It's a notable thing about pb how republicanism is evenly spread across the political including leave/remain divides, fervent monarchism being confined to outright nutters and Kate n Meg pervs. The reason being that anyone who thinks seriously about politics from any angle knows that there's no justification for it.
The reason being that PB is largely made up of well-heeled, middle aged men, who are very annoyed that we voted to leave the EU. It is in no sense, representative of public opinion.
I think you think you are disagreeing with me, when you are actually agreeing with me. I also don't see the relevance of the Brexit stuff. That follows, again, from taking an intelligent interest in politics, but I don't see the connection with monarchism.
Yes, Herefordshire does not have an Ipswich or Felixtowe like Suffolk, nor an Exeter like Devon, or a St Austell or a Camborne or a horrible old mining shithole like places in Northumberland, nor the saunas of Plymouth
There is not one single horrible town in Herefordshire. Not one. It can be poor or run down but it is always picturesque, there is no industry, there are no high rise buildings, there is no real motorway - which is what Pevsner was driving at, and he is still right
Aesthetically it is closer to a lost but lovely part of France, like, say, Lozere
“As one stands on Worcestershire Beacon looking North across the M5 towards the Vale of Evesham the flat vista is only interrupted by Bredon Hill. Turn around and one is met with undulating magnificence all the way to Hay Bluff.
Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Bromyard are tired. Ross is returning to its majestic splendour. Perhaps the rest will follow.”
The Lozère comparison is apt. Or somewhere a big greener and less stark, like Corrèze. It is the Limousin of England.
I disagree that Hereford or Ledbury are tired (not been to the others recently). Hereford in particular has perked up no end since the 1990s.
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
I would put Leominster ahead of Ross. There are some very run down and badly planned areas of Ross in a way you don't get in Leominster.
Around the Market House in Ross has perked up no end over the last couple of years. Around by Morrisons is pretty sad. Bromyard is the saddest of the lot, followed by Ledbury. Great antique shops in Leominster. Perhaps I am being unfair to Leominster.
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Rubbish, we are not America, America is a freedom loving, ultra capitalist nation founded by Puritan nonconformists and with a strong Cromwellian tradition against monarchy and aristocracy that led to the American revolution. The UK is a heritage and tradition loving nation that loves its NHS and has a significant welfare state to moderate the capitalist economy and which loves its royal family too. Indeed so much we returned to a monarchy as soon as we could after Cromwell
Also, people would FIGHT for a monarchy. I would. Not out of any love for any individual - Prince Andrew can go jump in the Serpentine tomorrow - but out of love for Britain and British history which is so intimately bound up with our status as a constitutional monarchy. If you tear that away you destroy something exquisite and unique and alive, like ripping out the nervous system of an animal and expecting it to be fine with shop-bought electronics as a replacement
Fuck that. Fuck republicanism
I would do too. In another civil war we could form the royalist front rank against the PB republicans. Happy to lead a cavalry charge against MexicanPete if you command the infantry to hold off Dynamo and Union Divvie
I'll sit it out, I think. Probably root for the Roundheads but not enough to bear musket.
Many years ago an eccentric character came into my local dressed as a Roundhead, complete with his own sword, tankard and horse in the car park. We started loudly drinking toasts to Prince Rupert and he drew his sword on us. The landlady persuaded us to stop baiting him.
OT - emboldened by last night’s result, I’m now going to Florence in three weeks’ time. Any recommendations for non touristy restaurants or cafés?
Also, the Uffizi and Galleria dell’Accademia are on my list. See them with the guided tour or solo with guidebook?
If you can afford it, see the Uffizi with a guided tour. It is insanely crowded with Americans at the moment (the mighty dollar). Go early, too, then have a coffee in the Piazza
Do the same for the Accademia if you must go, but it really isn’t the best art, Michelangelo’s David apart
Go to the Barghello. Far fewer tourists, plus Donatello’s David, marvellous
Also check the museum of the Duomo, Santa Maria Novella, and Santa Croce, all of which you can walk in and not worry about crowds, and still encounter world class art and staggering history
And the Medici chapel for Michelangelo’s sculptures plus a saintly and preserved foreskin in the basement
We found one - just one - notably decent restaurant in nearly a week of trying. Amazingly it is right by Santa Croce. The one nearest to Dante’s statue. Otherwise expect mediocre tourist food, or bog standard Italian, everywhere
But also try the Boboli and other gardens in Oltrarno. Have a drink there. My god they are lovely
Looking forward to getting on the pints and watching the football tomorrow #bankholibobs
I shall need to have a skin full to watch us away at Spurs. We rarely do well against Spurs. I have treble captained Kane for tommorow in fantasy football.
If Rogers is still in charge for our next home game, Oct 3rd against Forest, we are likely to see serious disorder.
Yes, Herefordshire does not have an Ipswich or Felixtowe like Suffolk, nor an Exeter like Devon, or a St Austell or a Camborne or a horrible old mining shithole like places in Northumberland, nor the saunas of Plymouth
There is not one single horrible town in Herefordshire. Not one. It can be poor or run down but it is always picturesque, there is no industry, there are no high rise buildings, there is no real motorway - which is what Pevsner was driving at, and he is still right
Aesthetically it is closer to a lost but lovely part of France, like, say, Lozere
“As one stands on Worcestershire Beacon looking North across the M5 towards the Vale of Evesham the flat vista is only interrupted by Bredon Hill. Turn around and one is met with undulating magnificence all the way to Hay Bluff.
Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Bromyard are tired. Ross is returning to its majestic splendour. Perhaps the rest will follow.”
The Lozère comparison is apt. Or somewhere a big greener and less stark, like Corrèze. It is the Limousin of England.
I disagree that Hereford or Ledbury are tired (not been to the others recently). Hereford in particular has perked up no end since the 1990s.
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
I would put Leominster ahead of Ross. There are some very run down and badly planned areas of Ross in a way you don't get in Leominster.
Around the Market House in Ross has perked up no end over the last couple of years. Around by Morrisons is pretty sad. Bromyard is the saddest of the lot, followed by Ledbury. Great antique shops in Leominster. Perhaps I am being unfair to Leominster.
You've got that wonderful street in Ross coming up to the church up that hill from the west, although even there a few gaps have opened (what a loss the Chase Hotel was).
