A Tale of Two Elizabeths

 

Greetings from South Manchester on a cloudy day with hints of sun and blue sky. 

I am going to answer the usual Sunday Stealing questions (see later) but first I thought that I would talk about two ladies called Elizabeth who have made quite an impact to the UK this week. Apologies in advance for the rambling post – you can skip to the questions if you like.

First, the Queen of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth has died at the age of 96. She was known as Queen Elizabeth II and had a good innings both in terms of her age and also in terms of her reign, being the longest serving monarch in our history. She was on the throne for 70 years celebrating her platinum jubilee earlier this year. She was even working up to two days before her death on Thursday, accepting the resignation of Boris the Clown as Prime Minister and asking his successor to form a government the same day. More about that later.

She has been queen my entire life and it will be odd for us in the UK as now we have a new monarch, her son King Charles III who is king now but will be formally crowned in due course. Our new coins, notes etc. will bear his face and name alongside many other things and the transition will be gradual with many things like post boxes still bearing the ER insignia for a while, I imagine, rather than CR that will come soon.

So what do I think of all this? 

Regular readers know that I am not a royalist at all. With my hand on my heart, all I can say is that I am ambivalent to the Windsor family. I don’t hate them but I don’t love them either. When they appear on the news because one of them tripped up and fallen over in public, I tend to switch it off. To me they are just celebrities, born into the role and not people that I have the remotest interest in, a bit like reality TV stars. I have said that if I had met the queen, or if I ever meet the king, I would not follow etiquette. To me they are just people – not any better or worse than I am.

But now the UK has gone mad. The flagship TV channel BBC 1 has had wall to wall coverage of this news story, shelving all programmes since it happened (including today – Saturday) with 24 hour news about the queen and tribute after tribute from famous people all over the UK as well as politicians and tearful members of the public. There is not one bad word about her or her family. 

Most if not all celebrities and politicians have to praise her, or say how utterly fantastic she was, lest they are alienated and cancelled for saying anything bad or even hinting at any criticism. They are positively falling over each other to express their grief and praise. 

People who have never met her are pontificating all over the news and crying as if she were a member of their own family. 

She was arguably the most famous person in the world but I don’t understand it personally. Royalists reading this may frown at best upon reading these words – others will condemn me. I don’t really care. She was just another person to me – a famous one admittedly – who was a part of British culture. 

She has been part of my life at a distance for my entire 59 years on this island called Great Britain, so as I said above, it will be weird without her on the news all the time but I am not mourning her loss as royalists want me to. I just want the over-the-top coverage to stop now and for us to get on with life. We have enough problems in the UK without having to stop everything for one passing. 

I do hope she rests in peace and my thoughts are with her family but that is all.

Actually, one more thing will change. The National Anthem of the UK is called God Save the Queen. This, and the lyrics, will change to God Save the King. That will take a little getting used to.

This leads me onto the next Elizabeth I want to talk about. 

On Tuesday of this week, Queen Elizabeth II’s last major duty was to finally accept the resignation of the King of Clowns, Boris Johnson. Good riddance to the incompetent buffoon who was the worst Prime Minister that we have had in my lifetime (and possibly ever). His replacement is the second Elizabeth in this post – Elizabeth “Liz” Truss, the third female Prime Minister we have ever had. 

To say that Liz Truss is out of touch is a massive understatement. She may not be quite as bad as Boris Johnson (let’s face it – Ronald McDonald would have been a better Prime Minister) but her leadership campaign exposed her as being another bad leader. She already had a massive U-turn and refused to do an in-depth interview with a high profile BBC political journalist saying that “she didn’t have time”. 

The truth is that he probably would have torn her apart.

All she had to do was to convince 140,000 members of her party that she was up to the job – that’s 140,000 people deciding the future Prime Minister. I think that if a Prime Minister resigns, we should have a General Election because Liz Truss basically told this elite group of people what they wanted to hear.

You may think that I am getting ahead of myself in criticising her but her policies fill me with no confidence and she actually praised her predecessor. 

