Wednesday 9 September 2015

63 years of keeping her gob shut


Yesterday it was - boringly - my 2222nd post, but just like you never notice when all the noughts roll up on the odometer of your old car, it took me a day to notice all the twos.

Today is also another numeric landmark, but a much longer one which is difficult to accurately recall without going to a news site. Our gracious Queen has just broken the record for reigning o'er us set by her Great, Great Grandmother - Victoria - by one day. Hurrah.

For all of you screaming, right-wing nutters out there who accuse me of being a screaming left-wing loony, I will say again that I am a Royalist and as any fool knows, the monarchy and Marxism do not sit well together, so how can I be?

The only difference between me and the blue-rinsed old grannies who sleep rough on pavements all night just to get a glimpse of Her Maj is that I think that the monarchy should be re-invested with all the political power that they used to have prior to, and at the beginning of Victoria's reign. Actually, most - if not all - of the blue-rinsers are most likely dead by now, but they still have their equivalents in all the single mothers who wear blue jeans and white high-heels to line the roads of her stately progress whilst forcing their bemused, pre-school age children to wave plastic Union Flags ('Who is that old lady?').

You see? How can a Corbyn-like left-winger be so snobbish? It doesn't stand to reason.

Why does the Queen not give us a hint about what she thinks about any number of political issues? Because she is instilled with a sense of duty to represent the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not just a handful of parties who pretend to represent it.

Victoria set the trend by helping to abolish slavery more than most of Wilberforce's successors, and her attitude toward any racism - overt or otherwise - was way ahead of its time. After Albert died, an Indian man and a Scotsman became her closest confidants. She kept a diary - in Arabic. That's more than you can say of most of the foreign policy advisors from SOAS these days.

Never mind about the strains and stresses of 150 public appearances every year, interspersed with interminable meetings and banquets with various tedious or unpleasant Heads of State, the biggest sacrifice she must have made is to have to sit back and watch bastards like Tony Blair tear the country apart, bit by bit, without being able to say a thing about it.

I have heard that she got on very well with Margaret Thatcher, though - a fellow blue-rinser?

20 comments:

  1. She's always seemed like a very 'nice' person to me. I don't imagine she looses her rag too often; unless it's with Phil or the dogs.

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    1. I think the more noble you are, the less dignified it is to lose your rag, but I would imagine Philip to be a little testing now and then.

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  2. 2222 posts! And I would say you've made 22 good friends here, which is just as important. By that I mean 21 plus me, of course.

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  3. I wish I was Queen, but then again, as an introvert, I'd never be able to do all those public duties. I love her. Can't imagine anyone not. She is a saint in my book.

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  4. I've never had a blue rinse, nor have I slept rough on the pavement but I think the Queen and everything she does is amazing

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    1. Then you don't know her as I do. The laughs we have had at Balmoral over Christmas time!

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  5. Her audiences with the Prime Minister on a Friday are very important, even if they only make the merest smidgen of a difference, it is good that they have to face her. I believe she got on well with Major.

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    1. Yes, Major was pulled out of the cupboard to comment this morning. He speaks with the authority of whatever that cut is called who does all the royal tributes these days.

      I have met Charles, and a warmer hand I have never grasped in Winter time.

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    2. Nicholas Witchell. Major was an honest man, probably one of the most honest PM's ever.

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    3. That's the fellow. Yes, Major was grey, but honest. I still cannot come to terms with the notion of shagging Edwina Curry though. That showed real courage.

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  6. I love the duke of Edinburgh too - he blithely lets it all go over his head and just provides the odd funny joke and a lot of support.

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    1. Yes, like commenting on the wiring in some factory - "Looks like it's been wired by a load of Indians !" or, to some Papua New Guinean tribesmen: "Do you still chuck spears at each other?"

      I love him for his Jeremy Clarkson appeal.

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  7. God Save the Queen ! The only monarch I remember . We had a street party for the kids when she was crowned.

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    1. And then there were the supplements in the papers with lots of pictures of the royal family.
      I think she should have been given more political power, would have been interesting to see her with Jeremy Corbyn.......

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    2. She might live to attend weekly meetings with Mr Corbyn yet.

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