But the area on the west side is just awful. Morrisons isn't great, but nor are the streets from there to the hill, and don't get me started on the industrial estates where the station was on the road to Weston.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
The perennial challenge to republicans is who would you prefer as president. So the mental test is to find an age-equivalent to each generation of the Royals that would make an acceptable alternative. For QE2, the obvious alt is David Attenborough: widely respected, has excelled in many fields, apolitical but passionate. for KC3, I'd suggest Joanna Lumley: bit of a national treasure, has espoused causes dear to both sides of the political divide, eloquent and forthright. It gets more difficult now, because younger generations haven't had a chance to prove themselves (this is where monarchy has an advantage, because they don't have to prove themselves, just be) So for the PoW, perhaps a little levity? Ben Whishaw. The quintessentially British Q in the Bond franchise, plus - and what could be more timely? - the voice of Paddington. 'Thank you, m'am'. Also of course the first (openly) LGBT+ head of state. A bit cryptic on political views, but understandably so. After that, who knows? Widen it to the Commonwealth, and go for Malala Yousafzai? But by the time someone from that generation is needed, hopefully someone will have made themselves known.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Rubbish, we are not America, America is a freedom loving, ultra capitalist nation founded by Puritan nonconformists and with a strong Cromwellian tradition against monarchy and aristocracy that led to the American revolution. The UK is a heritage and tradition loving nation that loves its NHS and has a significant welfare state to moderate the capitalist economy and which loves its royal family too. Indeed so much we returned to a monarchy as soon as we could after Cromwell
Also, people would FIGHT for a monarchy. I would. Not out of any love for any individual - Prince Andrew can go jump in the Serpentine tomorrow - but out of love for Britain and British history which is so intimately bound up with our status as a constitutional monarchy. If you tear that away you destroy something exquisite and unique and alive, like ripping out the nervous system of an animal and expecting it to be fine with shop-bought electronics as a replacement
Fuck that. Fuck republicanism
I don’t think anyone will ever fight over the monarchy. If we get a republic in due course it’ll just happen. Britain will be ready. If we don’t, nobody will care enough to fight for a republic.
No, I would fight. The idea of a republic is so abominable, I would fight. I’m not joking
However you are right that this prospect is so distant the question is not worth asking
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Rubbish, we are not America, America is a freedom loving, ultra capitalist nation founded by Puritan nonconformists and with a strong Cromwellian tradition against monarchy and aristocracy that led to the American revolution. The UK is a heritage and tradition loving nation that loves its NHS and has a significant welfare state to moderate the capitalist economy and which loves its royal family too. Indeed so much we returned to a monarchy as soon as we could after Cromwell
Also, people would FIGHT for a monarchy. I would. Not out of any love for any individual - Prince Andrew can go jump in the Serpentine tomorrow - but out of love for Britain and British history which is so intimately bound up with our status as a constitutional monarchy. If you tear that away you destroy something exquisite and unique and alive, like ripping out the nervous system of an animal and expecting it to be fine with shop-bought electronics as a replacement
Fuck that. Fuck republicanism
I would do too. In another civil war we could form the royalist front rank against the PB republicans. Happy to lead a cavalry charge against MexicanPete if you command the infantry to hold off Dynamo and Union Divvie
I'll sit it out, I think. Probably root for the Roundheads but not enough to bear musket.
Many years ago an eccentric character came into my local dressed as a Roundhead, complete with his own sword, tankard and horse in the car park. We started loudly drinking toasts to Prince Rupert and he drew his sword on us. The landlady persuaded us to stop baiting him.
Rupert is still on a mad gallop chasing those flank parliamentarians that fled. One day he'll turn and realise he screwed up
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
The day Trump dies/is executed, I will cheerfully stop any American and tell them how happy I am for them.
The worry is that the day Trump dies will be the day we all die in a thermonuclear disaster.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
The trouble is, I think the BBC is actually pandering to what people want. A good 50-60% of the population enjoy the fawning adulation and deference to one's betters by dint of the accident of birth.
Years ago, when I was working in America, a friend said to me "race is to us what class is to you brits". Something that stuck with me to this day.
I don't mind the poshos being posh - I just object to it being rubbed in my face like some kind of cult by the media. However, as I say, I think they are responding to demand. People seem to like it. Masochism as the national culture. Please sir, may I have another?
Yes, Herefordshire does not have an Ipswich or Felixtowe like Suffolk, nor an Exeter like Devon, or a St Austell or a Camborne or a horrible old mining shithole like places in Northumberland, nor the saunas of Plymouth
There is not one single horrible town in Herefordshire. Not one. It can be poor or run down but it is always picturesque, there is no industry, there are no high rise buildings, there is no real motorway - which is what Pevsner was driving at, and he is still right
Aesthetically it is closer to a lost but lovely part of France, like, say, Lozere
“As one stands on Worcestershire Beacon looking North across the M5 towards the Vale of Evesham the flat vista is only interrupted by Bredon Hill. Turn around and one is met with undulating magnificence all the way to Hay Bluff.
Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Bromyard are tired. Ross is returning to its majestic splendour. Perhaps the rest will follow.”
The Lozère comparison is apt. Or somewhere a big greener and less stark, like Corrèze. It is the Limousin of England.
I disagree that Hereford or Ledbury are tired (not been to the others recently). Hereford in particular has perked up no end since the 1990s.
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Cromwellian tradition? Please elaborate. Very few of us are Puritans. And i don't remember him being a lover of freedom.
Eh, freedom for some anyway. It's not as though either side in that war were about freedom for all.
I've always liked how the Protectorate ended up being pretty monarchical in style, he was probably more powerful than the king. If only they could have resolved the tensions with the army and had him just be crowned who knows where we'd be.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Yes, because South American electorates never fall for charismatic leaders who go on to disappoint them. No siree.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
What do expect them to show, you unutterable wombat, shots of empty streets where the minorities could have queued but didn't?
If it weren't for your almost apartheid bigotry you would be noting the BBC report that
"Two women were allegedly sexually assaulted in the queue to attend the Queen's lying-in-state, a court heard.
Adio Adeshine is accused of exposing himself and pushing into the mourners from behind as they waited in line at Victoria Tower Gardens on Wednesday."
No reports of Adio's ethnicity, but I am guessing from the name he would struggle for membership of your golf club.
Face it, you don't even make it as a troll. Retire this persona and have a good long think about what the point is of your posting here.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
The trouble is, I think the BBC is actually pandering to what people want. A good 50-60% of the population enjoy the fawning adulation and deference to one's betters by dint of the accident of birth.
Years ago, when I was working in America, a friend said to me "race is to us what class is to you brits". Something that stuck with me to this day.
I don't mind the poshos being posh - I just object to it being rubbed in my face like some kind of cult by the media. However, as I say, I think they are responding to demand. People seem to like it. Masochism as the national culture. Please sir, may I have another?
Same reason why Boris Johnson was popular...give him a broad yorkshire accent and people would go what an idiot
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It's not meant to be for everyone. Not comfortable with strong emotions myself. But its clearly for a lot of people, as a one off, and the rarity of it is probably why. We can afford to be mawkish for a week.
Yes, Herefordshire does not have an Ipswich or Felixtowe like Suffolk, nor an Exeter like Devon, or a St Austell or a Camborne or a horrible old mining shithole like places in Northumberland, nor the saunas of Plymouth
There is not one single horrible town in Herefordshire. Not one. It can be poor or run down but it is always picturesque, there is no industry, there are no high rise buildings, there is no real motorway - which is what Pevsner was driving at, and he is still right
Aesthetically it is closer to a lost but lovely part of France, like, say, Lozere
“As one stands on Worcestershire Beacon looking North across the M5 towards the Vale of Evesham the flat vista is only interrupted by Bredon Hill. Turn around and one is met with undulating magnificence all the way to Hay Bluff.
Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Bromyard are tired. Ross is returning to its majestic splendour. Perhaps the rest will follow.”
The Lozère comparison is apt. Or somewhere a big greener and less stark, like Corrèze. It is the Limousin of England.
I disagree that Hereford or Ledbury are tired (not been to the others recently). Hereford in particular has perked up no end since the 1990s.
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
I would put Leominster ahead of Ross. There are some very run down and badly planned areas of Ross in a way you don't get in Leominster.
Around the Market House in Ross has perked up no end over the last couple of years. Around by Morrisons is pretty sad. Bromyard is the saddest of the lot, followed by Ledbury. Great antique shops in Leominster. Perhaps I am being unfair to Leominster.
You've got that wonderful street in Ross coming up to the church up that hill from the west, although even there a few gaps have opened (what a loss the Chase Hotel was).
But the area on the west side is just awful. Morrisons isn't great, but nor are the streets from there to the hill, and don't get me started on the industrial estates where the station was on the road to Weston.
I was thinking town centres rather than the "greater" towns.
I am not sure why but from my travels around England and Wales, Herefordshire and Worcestershire are looking particularly tired.
Great Malvern is perhaps my biggest disappointment of late. Belle Vue terrace, Priory Street and Worcester Road look semi-derelict. Back in my day Great Malvern was lovely.
Two years ago I needed a bank for a Swift transfer on a day I was working in Worcester. I hadn't been into Worcester centre for years, it was simply awful, and Worcester used to have such a beautiful City centre.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Cromwellian tradition? Please elaborate. Very few of us are Puritans. And i don't remember him being a lover of freedom.
Eh, freedom for some anyway. It's not as though either side in that war were about freedom for all.
I've always liked how the Protectorate ended up being pretty monarchical in style, he was probably more powerful than the king. If only they could have resolved the tensions with the army and had him just be crowned who knows where we'd be.
Indeed, Cromwell nearly became the actual king
Looking at human history I’d say republics are the aberration, and monarchies are the norm, to which we generally return. Contra most opinion on here
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Yes, I think this is very insightful.
I've been dealing with friends and relatives the last week who want to talk about it all the same way I deal with friends and relatives who want to talk about God. I smile and nod and respect their beliefs, whilst secretly thinking they're a bit mad.
As you say, some are hardwired for it and some aren't. I'm definitely not, though that doesn't make me wish for a President or a republic. Just a reduction in volume from 11 back to the quiet 3 or 4 the monarchy usually enjoys in our lives. If the whole country was suddenly obsessed with the archbishop of canterbury I would feel the same way...
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
You "love dogs"? Awwww. Animals selectively bred for millennia for sycophancy to humans.
Again, you sound like an exceptionally dim and spiteful 7 year old trying to spoil Christmas for the smaller children by telling them Santa doesn't exist. We already know that, you unutterably dumb fuck.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy and uber narcissism
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
A childishly silly comment. Religion is all about rituals
What do you think regular Islamic prayer is? The muezzin? The kow towing? The washing and the greeting and the clothing and the submitting? It is daily life as ritual
Likewise, Protestant Christianity merely replaced the more overt outwards symbolism of Catholicism - smells and bells and icons - with an internalised ritual of words. The creeds and catechisms,. Hymn 138. The Book of Common Prayer. The Churching of Women. The idea it is not full of ritual is nonsensical. Religion IS ritual
Yes, Herefordshire does not have an Ipswich or Felixtowe like Suffolk, nor an Exeter like Devon, or a St Austell or a Camborne or a horrible old mining shithole like places in Northumberland, nor the saunas of Plymouth
There is not one single horrible town in Herefordshire. Not one. It can be poor or run down but it is always picturesque, there is no industry, there are no high rise buildings, there is no real motorway - which is what Pevsner was driving at, and he is still right
Aesthetically it is closer to a lost but lovely part of France, like, say, Lozere
“As one stands on Worcestershire Beacon looking North across the M5 towards the Vale of Evesham the flat vista is only interrupted by Bredon Hill. Turn around and one is met with undulating magnificence all the way to Hay Bluff.
Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Bromyard are tired. Ross is returning to its majestic splendour. Perhaps the rest will follow.”
The Lozère comparison is apt. Or somewhere a big greener and less stark, like Corrèze. It is the Limousin of England.
I disagree that Hereford or Ledbury are tired (not been to the others recently). Hereford in particular has perked up no end since the 1990s.
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
Bbc has been way off the mark treating us like we are the all white britain of the 1950s not a modern multiethnic democracy. The nearly all white queues for the coffin show that ethnic minorities arent as enthused by the monarchy...thats good and fine but it will be a problem for the monarchy going forward
The trouble is, I think the BBC is actually pandering to what people want. A good 50-60% of the population enjoy the fawning adulation and deference to one's betters by dint of the accident of birth.
Years ago, when I was working in America, a friend said to me "race is to us what class is to you brits". Something that stuck with me to this day.
I don't mind the poshos being posh - I just object to it being rubbed in my face like some kind of cult by the media. However, as I say, I think they are responding to demand. People seem to like it. Masochism as the national culture. Please sir, may I have another?
I can't say I've ever bought that 'class vs race' line, or that we are particularly masochistic. We have vestigial, ceremonial upper class trappings, but our governing bodies are full of normal people (well, normal for people who like politics anyway), controlled by them.
Is there an issue with people from 'working class' backgrounds not filling those ranks? It seems so, but that seems a broader issue around who counts as working class now, and rising levels of tertiary education and professionalisation of the politicians. Are we really obsessed with class as much as we obsess about being obsessed about class? I'm doubtful, its only weirdos who bang on about it, and whilst I do think accent privilege is a thing that's not completely down to class.
As for masochistic, well, sure, even though there will undoubtedly be lots of complaints submitted that the coverage this past week has been unrelenting and over the top, it is what people seem to expect for the occasion. We wouldn't hear so much hundrum reporting on the rouals generally if enough people did not want to hear it. Is that masochistic? I'm not sure what that even means. Is it a bad thing that people don't mind or even expect some silly pageantry? That quite a few people have let themselves be emotionally swept up in things? Is the BBC, as state broadcaster, a bit of a shill for the establishment? Probably, but people are not brainwashed, no one can be made to enjoy that which they do not enjoy.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Islam not liturgical? Bloody hell.
Jury's out on protestantism, let's reserve judgement till after Monday's goings on. I'm sure the funeral will be the least ritualistic thing imaginable.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Yes, I think this is very insightful.
I've been dealing with friends and relatives the last week who want to talk about it all the same way I deal with friends and relatives who want to talk about God. I smile and nod and respect their beliefs, whilst secretly thinking they're a bit mad.
As you say, some are hardwired for it and some aren't. I'm definitely not, though that doesn't make me wish for a President or a republic. Just a reduction in volume from 11 back to the quiet 3 or 4 the monarchy usually enjoys in our lives. If the whole country was suddenly obsessed with the archbishop of canterbury I would feel the same way...
It will dial back down to 3 or 4 in a few weeks, maybe even a fortnight, so you will be fine. We will resume our normal lives (inasmuch as the mad world permits)
And, as you say, this fits the vast majority. The royalists can rest happy knowing that the king is in his castle. The republicans can ignore the king as he really doesn’t do very much. The majority, who are apathetic and tepidly royalist but don’t especially care, can get on with their shopping, even as they are reassured that the country is stable and continuing
It’s a good system, dependable and robust. Constitutional monarchy. No Donald Trump
And in these turbulent times, that is no small thing
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
Reuters @Reuters This is the world's first flying bike. The XTURISMO hoverbike is capable of flying for 40 minutes and can reach speeds of up to 62 mph
These polls while still having the monarchy ahead are out of date.
A Yougov poll in the last few days has 64% wanting to keep the monarchy, with the monarchy miles ahead with Tories and LDs and even ahead amongst Labour voters and under 25s.
Another poll has 63% thinking Charles will make a good King
Momentary hiccups, given the current situation. See what it is like in a year.
The thought of President Johnson or President Blair will be enough to make little difference. Having a royal family is a key part of British identity
Hmm, you're suddenly admitting your great hero for the last few years is, erm ...
Royal Families are profoundly un-British. Goes against the self-respect, love of freedom, the Cromwellian tradition, Nonconformism that made modern Britain. A supposed English patriot such as you would indubitably go back to the proper old tradition of the elected Kings of Anglo-Saxon times.
Cromwellian tradition? Please elaborate. Very few of us are Puritans. And i don't remember him being a lover of freedom.
Eh, freedom for some anyway. It's not as though either side in that war were about freedom for all.
I've always liked how the Protectorate ended up being pretty monarchical in style, he was probably more powerful than the king. If only they could have resolved the tensions with the army and had him just be crowned who knows where we'd be.
Indeed, Cromwell nearly became the actual king
Looking at human history I’d say republics are the aberration, and monarchies are the norm, to which we generally return. Contra most opinion on here
Well of course the modern trend of nation states and how they are run is pretty against the norm as it is. It's certainly true that plenty of republics are de facto monarchies, and others may not have hereditary succession but an aristocratic elite still run them. But many still do work as intended.
I think the current state of the world is enough to show that democracies, be they republics or otherwise, are certainly capable of backsliding, and it is perfectly possible for them to become practically like monarchies. Even when they are not they often adopt the trappings - working out of palaces, wearing sashes, behaving like a dick.
Buit I think that any 'return' would be in the de facto sense, drifting into a pseudo-monarchy. Without a convenient king figure to choose as figurehead a la Spain, how would one consciously pick who to be a power wielding king?
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Protestantism and Islam seem pretty ritualistic to me. What you are describing seems more simplifying the rituals of gaudy trappings, for new ones. A common enough occurence in revolutionary religion, I'm sure, but they still engage in what are pretty obviously ritual behaviours, vary though they might.
Your follow up, which I add below, is still describing ritual behaviour, you seem to be just saying 'Well these rituals are ok because they are different'. A relative lack of 'fripperies' doesn't make your or Islam's rituals less ritualistic, nor does the intent change that.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
That yours about 'a community of believers equal in the sight of God' doesn't make them not a ritual. Why would it? That doesn't even make sense.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
A childishly silly comment. Religion is all about rituals
What do you think regular Islamic prayer is? The muezzin? The kow towing? The washing and the greeting and the clothing and the submitting? It is daily life as ritual
Likewise, Protestant Christianity merely replaced the more overt outwards symbolism of Catholicism - smells and bells and icons - with an internalised ritual of words. The creeds and catechisms,. Hymn 138. The Book of Common Prayer. The Churching of Women. The idea it is not full of ritual is nonsensical. Religion IS ritual
You need to find a stupider forum to chat in
You clearly understand nothing about how Protestantism was a reaction to liturgical obscurantism and very popular for being so.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Our offensive operation in the Donbas is not stopping. They're moving forward - not at a very fast pace - but they are gradually taking more and more territory," he said after a summit in Uzbekistan.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
A childishly silly comment. Religion is all about rituals
What do you think regular Islamic prayer is? The muezzin? The kow towing? The washing and the greeting and the clothing and the submitting? It is daily life as ritual
Likewise, Protestant Christianity merely replaced the more overt outwards symbolism of Catholicism - smells and bells and icons - with an internalised ritual of words. The creeds and catechisms,. Hymn 138. The Book of Common Prayer. The Churching of Women. The idea it is not full of ritual is nonsensical. Religion IS ritual
You need to find a stupider forum to chat in
Divinity, if that is your cup of tea, does not have to be ritualistic. Organized religion tends towards the ritualistic.
The World would be a better place with more divinity and less organized religion.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
Reuters @Reuters This is the world's first flying bike. The XTURISMO hoverbike is capable of flying for 40 minutes and can reach speeds of up to 62 mph
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
To be statistically fair, most countries in the world are republics.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
To be statistically fair, most countries in the world are republics.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
Reuters @Reuters This is the world's first flying bike. The XTURISMO hoverbike is capable of flying for 40 minutes and can reach speeds of up to 62 mph
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
Two different things there, though. Clive Lewis is sounding off about this in the guardian: This inequality was reflected in the continued dominance of those who went to private schools in government and industry, Lewis said, adding that constitutional reform, including the role of the monarchy, “is something to be vigorously aired, not shut down or even temporarily suppressed”. I don't see how abolishing the monarchy abolishes inherited wealth? Doesn't seem to have happened in any first world republic I can think of.
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
A childishly silly comment. Religion is all about rituals
What do you think regular Islamic prayer is? The muezzin? The kow towing? The washing and the greeting and the clothing and the submitting? It is daily life as ritual
Likewise, Protestant Christianity merely replaced the more overt outwards symbolism of Catholicism - smells and bells and icons - with an internalised ritual of words. The creeds and catechisms,. Hymn 138. The Book of Common Prayer. The Churching of Women. The idea it is not full of ritual is nonsensical. Religion IS ritual
You need to find a stupider forum to chat in
You clearly understand nothing about how Protestantism was a reaction to liturgical obscurantism and very popular for being so.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
I suggest Reddit r/I’m-an-idiot-quack-from-Leicester-hear-me-out-about-other-things
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Protestantism and Islam seem pretty ritualistic to me. What you are describing seems more simplifying the rituals of gaudy trappings, for new ones. A common enough occurence in revolutionary religion, I'm sure, but they still engage in what are pretty obviously ritual behaviours, vary though they might.