Anyway – here is a video of what we might have to suffer from her.

God help us!

Okay – now to the questions from Sunday Stealing: 

1. What flavour Popsicle is the best? 

In the UK, we call “popsicles” ice lollies and I used to love one that was around in the 1970’s called an Orange Maid – it is apparently still around today though I haven’t had one for about forty years. These days I tend to eat chocolate covered ice cream lollies called Magnum. Delicious.

2. Do you have a DVR feature with your cable? 

I have Sky TV which comes with a box capable of recording any program on any channel. What I tend to do is record entire series and watch them at my leisure and at the moment there is a lot of stuff to watch, including movies, documentaries, gigs and normal TV series. It’s so easy to use.

3. How many drawers does your dresser have? 

We have a couple of dressers scattered about the house. Two have four drawers and the biggest one in the second bedroom has six drawers (but is largely used to store non-clothing items.

4. Is your closet a mess? 

We don’t have a closet as such, just a cupboard under the stairs. Is it a mess? Partly. When you open the door you see some stuff on the floor like the vacuum cleaner and other similar household bits and pieces and some shelves that are neat and tidy containing all manner of files and books. To the left we hang coats but at the back it is a bit of a mess – mainly because it is difficult to get too. To be honest we should sort it out because we don’t actually know what is in there.

5. Have you ever solved a Rubik's Cube? 

I have never owned a Rubik’s cube even when everybody else seemed to have one. I have had a go at them but ultimately it would have wasted too much of my time, so I guess the answer is no.

6. Describe your favourite pair of pajama pants: 

We call them pyjamas in the UK – pronounced the same but spelt slightly differently, just like all of the American spellings I usually correct when answering these questions. We also call them jim-jams (well I do anyway because I am weird).

I just bought some new ones actually as winter is approaching. They are officially called “leisure wear” but I use them as pyjamas. One is black and the other a dark blue. Both are very nice and very comfy.

7. What colour is your wallet? 

My wallet is black. I like black wallets.

8. Do you find flea markets and thrift shops enjoyable? 

I don’t find shopping enjoyable so I am hardly likely to favour flea markets and thrift shops above any others.

9. Have you met amazing people online? 

I’ve met one fellow blogger once, a very sweet and funny Australian lady called Kath who has moved to Geneva, Switzerland. I caught up with her when I was working there. She actually wrote about the experience. You can read it here. 

I would be quite happy to meet other bloggers. 

10. Would you be happy if I coloured a picture for you? 

Sure – why not?

11. What show do you think 'made' the 90's? 

For me it was the science fiction epic Babylon 5. I absolutely loved it. I love Star Trek but this is much better (something that almost alienated me from a few die-hard trekkers I know). Here is a taste of what it is like:

Rumour has it that they are rebooting it. That will be amazing if it is true.

12. Are you happier now than you were last year? 

Personally I’m not sure. Certain events have unfolded over the course of the last twelve months both personal and otherwise that have challenged my usual content self. That said, the outlook now is on the up and I feel (hope) that next year will be better.

13. What are you currently drinking?

I am drinking a huge mug of decaffeinated tea. I prefer caffeinated (or full fat) tea but over the past few years I have all but eliminated caffeine from my diet. I feel better for it.

14. Do you trust people easily? 

I approach people positively and I hope that I can trust them but to be honest it depends on the person. I like to think I am a good judge of character and so far my trust has usually been well placed. I tend to avoid toxic and aggressive people although I will always be my usual friendly self, even to them.

15. What are you looking forward to in the next three months?

The first thing is my trip to Greece on Friday. Mrs PM and I are travelling to Zante for a week of relaxation and I can’t wait. 

We have also managed to slip in a weekend to country I have never been to before. Next month we are travelling to Copenhagen in Denmark for a long weekend. I am really looking forward to that because I have heard that the Danes are brilliant people. 

There also may be a university reunion in November, another trip abroad, this time to a city I have visited many time – Amsterdam. If that comes off, I will have been abroad five times this year. 

Of course three months includes Christmas, usually a busy time, and we have a couple of things planned with family and friends that should be good.

