“Those people camping out don’t know they’ll be moved,” he told me. I approached one final officer who looked like he was in charge. Panicking, I wondered if I should ditch my immersive theater tickets for Phantom Peak that night and pitch a tent. When I got to The Mall, both sides were already lined with tents about five people deep.

The next one told me it would be “trial and error,” and the one after that simply offered, “All I can say is good luck.” Finally, one said, “If you have battery on your phone, go sit under a tree and work it out, but don’t listen to anything I’ve said.” With a complete lack of actual information, but a heightened love for the British sensibility, I ventured on. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug and a wink. Useful information, but a journalist always gets a secondary source, so I asked another if I could come this way tomorrow. But, he offered me the hint to enter from the north side of the park, and said they’d be arriving at 3 a.m. “I’ll stop you there,” he said, indicating it would indeed be a “crazy” thing to do.

“So, if I was crazy enough to come tomorrow morning to wait for the procession,” I started, when the first officer cut me off. Despite the wall of cops, there was a jovial overtone, so I decided to try to pump them for info.

With more than 29,000 police officers from all over the UK staffing up for the weekend, security was already ramped up, with officers spaced out about every 100 feet or so. But to really get a lay of the day, I ventured over to The Mall-the 2,650-foot-long processional route between Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square’s Admiralty Arch-that the king would travel down before turning in to Westminster Abbey.

Kate bowler the lives we actually have