Your follow up, which I add below, is still describing ritual behaviour, you seem to be just saying 'Well these rituals are ok because they are different'. A relative lack of 'fripperies' doesn't make your or Islam's rituals less ritualistic, nor does the intent change that.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
That yours about 'a community of believers equal in the sight of God' doesn't make them not a ritual. Why would it? That doesn't even make sense.
And hang on, don't most protestants still baptise people and hold communion? What the heck are those if not rituals?
Does ritual hold some negative connotation I am unaware of that we have to pretend various 'religious observances' are not rituals?
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
To be statistically fair, most countries in the world are republics.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
Japan, also a democratic constitutional monarchy
Yes Japan, plus of course Canada, Australia, NZ, PNG etc under the British crown. But there are not many monarchies. Google tells me there are 43 monarchies (with 29 monarchs) so around a quarter of UN member states.
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
North Korea is the classic socialist monarchy!
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
North Korea is a republic, as is Cuba, as is Vietnam, as was the USSR and East Germany and Mao's China and most other bastions of communism or socialism.
Ultra capitalist states like the USA or Singapore tend to be republics with a few absolute monarches in the Middle East, constitutional monarchies are virtually all in the middle somewhere, neither uber capitalist or uber socialist
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
North Korea is the classic socialist monarchy!
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
North Korea is a republic, as is Cuba, as is Vietnam, as was the USSR and East Germany and Mao's China and most other bastions of communism or socialism.
Ultra capitalist states like the USA or Singapore tend to be republics with a few absolute monarches in the Middle East, constitutional monarchies are virtually all in the middle somewhere, neither uber capitalist or uber socialist
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
So what, India has been an independent state and republic for decades, how it wants to name its monuments is up to the Indian government, though notably Modi paid tribute to the Queen too and will likely be there on Monday.
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
To be statistically fair, most countries in the world are republics.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
Japan, also a democratic constitutional monarchy
Yes Japan, plus of course Canada, Australia, NZ, PNG etc under the British crown. But there are not many monarchies. Google tells me there are 43 monarchies (with 29 monarchs) so around a quarter of UN member states.
A dying breed. Really Northern Europe is punching above its weight on stable, democratic states with monarchies.
I like the categories
Commonwealth Realms - Self explanatory 'Other' European constituional monarchies - The Northern European crowd (and Spain) European mixed monarchies - your tiddlers like Monaco Muslim monarchies - absolute monarchies mostly in the middle east East and southeast asian constitutional monarchies - the scandanavian monachies of their region Other monarchies - miscellanrous others
Liked this one
Eswatini is increasingly being considered a diarchy. The King, or Ngwenyama, rules alongside his mother, the Ndlovukati, as dual heads of state originally designed to be checks on political power. The Ngwenyama, however, is considered the administrative head of state, while the Ndlovukati is considered the spiritual and national head of state, a position which has become largely symbolic in recent years.
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
North Korea is the classic socialist monarchy!
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
North Korea is a republic, as is Cuba, as is Vietnam, as was the USSR and East Germany and Mao's China and most other bastions of communism or socialism.
Ultra capitalist states like the USA or Singapore tend to be republics with a few absolute monarches in the Middle East, constitutional monarchies are virtually all in the middle somewhere, neither uber capitalist or uber socialist
Your Monarchism makes you a Socialist!
No, my Monarchism makes me a Tory, state control of most of the economy would make me a socialist
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Protestantism and Islam seem pretty ritualistic to me. What you are describing seems more simplifying the rituals of gaudy trappings, for new ones. A common enough occurence in revolutionary religion, I'm sure, but they still engage in what are pretty obviously ritual behaviours, vary though they might.
Your follow up, which I add below, is still describing ritual behaviour, you seem to be just saying 'Well these rituals are ok because they are different'. A relative lack of 'fripperies' doesn't make your or Islam's rituals less ritualistic, nor does the intent change that.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
That yours about 'a community of believers equal in the sight of God' doesn't make them not a ritual. Why would it? That doesn't even make sense.
And hang on, don't most protestants still baptise people and hold communion? What the heck are those if not rituals?
Does ritual hold some negative connotation I am unaware of that we have to pretend various 'religious observances' are not rituals?
Protestantism is a very diverse group of sects, with varying attitudes to these things. Many reject infant baptism and communion in the orthodox sense, in favour of the baptism of the spirit (being born again) and in the communion of worship rather than wine and wafers.
And yes, ritual does have negative connotations to many Protestants, indeed it is why we are not Catholics or Anglican.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Thats just a criticism of democracy generally though
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Most democracies in the world today are republics.
Most dictatorships in the world today are republics
To be statistically fair, most countries in the world are republics.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
Japan, also a democratic constitutional monarchy
Yes Japan, plus of course Canada, Australia, NZ, PNG etc under the British crown. But there are not many monarchies. Google tells me there are 43 monarchies (with 29 monarchs) so around a quarter of UN member states.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Thats just a criticism of democracy generally though
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Thats just a criticism of democracy generally though
Democracy is not a perfect system, just better than Fascist or Communist dictatorship or indeed absolute monarchy. Constitutional monarchy however ensures we still have a figurehead for the nation who is immune from the worst aspects of democracy and that suits me fine
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
North Korea is the classic socialist monarchy!
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
North Korea is a republic, as is Cuba, as is Vietnam
Not really quit the same as them though. Take this doozy of a principal. which you have to admit is pretty monarchical The great revolutionary accomplishments pioneered by the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung must be succeeded and perfected by hereditary succession until the end. The firm establishment of the sole leadership system is the crucial assurance for the preservation and development of the Great leader's revolutionary accomplishments, while achieving the final victory of the revolution
The current text is a little less direct, I guess We must pass down the great achievement of the Juche revolution and the Songun revolution, pioneered by the great Comrade Kim Il-sung and led by Comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Who figures ceremonially at the masthead by divine right?
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
So what, India has been an independent state and republic for decades, how it wants to name its monuments is up to the Indian government, though notably Modi paid tribute to the Queen too and will likely be there on Monday.
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
He will NOT be there on Monday. President Droupadi Murmu will be instead.
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Religion doesn't require rituals, indeed the revolutionary force of Protestantism and of Islam was in part a reaction to the idolatry of liturgical religion with its costumes, idols and statues. As indeed was the motivating force or political revolutionaries. It is no coincidence that revolutionaries so often start with shooting priests.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Protestantism and Islam seem pretty ritualistic to me. What you are describing seems more simplifying the rituals of gaudy trappings, for new ones. A common enough occurence in revolutionary religion, I'm sure, but they still engage in what are pretty obviously ritual behaviours, vary though they might.
