Entertaining at Buckingham Palace is never going to be a simple affair. 在白金汉宫举办宴会绝不是件简单事儿。
Each and every state banquet (and the Queen has already hosted 110 of them) takes ten days to prepare for and requires 1,700 pieces of mismatched baroque, Rocco and neo-classic cutlery to be placed at each of the 170 table settings precisely 46 cm apart. 每场国宴（英女王已主持了110场）均耗时10天来准备，1700件巴洛克、洛可可和新古典风格的刀叉交叉搭配，这170套餐具均相隔46厘米，毫厘不差。
Crockery is taken from King George IV's 4,000 piece Grand Service (which takes a team of eight three weeks to unpack and repack) and 1,104 glasses - six for each guest to contain water, champagne for the toast, red wine, white wine, champagne or sweet wine and port - must be laid on the pristine 175-foot dining table. 餐具取自国王乔治四世的4000件“大服务”（8人需用3周时间进行拆装）。高175英尺的古典餐桌上必须摆放1104个玻璃杯——每位客人6个玻璃杯，分别盛装水、敬酒香槟，红葡萄酒、白葡萄酒、香槟或甜葡萄酒，以及波特酒。
On the night, 76 members of staff, from under butlers to pages, ensure that each plate is laid down at exactly the same time by keeping their eye on a hidden system of traffic lights – blue for ‘stand by’ and amber for 'serve the food'. 当晚，从管家到青年侍从共76名工作人员，他们都目不转睛地盯着隐蔽处的信号灯，蓝灯代表“等待”，琥珀色代表“上菜”，以此保证每道菜是在同一时间放到桌子上的。
And at the end of the evening the Queen's priceless gilt-edged porcelain is taken back below stairs to be washed, by hand, using good old Fairy Liquid – although woe-betide anyone (and if they have, then the palace isn't saying) who chips one of the those. 当晚宴会结束时，女王价值连城的金边瓷器会被收到楼下，用上等的旧式仙子洗洁精手洗，如果谁摔碎了餐具，谁就惨了。（不过即便有处罚，王室也并没有明文规定。）
