国际英语新闻：British Queen celebrates her official birthday with parade

LONDON, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her official birthday on Saturday in traditional manner on Saturday, by reviewing troops from her Guards regiments and viewing a flypast of Royal Air Force planes in central London.

The annual event known as the Trooping of the Color is always held on a Saturday in the middle of June to mark the Queen's official birthday. She has an official birthday so that it can be celebrated in good weather, her real birthday is in April when the London weather might not be so good for a parade.

Soldiers from five infantry regiments -- the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, the Scots Guards, the Irish Guards, and the Welsh Guards -- are joined by horsemen from two armoured regiments -- the Lifeguards, and the Blues and Royals -- and horse-drawn artillery from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery in the parade.

They march from Buckingham Palace down the Mall to Horse Guards Parade, a distance of about a kilometer, and parade for an hour in front of the Queen.

Each year one of the infantry regiments takes it in turn to parade its flag, known as the colors (hence the name Trooping the Color), and the regiments consider this to be a great honor.