Your follow up, which I add below, is still describing ritual behaviour, you seem to be just saying 'Well these rituals are ok because they are different'. A relative lack of 'fripperies' doesn't make your or Islam's rituals less ritualistic, nor does the intent change that.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
That yours about 'a community of believers equal in the sight of God' doesn't make them not a ritual. Why would it? That doesn't even make sense.
And hang on, don't most protestants still baptise people and hold communion? What the heck are those if not rituals?
Does ritual hold some negative connotation I am unaware of that we have to pretend various 'religious observances' are not rituals?
Protestantism is a very diverse group of sects, with varying attitudes to these things. Many reject infant baptism and communion in the orthodox sense, in favour of the baptism of the spirit (being born again) and in the communion of worship rather than wine and wafers.
And yes, ritual does have negative connotations to many Protestants, indeed it is why we are not Catholics or Anglican.
All the best for people on their spiritual journeys, but renaming rituals as not rituals because they are different to the rituals of others doesn't make them not rituals.
Rites and practices, observances, there are probably many names for them. I think maybe if you'd just said ostentatious, hierarchical ritual is how religion is bent to serve the hierarchy, that I wouldn't have found the point countering itself.
Question: is North Korea a monarchy? I’d say yes: it has a hereditary ruler, is now in its third generation of succession, and it’s unthinkable that the next leader in the current regime could be anything other than a son or daughter of Kim Jong un.
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
North Korea is the classic socialist monarchy!
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
North Korea is a republic, as is Cuba, as is Vietnam, as was the USSR and East Germany and Mao's China and most other bastions of communism or socialism.
Ultra capitalist states like the USA or Singapore tend to be republics with a few absolute monarches in the Middle East, constitutional monarchies are virtually all in the middle somewhere, neither uber capitalist or uber socialist
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
So what, India has been an independent state and republic for decades, how it wants to name its monuments is up to the Indian government, though notably Modi paid tribute to the Queen too and will likely be there on Monday.
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
He will NOT be there on Monday. President Droupadi Murmu will be instead.
Even so still does not change the main point, India is needed to contain China whether only the Indian head of state attends the funeral or Modi goes too
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Who figures ceremonially at the masthead by divine right?
Better ceremonial position from the divine than the gutter
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most lhismatin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Who figures ceremonially at the masthead by divine right?
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most latin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Thats just a criticism of democracy generally though
Democracy is not a perfect system, just better than Fascist or Communist dictatorship or indeed absolute monarchy. Constitutional monarchy however ensures we still have a figurehead for the nation who is immune from the worst aspects of democracy and that suits me fine
There has been an incident in Westminster Hall where a member of the public rushed at the Queen’s coffin and catafalque. Individual was quickly taken to the floor by police officers and removed from the hall. But other mourners at the Lying-in-State looked on in horror.
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
So what, India has been an independent state and republic for decades, how it wants to name its monuments is up to the Indian government, though notably Modi paid tribute to the Queen too and will likely be there on Monday.
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
He will NOT be there on Monday. President Droupadi Murmu will be instead.
Even so still does not change the main point, India is needed to contain China whether only the Indian head of state attends the funeral or Modi goes too
India seems to be increasingly aligning itself with russia now
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
It is soft power, but you should hear what my Latin American friends say about it. One said the crowds were like dogs, which I thought was unfair to dogs because I love dogs. Most have observed that the royal family themselves don't care a tinker's cuss for the capdoffers who are mourning their late head of house, and that said capdoffers are so effing stupid not to realise.
Given most Latin American heads of state were either Fascist dictators or Communist dictators until recently and some in areas like Cuba or Venezuala still are (with Trump of the Tropics Bolsonaro in Brazil), we don't need any lectures from them about our former Queen
Most lhismatin american countries are dysfunctional at best but there is still an inbuilt servility amongst a large proportion of our population...not so much in the young or ethnic minorities though
There is nothing wrong with some servility, the alternative is anarchy
No wrong the alternative is a strong confident people who tell the truth to power...not pathetically bowing and scraping to inherited wealth and power
No the alternative is ultra selfish, self obsessed narcissists with no respect for anyone else, or society or in time the law.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Are you describing Americans there....by the way if you havent noticed there are many self obsessed narcissists in the uk now...look at love island....got nothing to do with monarchy
And give them an election for head of state that may be who you get, another self obsessed narcissist. Elections do not always lead us to elect the best leaders, often they reduce us to our worst gut instincts, constitutional monarchy at least ensures our head of state is beyond politics and just a ceremonial figurehead
Who figures ceremonially at the masthead by divine right?
Better the divine than the gutter
Your Monarchism STILL makes you a Socialist!
No it makes me a Tory, state control of the economy would make me a socialist
Our offensive operation in the Donbas is not stopping. They're moving forward - not at a very fast pace - but they are gradually taking more and more territory," he said after a summit in Uzbekistan.
Great LOLs from Putin.
Xi folds his arms across his chest and says 'yeh, right mate'.
Seems so, someone rushed towards the coffin. Sadly it doesn't sound like they were impaled on a pike or chopped down with a sword before being removed by the police.
Must have been earlier - there was a break in the feed.
At least it didn't happen with the King present.
Inevitable. Feel a bit sorry for those who had queued for 12 hours only to have their moment in the hall ruined.
No, as while Modi may still deal with Putin, he also still hates Xi and we need India to contain China
Just hours before news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death spread, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a fiery speech urging India to shed its colonial ties in a ceremony to rename a boulevard that once honored King George V.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
So what, India has been an independent state and republic for decades, how it wants to name its monuments is up to the Indian government, though notably Modi paid tribute to the Queen too and will likely be there on Monday.
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
He will NOT be there on Monday. President Droupadi Murmu will be instead.
Even so still does not change the main point, India is needed to contain China whether only the Indian head of state attends the funeral or Modi goes too
India seems to be increasingly aligning itself with russia now
Modi keeps up relations with Russia but is neutral on Ukraine, against China however it is aligned with the West due to border disputes
Seems so, someone rushed towards the coffin. Sadly it doesn't sound like they were impaled on a pike or chopped down with a sword before being removed by the police.
Must have been earlier - there was a break in the feed.
At least it didn't happen with the King present.
Inevitable. Feel a bit sorry for those who had queued for 12 hours only to have their moment in the hall ruined.
Honestly think the whole thing has gone on too long now....the relentless coverage encourages the nutters...who knows who else is lurking in the queue
Seems so, someone rushed towards the coffin. Sadly it doesn't sound like they were impaled on a pike or chopped down with a sword before being removed by the police.
Must have been earlier - there was a break in the feed.
At least it didn't happen with the King present.
Inevitable. Feel a bit sorry for those who had queued for 12 hours only to have their moment in the hall ruined.
Honestly think the whole thing has gone on too long now....the relentless coverage encourages the nutters...who knows who else is lurking in the queue
The problem the monarchy have is a bit like the ref in football - your best days are the ones where you're mostly in the background not really getting noticed just letting the game flow. And as soon as you start getting fussy and officious everyone boos you.
Agree. Quite happy for the monarchy to carry on doing its thing as it has for all my lifetime, but the wall to wall coverage of the last few days makes me wonder if the rest of the world nods and smiles to itself going, yep, North Korea.
We laugh at other countries for their cult of personality and yet eagerly lap it up here. The monarchy works best when it works quietly in the background - part of the nation's soft power. Bringing it front and centre in this way just makes us look like a third world dictatorship.
True story:
I just got stopped on my way into my v pleasant Seville apartment by the woman who manages it. I thought I’d done something wrong, let burglars in through the roof terrace or something, but no, she stopped me because she wanted to earnestly express her condolences on the death of Ze Queen, Your Queen, i am Zo Zorry
She really meant it. She looked personally sad. Much sadder than me
Can you imagine doing that to any foreigner on the death of any foreign personage? Americans for JFK perhaps, but after that, nope
That is soft power. Foreigners do not look at Britain and see North Korea, FFS, they see an ancient foreign institution which has somehow emotionally engaged them. We mess with this magical mixture, which projects a fine British brand of stability and pageantry, at our peril
I personally find it absolutely barking mad. I enjoyed the jubilee, I felt a little bit sad when the Queen passed - the way one might feel about a distant but elderly relative. But the mawkishness of the last week or so has not been for me.
What was it Lennon said? You think you're so clever and classless and free...
It’s like religion. Most people are hard-wired to believe and are happier believing. For a similar reason most people are naturally royalist, and this is why great republics often acquire the trappings - the pomp and circumstance - of monarchies even when they started out aiming to avoid this. France and America are the obvious examples. People WANT the mystique and ritual
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Comments
Do the same for the Accademia if you must go, but it really isn’t the best art, Michelangelo’s David apart
Go to the Barghello. Far fewer tourists, plus Donatello’s David, marvellous
Also check the museum of the Duomo, Santa Maria Novella, and Santa Croce, all of which you can walk in and not worry about crowds, and still encounter world class art and staggering history
And the Medici chapel for Michelangelo’s sculptures plus a saintly and preserved foreskin in the basement
We found one - just one - notably decent restaurant in nearly a week of trying. Amazingly it is right by Santa Croce. The one nearest to Dante’s statue. Otherwise expect mediocre tourist food, or bog standard Italian, everywhere
But also try the Boboli and other gardens in Oltrarno. Have a drink there. My god they are lovely
If Rogers is still in charge for our next home game, Oct 3rd against Forest, we are likely to see serious disorder.
But the area on the west side is just awful. Morrisons isn't great, but nor are the streets from there to the hill, and don't get me started on the industrial estates where the station was on the road to Weston.
However a percentage of people just don’t have the mental circuitry for religious belief, and maybe a similar number lack the wiring for royalism. And there is clearly a large overlap between the two
These people just need to accept that they are usually - but not always - in a minority
Look at the popularity of Game of Thrones. Game of Figurehead Presidents? - not so exciting
Years ago, when I was working in America, a friend said to me "race is to us what class is to you brits". Something that stuck with me to this day.
I don't mind the poshos being posh - I just object to it being rubbed in my face like some kind of cult by the media. However, as I say, I think they are responding to demand. People seem to like it. Masochism as the national culture. Please sir, may I have another?
Looking North from the Beacon? I'm not sure on that one? East perhaps?
Approx 105 degrees according to this site
http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/panoramas/ENG/MALVERN.gif
104.5 to be exact
https://www.peakfinder.org/?lat=52.10470&lng=-2.33889&ele=425&azi=110.72&alt=2.89&fov=45&date=2020-06-27T12:42Z&cfg=s&teleazi=104.47&telealt=-0.51&name=Worcestershire Beacon
Classic cold war tv
I've always liked how the Protectorate ended up being pretty monarchical in style, he was probably more powerful than the king. If only they could have resolved the tensions with the army and had him just be crowned who knows where we'd be.
If it weren't for your almost apartheid bigotry you would be noting the BBC report that
"Two women were allegedly sexually assaulted in the queue to attend the Queen's lying-in-state, a court heard.
Adio Adeshine is accused of exposing himself and pushing into the mourners from behind as they waited in line at Victoria Tower Gardens on Wednesday."
No reports of Adio's ethnicity, but I am guessing from the name he would struggle for membership of your golf club.
Face it, you don't even make it as a troll. Retire this persona and have a good long think about what the point is of your posting here.
The priority is getting the Tories out.
I am not sure why but from my travels around England and Wales, Herefordshire and Worcestershire are looking particularly tired.
Great Malvern is perhaps my biggest disappointment of late. Belle Vue terrace, Priory Street and Worcester Road look semi-derelict. Back in my day Great Malvern was lovely.
Two years ago I needed a bank for a Swift transfer on a day I was working in Worcester. I hadn't been into Worcester centre for years, it was simply awful, and Worcester used to have such a beautiful City centre.
Ritual is how rich people bend religion to serve the hierarchy.
Looking at human history I’d say republics are the aberration, and monarchies are the norm, to which we generally return. Contra most opinion on here
I've been dealing with friends and relatives the last week who want to talk about it all the same way I deal with friends and relatives who want to talk about God. I smile and nod and respect their beliefs, whilst secretly thinking they're a bit mad.
As you say, some are hardwired for it and some aren't. I'm definitely not, though that doesn't make me wish for a President or a republic. Just a reduction in volume from 11 back to the quiet 3 or 4 the monarchy usually enjoys in our lives. If the whole country was suddenly obsessed with the archbishop of canterbury I would feel the same way...
Again, you sound like an exceptionally dim and spiteful 7 year old trying to spoil Christmas for the smaller children by telling them Santa doesn't exist. We already know that, you unutterably dumb fuck.
What do you think regular Islamic prayer is? The muezzin? The kow towing? The washing and the greeting and the clothing and the submitting? It is daily life as ritual
Likewise, Protestant Christianity merely replaced the more overt outwards symbolism of Catholicism - smells and bells and icons - with an internalised ritual of words. The creeds and catechisms,. Hymn 138. The Book of Common Prayer. The Churching of Women. The idea it is not full of ritual is nonsensical. Religion IS ritual
You need to find a stupider forum to chat in
http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/panoramas/ENG/MALVERN.gif
104.5 to be exact
https://www.peakfinder.org/?lat=52.10470&lng=-2.33889&ele=425&azi=110.72&alt=2.89&fov=45&date=2020-06-27T12:42Z&cfg=s&teleazi=104.47&telealt=-0.51&name=Worcestershire Beacon
Top, top pedantry Sarissa!
Is there an issue with people from 'working class' backgrounds not filling those ranks? It seems so, but that seems a broader issue around who counts as working class now, and rising levels of tertiary education and professionalisation of the politicians. Are we really obsessed with class as much as we obsess about being obsessed about class? I'm doubtful, its only weirdos who bang on about it, and whilst I do think accent privilege is a thing that's not completely down to class.
