The coronation of Charles III. What I explained to the children about ceremony.

The crown is real gold. It weighs about 1kg. Charles wore it for approximately twenty minutes during the coronation service, then it was taken away and he wore a lighter crown for the rest of the day. My son found this information satisfying in a way that the ceremony itself hadn't been.

My daughter's question — why does it take so long? — is harder. I said: because the ceremony has been done this way for over a thousand years, and changing any part of it would send a signal that the whole thing could be changed.

She thought about this. 'So the slowness is the point?' Yes, actually. The slowness says: this is not ordinary time. This is time set apart.

Ritual works this way. Not only coronations — any ritual. The birthday song sung slowly. The particular meal at Christmas. The walk you always take on New Year's Day. The slowness marks the boundary. It says: what is happening inside this time is different from what happens outside it.

So the slowness is the point. Yes. And once she understood that, she stopped being bored and started being interested — because she had a framework for what the ceremony was doing, rather than just experiencing it as an inexplicably extended event.