The Janus Men

There’s been a bit of a furore recently in the UK in the aftermath of the election of the new leader of the Labour Party, the current opposition party.

The new leader is a guy called Jeremy Corbyn, a man whose views are generally a little controversial. The right wing press have had the knives out ever since he put his name forward but, in my opinion have stooped to new depths.

The latest slur against Corbyn is that he was caught doing something absolutely despicable. As controversial as his views are, he has apparently committed a most evil crime against the country, an act bordering on being treasonous that has offended not only the establishment but the veterans of two World Wars and the Queen herself.

Evidently, he can stoop no lower.

So what is this hideous evil thing he has done?

I swear I am not making this up.

HE WAS CAUGHT NOT SINGING OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM!

Here are some of the headlines:

“Corb snubs the Queen” The Sun

“Corbyn snubs Queen and country” The Telegraph

“Shameful: Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem” Daily Express

“Fury as Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem at Battle of Britain memorial” – Daily Mail

“Corby a zero: Leftie refuses to sing national anthem” – Daily Star

This was front page news despite all of the other tragedy that is going on in the world.

Now I don’t really care what your political views are but this story is typical of the kind of shit that makes headlines in our country. I am convinced that we are becoming a nation of idiots who ignore the real tragedies in our own country and the rest of the world in favour of this misguided madness that fuels the fire of absurdity in the United Kingdom.

My views are summed up in this image:

Let me tell you some things about our national anthem.

It’s called God Save the Queen and it is one of the most boring anthems in the world.

It has six verses and of those people who know the words, only a handful actually know all of them.

The people of Scotland hate the anthem because, nestled away in verse six, are the words:

“May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush rebellious Scots to crush”

Here is the anthem:

I do hope you didn't fall into a coma listening to it.

If you are not religious and not a royalist then the song is meaningless to you.

I’ve been to England football matches and traditionally they play the national anthems of the teams involved. I don’t sing it and to be honest a lot of other people don’t either.

At the last cricket match I went to see involving England, they played Jerusalem:

Another candidate that other people have suggested be the anthem is Land of Hope and Glory:

I would probably sing both of those. because they are better than God Save the Queen, more upbeat and joyous. We want a bit of pomp when the anthem rings out and we want to sing about the country’s good points, not a dreary dirge about whoever the current monarch is.

I have nothing against royalty but I largely ignore them. I’ve said before on this blog that they serve a vague purpose but I have no desire to actually prostrate myself in front of Queen Elizabeth as if she really were a better person than me. I would sit and have a chat with her about her life but I would refuse to cave in to the expected social etiquette.

We don’t live in the times of Henry VIII.

For these reasons, I can understand why people are embarrassed to sing the anthem or simply refuse to do so.

Don’t get me wrong; I love my country but there are more important things to consider other than a politician being caught with his mouth closed when he should have been bellowing the words to an outdated song about the monarchy.

Sadly, he has caved in to pressure and will sing the anthem next time he has to in public, just to please a bunch of fawning royalists.

I mean, I thought that our country was free and you should be allowed to live your life as you please without having to fit in with outraged little Englanders.

What annoys me most about this is that the newspapers are claiming the moral high ground about this. It seems to have been forgotten that journalists who work for these papers have been guilty of attacking the royal family in the past. Do they think that we have forgotten about a certain newspaper hacking the voicemail of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne?

The hypocrisy is breath-taking.

What worries me most is that I am surrounded by people who believe absolutely everything they read in the newspapers and their views are moulded by the garbage that they read. There will be people who will never ever consider voting for Jeremy Corbyn because of these pathetic headlines.

The most disturbing hypocrisy has been the refugee crisis where certain newspapers have made a sudden about turn, showing themselves as total hypocrites.

Look at these contrasting headlines in The Sun and the Daily Mail:

Such two-facedness makes me sick.

I’ll end on a lighter note. Here is what Billy Connolly thinks should replace the national anthem:

I think I agree – as long as I can write the new lyrics.

That’s a subject for another post.