As for masochistic, well, sure, even though there will undoubtedly be lots of complaints submitted that the coverage this past week has been unrelenting and over the top, it is what people seem to expect for the occasion. We wouldn't hear so much hundrum reporting on the rouals generally if enough people did not want to hear it. Is that masochistic? I'm not sure what that even means. Is it a bad thing that people don't mind or even expect some silly pageantry? That quite a few people have let themselves be emotionally swept up in things? Is the BBC, as state broadcaster, a bit of a shill for the establishment? Probably, but people are not brainwashed, no one can be made to enjoy that which they do not enjoy.
Elizabeth and indeed Charles to some extent are emblems of a leadership based on service, you certainly never saw the Queen on a billionaire's yacht or mixing only with celebrities, most of the time they were and are out and about meeting ordinary people without the deep division a party political head of state brings
Jury's out on protestantism, let's reserve judgement till after Monday's goings on. I'm sure the funeral will be the least ritualistic thing imaginable.
And, as you say, this fits the vast majority. The royalists can rest happy knowing that the king is in his castle. The republicans can ignore the king as he really doesn’t do very much. The majority, who are apathetic and tepidly royalist but don’t especially care, can get on with their shopping, even as they are reassured that the country is stable and continuing
It’s a good system, dependable and robust. Constitutional monarchy. No Donald Trump
And in these turbulent times, that is no small thing
There is perhaps more choice invested in the king over his successor than in most monarchies: he could choose to bestow the crown on a favoured nephew, or a second child. But that happened in the Middle Ages too, and it’s pretty much the way of things in the house of Saud.
NK should just accept reality and consider itself an absolutist monarchy.
@Reuters
This is the world's first flying bike. The XTURISMO hoverbike is capable of flying for 40 minutes and can reach speeds of up to 62 mph
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1570597966666207234
I think the current state of the world is enough to show that democracies, be they republics or otherwise, are certainly capable of backsliding, and it is perfectly possible for them to become practically like monarchies. Even when they are not they often adopt the trappings - working out of palaces, wearing sashes, behaving like a dick.
Buit I think that any 'return' would be in the de facto sense, drifting into a pseudo-monarchy. Without a convenient king figure to choose as figurehead a la Spain, how would one consciously pick who to be a power wielding king?
Your follow up, which I add below, is still describing ritual behaviour, you seem to be just saying 'Well these rituals are ok because they are different'. A relative lack of 'fripperies' doesn't make your or Islam's rituals less ritualistic, nor does the intent change that.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Ritual: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.
That yours about 'a community of believers equal in the sight of God' doesn't make them not a ritual. Why would it? That doesn't even make sense.
Yes Islam and Protestantism have forms of religious observance, but these are based on a community of believers equal in the sight of God. The arcane fripperies of traditional liturgy are just a barrier. They serve to put an establishment in control of events and to endorse existing social structures.
Great LOLs from Putin.
to be ritualistic. Organized religion tends towards the ritualistic.
The World would be a better place with more divinity and less organized religion.
What is true is that there are few absolutist monarchies with a dictator wearing the crown. Saudi, North Korea, UAE, Brunei, one or two micro-states. There are a few authoritarian monarchies with some semblance of democratic representation: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco. Then a number of Western European democracies which probably skew the stats a bit. The rest of the world is republics.
Rajpath, formerly called Kingsway, was a “symbol of slavery” under the British Raj, he said. Instead, under the newly named Kartavya Path that leads to the iconic India Gate, “a new history has been created,” Modi beamed.
His speech last Thursday was the latest in a concerted drive to purge India of its colonial relics. It was also a clear sign that the country, once the largest of Britain’s colonies that endured two centuries of imperial rule, has moved on.
The renovated avenue now boasts a black granite statue of Indian freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, in the place where a mold of King George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, once stood.
The queen’s death provoked sympathies to a deeply respected figure from some while for a few others, it jogged memories of a bloody history under the British crown. But among most regular Indians, the news was met with an indifferent shrug.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/once-britains-largest-colony-india-meets-queen-elizabeths-death-with-indifference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/06/13/pedal-driven-plane-flies-channel/3f6fedfb-47b9-41e3-9225-a28d907c271b/
MONARCHY = SOCIALISM!
Does ritual hold some negative connotation I am unaware of that we have to pretend various 'religious observances' are not rituals?
states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_monarchies
Ultra capitalist states like the USA or Singapore tend to be republics with a few absolute monarches in the Middle East, constitutional monarchies are virtually all in the middle somewhere, neither uber capitalist or uber socialist
However realpolitik also means that the West alone is not strong enough to contain Xi's China now (even if it is still strong enough to contain Putin's Russia). It needs India alongside
I like the categories
Commonwealth Realms - Self explanatory
'Other' European constituional monarchies - The Northern European crowd (and Spain)
European mixed monarchies - your tiddlers like Monaco
Muslim monarchies - absolute monarchies mostly in the middle east
East and southeast asian constitutional monarchies - the scandanavian monachies of their region
Other monarchies - miscellanrous others
Liked this one
Eswatini is increasingly being considered a diarchy. The King, or Ngwenyama, rules alongside his mother, the Ndlovukati, as dual heads of state originally designed to be checks on political power. The Ngwenyama, however, is considered the administrative head of state, while the Ndlovukati is considered the spiritual and national head of state, a position which has become largely symbolic in recent years.
And yes, ritual does have negative connotations to many Protestants, indeed it is why we are not Catholics or Anglican.
The great revolutionary accomplishments pioneered by the Great Leader Comrade KIM Il Sung must be succeeded and perfected by hereditary succession until the end. The firm establishment of the sole leadership system is the crucial assurance for the preservation and development of the Great leader's revolutionary accomplishments, while achieving the final victory of the revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Principles_for_the_Establishment_of_a_Monolithic_Ideological_System#Implementation
The current text is a little less direct, I guess
We must pass down the great achievement of the Juche revolution and the Songun revolution, pioneered by the great Comrade Kim Il-sung and led by Comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
Rites and practices, observances, there are probably many names for them. I think maybe if you'd just said ostentatious, hierarchical ritual is how religion is bent to serve the hierarchy, that I wouldn't have found the point countering itself.
Without India there's a lot less heft to the thing.
Individual was quickly taken to the floor by police officers and removed from the hall.
But other mourners at the Lying-in-State looked on in horror.
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1570895583757598722?s=20&t=yXTWat5vfR2m9i-W8yTX8w
Must have been earlier - there was a break in the feed.
At least it didn't happen with the King present.
Inevitable. Feel a bit sorry for those who had queued for 12 hours only to have their moment in the hall ruined.
Goodnight all.
The links from Elizabeth reaching back to the Victorian era go on.
From telegraph
Hundreds of people have collapsed in queue to see the late Queen’s coffin
Over 400 mourners have fallen ill in the line, with some suffering head injuries