are accustomed to the rise and fall in demand for flowers, in keeping with holidays and the seasons. And this week has been anything but a lull. Across the country, more police officers have been deployed, according to the BBC, and Transport for London is estimating an extra one million people on the network to central London to pay their respects, a scale they say is greater than, again, the Olympics in 2012.
And then things will quiet down, Mr Al Mughrabi told me. Business prospects in the flower trade for the year 2023 don't look good, he says, considering the litany of political and environmental crises and related commodity prices in the world. The full impact of Brexit on the flower business (tulips tend to grow in Amsterdam) is another story.
Mr Al Mughrabi can't know just yet exactly how much his supplies of orchids, roses and seasonal blooms such as dahlias and hydrangeas to the UK will fall next year. For the moment though, it is a busy time. While it is also an economically difficult time in the UK – with inflation in August only slightly better than July's a 40-year high, or rather, increasing at a lesser rate – perhaps there is solace to be taken in that at least some businesses, such as the flower trade, are doing well, even if temporarily.
At such a consequential page turn in a chapter of history, buying or picking flowers from the garden or from the shop down the road to leave at designated spots, is a gesture that at its best can unite people. This could be seen in London on Sunday, at Green Park, when people who were gathered around the tributes for the Queen came together in an act of spontaneous community service. They set about to remove the plastic wrapping from bouquets, numbering by then in the hundreds, and disposed the cellophane paper, leaving the site that much nicer. Children pitched in, forming an efficient little chain to dispose plastic responsibly and prevent littering. It was glimpse of humanity among strangers, co-operating out of respect and a common need to improve a site of tribute.
Britons in their lifetimes are likely to know just the one queen, and possibly live through the death of just the one queen. Seen in that light, a child being guided by a watchful parent to place a few long stemmed gerberas at a spot has symbolic meaning. For the young and older, this forms a memory and the basis of a story likely to be retold over the years. Saying farewell with flowers is undeniable commercial fodder for the horticulture industry that is charging higher prices for a single yellow bud. But even so, the gesture of buying that flower, and navigating unrivalled queues to lay it down should not be seen as a waste.
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
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Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
Europe’s rearming plan
Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.
A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.
Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”
Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”
Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”
By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.
You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.
You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.
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if you go
The flights Flydubai offers three daily direct flights to Sarajevo and, from June, a daily flight from Thessaloniki from Dubai. A return flight costs from Dhs1,905 including taxes. The trip
The Travel Scientists are the organisers of the Balkan Ride and several other rallies around the world. The 2018 running of this particular adventure will take place from August 3-11, once again starting in Sarajevo and ending a week later in Thessaloniki. If you’re driving your own vehicle, then entry start from €880 (Dhs 3,900) per person including all accommodation along the route. Contact the Travel Scientists if you wish to hire one of their vehicles.
7 — Michael Schumacher (1994, ’95, 2000, ’01 ’02, ’03, ’04)
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5 — Juan Manuel Fangio (1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57)
4 — Alain Prost (1985, ’86, ’89, ’93)
4 — Sebastian Vettel (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13)
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE) Where: Allianz Arena, Munich Live: BeIN Sports HD Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
A German university was a good fit for the family budget
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Overall costs in Germany are lower than the family estimated
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Students are permitted to withdraw £720 per month
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Common OCD symptoms and how they manifest
Checking: the obsession or thoughts focus on some harm coming from things not being as they should, which usually centre around the theme of safety. For example, the obsession is “the building will burn down”, therefore the compulsion is checking that the oven is switched off.
Contamination: the obsession is focused on the presence of germs, dirt or harmful bacteria and how this will impact the person and/or their loved ones. For example, the obsession is “the floor is dirty; me and my family will get sick and die”, the compulsion is repetitive cleaning.
Orderliness: the obsession is a fear of sitting with uncomfortable feelings, or to prevent harm coming to oneself or others. Objectively there appears to be no logical link between the obsession and compulsion. For example,” I won’t feel right if the jars aren’t lined up” or “harm will come to my family if I don’t line up all the jars”, so the compulsion is therefore lining up the jars.
Intrusive thoughts: the intrusive thought is usually highly distressing and repetitive. Common examples may include thoughts of perpetrating violence towards others, harming others, or questions over one’s character or deeds, usually in conflict with the person’s true values. An example would be: “I think I might hurt my family”, which in turn leads to the compulsion of avoiding social gatherings.
Hoarding: the intrusive thought is the overvaluing of objects or possessions, while the compulsion is stashing or hoarding these items and refusing to let them go. For example, “this newspaper may come in useful one day”, therefore, the compulsion is hoarding newspapers instead of discarding them the next day.
Source: Dr Robert Chandler, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia
