Yeoman of the Guard Drink Port After State Parliament Gunpowder Hunt | Eater London

"A quintessentially archaic parliamentary chamber where the State Opening highlights deeply ceremonial — and sometimes absurd — traditions: officers begin proceedings by combing the building’s cellars for explosives, a ritual rooted in Guy Fawkes’s 414-year-old Gunpowder Plot. The legislature’s authority is embodied by a five-foot silver ceremonial mace (once seized by a protesting MP, requiring a sword-wielding official to restrain him), and the Yeoman of the Guard who perform the historical security checks are rewarded with half a glass of port — a comically tiny, yet fitting, gesture that sums up the mix of solemnity, pageantry and theatricality that defines the place." - James Hansen