白金漢宮展覽揭秘女王國宴

Entertaining at Buckingham Palace is never going to be a simple affair.
在白金漢宮舉辦宴會絕不是件簡單事兒。

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.
每場國宴（英女王已主持了110場）均耗時10天來準備，1700件巴洛克、洛可可和新古典風格的刀叉交叉搭配，這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.
餐具取自國王喬治四世的4000件“大服務”（8人需用3周時間進行拆裝）。高175英尺的古典餐桌上必須擺放1104個玻璃杯——每位客人6個玻璃杯，分別盛裝水、敬酒香檳，紅葡萄酒、白葡萄酒、香檳或甜葡萄酒，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'.
當晚，從管家到青年侍從共76名工作人員，他們都目不轉睛地盯著隱蔽處的信號燈，藍燈代表“等待”，琥珀色代表“上菜”，以此保證每道菜是在同一時間放到桌子上的。

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.
當晚宴會結束時，女王價值連城的金邊瓷器會被收到樓下，用上等的舊式仙子洗潔精手洗，如果誰摔碎了餐具，誰就慘了。（不過即便有處罰，王室也并沒有明文規定。）