The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is assisting in the global celebration of HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
To commemorate Her Majesty’s 70 years on the reign, the FCDO’s Whitehall HQ at King Charles Street will be symbolically lit up tonight with the Platinum Jubilee emblem beamed onto the ancient edifice.
The illumination of the London landmark, which will take place at 9 p.m. tonight (2 June) to coincide with the ceremonial Lighting of the Jubilee Beacons, is just one of the ways FCDO personnel throughout the world are celebrating the Jubilee holiday weekend.
On Saturday, the Red Arrows will perform a magnificent flying display over Le Touquet-Paris-Plage on the northern edge of the English Channel, while the Ambassador’s house at the British Embassy in Paris is hosting a collection of three-meter-high paintings of Her Majesty The Queen. A 1953 Cecil Beaton Coronation painting and a 2014 David Bailey portrait are among the items on display.
Today, President Macron will conduct a thanksgiving and acknowledgment event for the Queen at the Arc De Triomphe, which will be accompanied by a band from the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
The British Embassy in Switzerland has collaborated with world-renowned light artist Gerry Hofsetter to project a Platinum Jubilee light display onto four Bernese Alps mountains, including the spectacular 3,967-meter-high Eiger.
The world’s largest light art composition, consisting of a gigantic image of the Jubilee Crown insignia and a silhouette of HM The Queen, has been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Two companies of the Chilean Fire Service are commemorating the country’s historic ties with the United Kingdom by branding fire engines in Valparaso and Santiago with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee insignia, which is also displayed at the Valparaso fire station.
Foreign Office Minister Vicky Ford unveiled the 14th Company’s specially branded fire engine during a visit to Santiago earlier this year, and FCDO staff are celebrating today by hosting the first-ever British Embassy Street Party in Santiago, which will feature horses from Palmas de Peaflor, one of Chile’s leading stables.
Pitcairn Island, the smallest British overseas territory in the Pacific with only 35 residents, is hosting a Jubilee supper and will be the penultimate FCDO Post to light a beacon due to its 9-hour time difference from the UK.
In collaboration with the Leopardstown Racecourse, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, and Kmend, the British Embassy in Ireland announced today that the King George V Cup will be revived this year as a highlight event at the Leopardstown Racecourse.
The 1 mile 4 furlong listed race for 3-year-olds was first reinstated under the Royal title in 2013, following King George V’s presentation of a specially commissioned trophy at Leopardstown during his visit to Ireland in 1911. It will be run again this year at 7:20pm this evening for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
HM The Queen met with Polish icons Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II during her 70-year reign in Poland, according to the British Embassy, which has established a photo exhibition along the side of Warsaw’s largest park. In honor of the Monarch, a number of Polish cities will turn their most iconic buildings purple and white, including Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science, Gdansk’s Shakespeare Theatre, and Lubin’s Plac Litewski.
The British Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be displaying a carpet that combines the Scottish thistle, Welsh daffodil, Irish shamrock, and English rose with the Caucasus country’s national emblem, the pomegranate, as part of its Jubilee festivities.
In Washington, New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis, FCDO staff are presenting a series of events to commemorate the Jubilee.
Last week, K-pop singers Blackpink joined British Embassy workers in South Korea for a Queen’s Birthday Party to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee.
The British Embassy in Thailand has arranged for a congratulatory digital message to be shown from the top of Bangkok’s Baiyoke Tower, one of the city’s highest structures.
HM Ambassadors and High Commissioners representing the United Kingdom around the world have submitted 70 of their favorite recipes to a special ‘Platinum Jubilee Cookbook’ honoring British cuisine and drink.
FCDO ambassador Ameer Kotecha, who also came up with the idea of a competition to produce a new ‘Platinum Pudding’ to be dedicated to HM The Queen, created the book, which features a joint foreword from Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.
HM The Queen and other Royals have been served several of the delicacies on official overseas visits. The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Fund will receive all royalties from the book’s sales.
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said:
Her Majesty The Queen is the very embodiment of the best of Britain and no Monarch has ever served our country for as long, or so well.
In an ever changing and uncertain world, the Queen has been a rock who has offered wise counsel to over 170 Heads of State and dedicated her life to promoting unity and social freedom.
Her remarkable service to the UK and the Commonwealth is rightly being recognised across the globe, during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, as she continues to touch the lives of millions of people beyond our shores.