For anyone who watched the river pageant:
1) Apologies for the trully terrible BBC coverage; unfortunately the 'Beeb' is now being run by 'teenagers' with attention deficit syndrome, so we get what you saw on Sunday. sadly, very little about the many different boats.
2) The British are rather 'special', in that we love a disaster and the pouring rain gave us an opportunity for the 'stiff upper lip'. Really, we only feel united in the face of disaster, aka Dunkirk. But, fortunately we have a Monarch who (with her Consort) stood up for hours in cold wet weather - she's 86 and he's about to turn 91.
In most way's I'm a republican, but in Blighty we have a very special culture that only really works with a monarchy.