Diamond Jubilee: picnic hampers, Highgrove burgers and music from The Ritz Their biggest worry was the weather. On Saturday morning I asked one of the event's publicists what they were planning to do if it rained. That, she replied enigmatically, was "a logistical challenge we are trying to overcome." I think that was PR-speak for "praying." The prayers didn't look like being answered. Clouds scowled, a sullen grey. You began to wonder impatiently what the weather thought it was playing at, on this day of all days. Are Britain's skies republican? Or do they frown disapprovingly, in the manner of Victorian spinster aunts, on what they consider to be unseemly revelry and extravagance? Then again, let's face it: good weather just wouldn't have felt British. And in any case, traditional pessimism had prepared us. You didn't need a weatherman to tell you the way it would go: a week of cloudless, scorching sunshine, and then, on the biggest, most exultant weekend of the year, only the second Diamond Jubilee in our history, nothing but drizzle. But no matter. Drizzle be damned. The party was going ahead whether the skies liked it or not. At 11.30am we were under way, with the first round of lunch guests arriving to take their seats. Although entry to the street party was free of charge, places at the 500-seat picnic table had to be booked in advance. With six hour-long sittings, that meant a total of 3,000 diners. Many had ordered picnics from Fortnum & Mason, the cheapest a lunch of smoked salmon sandwiches, coronation chicken salad and strawberry Eton mess for £40. A tent provided by the five-star Brown's Hotel of Mayfair sold quail's eggs, cucumber sandwiches, Eccles cakes, strawberries and cream. While diners ate their picnics, other guests thronged the stalls. Fortnum & Mason's sold teatime souvenirs: Jubilee tea caddies, Jubilee tea towels and, for "a deliciously royal experience," a Jubilee musical biscuit tin that at the twist of a key plays the national anthem. Any readers particularly taken with this must-have objet d'art will find it available to order (a snip at just £12.95!) on the shop's website. The online sales pitch is endearingly grand. "Inside this glorious tin..." it begins. Not many biscuit tins, even musical ones, find themselves honoured with the adjective "glorious." But then, this is a Fortnum & Mason biscuit tin. God save our gracious tin! Long live our noble tin! God save the tin! But back to Piccadilly. A group of three friends from Kent had come dressed in outfits fashioned entirely from Union flags. "We just want to find somewhere to have a drink," said one of them ruefully, "but everyone keeps stopping us to have their photo taken with us." So many and varied were the activities and entertainments that it felt less like a street party than a country fair, of the type described in Philip Larkin's poem Show Saturday. Unlike Larkin's fair, the Big Lunch didn't offer a chainsaw competition, wrestling or scone judging, but it did offer some similarly eccentric pleasures. There were vintage cars on show from Brookland Museum; a funfair carousel and swingboats; games of "champagne hoopla" and "pin the nose on the Teddy bear"; a shoe-making demonstration by Foster & Son, "London's oldest established shoe-makers" (founded 1840). Then, at noon, a big surprise. We had special guests: none other than the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed to see them as they passed down the street, a corridor of thrilled admirers forming around them. "Have you managed to have any lunch yet?" the Prince asked one woman. She hadn't. "We've ruined it!" he cried apologetically. Slowly they progressed through the forest of arms and camera phones. "Will you be down at the river later?" the Prince kept asking solicitously. Eventually they stopped at The Queen's Beast, a sculpture of a lion specially commissioned by the Diamond Jubilee. For the day it was sitting in the middle of the street; in future it'll be housed in The Ritz. Here the Royal couple were introduced to the actor Stephen Mangan, who led the street in a joyful (if not necessarily word-perfect) rendition of God save the Queen. In an odd sort of way, perhaps the weather helped. After all, it gave us something to joke about. I overheard one man say that because of the weather the flotilla was being redirected down Knightsbridge and had last been seen sailing past Harrods. The sky was dark but the mood irrepressibly light. In any case, the conditions were a salutary reminder of a universal truth. No man can be unhappy for long when he has in his possession a musical biscuit tin.