A Strange Family

Some people might consider me to be a bit strange but as far as I know my family history is a normal one. Of course, that might not be true and I may uncover some weirdness in my ancestors when I eventually get around to tracing my genealogy.

However, I doubt I will find anything as odd as the family that supposedly rule our country – the Royal Family.

People in Britain, either love them or loathe them. I’m indifferent to them if I’m honest.

Given our history, I find them fascinating in their eccentricity. Here are some odd things perhaps you never knew about the Queen and her clan.

Judge for yourself which one is the oddest.

(1) The Royal Family don’t have surnames. The Queen’s name is Elizabeth II and while she is supposed to belong to the House of Windsor, apparently nobody calls her Elizabeth Mary Alexandra Windsor.  When Kate Middleton married Prince William, she lost her surname (how careless) and became “Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge”.

(2) The Queen has won thousands of awards. Apparently Elizabeth has been awarded well over 380,000 honorary awards – for doing what I don’t know. I would imagine that smiling isn’t one of them because these days we rarely see her smile.

(3) It is illegal for anyone of her subjects to stand within 100 yards of the Queen when not wearing socks. I would love to see the powers that be enforce this law. Also, if you misuse a postage stamp containing the image of the Queen, it is considered an act of treason. I suspect this is why the Post Office has now made stamps sticky enough to apply to the envelope without licking it. Thank God for that! That sticky stuff on the back of stamps tastes disgusting.

(4) King Charles II decreed that there must be at least six ravens in the Tower of London because, he thought, that if they fly away then the monarchy will implode and fail and Britain will collapse in a heap of raven shit. I think politicians are doing a good job of trying to break Britain without these bloody ravens – but we won’t descend into politics at this stage.

(5) The Queen is the Duke of Lancaster, rather than Duchess. This is because Queen Victoria regarded a Duke as superior to a Duchess therefore gave herself (and all of those who would follow her on the throne) that masculine title.

(6) The Queen has two birthdays – her actual birthday in April and a made up (and more traditional one) in June. Lucky her!

(7) The Queen is not legally obliged to have a passport or driving license. She is the most travelled person in Britain, I guess and I have seen photos of her behind the wheel. I wonder who taught her to drive. I imagine that he was forced to pass her even if she was a terrible driver.

(8) It is illegal to die in any Royal building. That means the Tower of London isn’t a Royal building because Henry VIII had an absolutely amazing time butchering people there by proxy. It does make me wonder about what would happen were an MP to die in the Houses of Parliament. What can they do to him? Give him a jail sentence?

(9) The Queen no longer has any real power. These days that is up to the government or as she refers to it “my government”. When we go to war it is the Prime Minister who declares this – not the Queen. She has no say on the matter.

(10) The Queen owns all swans on the River Thames. These swans are actually marked with a ring. Moreover she owns all swans in open water in the UK – but perhaps it’s too difficult and dangerous to catch the nasty hissing buggers. Even more strangely she owns all sturgeons, dolphins and whales in British waters. So if a whale pops into our waters on its way to a holiday somewhere else, for that brief period of time, it is the Queen’s pet.

(11) Apparently the Queen can fire the entire Australian government. I doubt whether this is still true but she must have been sorely tempted to exercise this right when Tony Abbott was the man in charge down under. Sorry – shouldn’t do politics!

(12) The Queen is immune from prosecution. I suspect if she were to beat up Piers Morgan in a fit of rage (who wouldn’t want to do that?) she might be forced to abdicate. If she did that she would go up in my estimation.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. I’m sure if we delve deeper we can uncover even more weirdness and eccentricity.

I need to be careful though – as one of her “loyal subjects” I might end up in the Tower of London for this post.

 I’ll have to learn how to cook raven pie!

The Eccentric Englishman

I read a news article about David Bowie last week in which he was described as the perfect example of an eccentric Englishman.

And that got me thinking (which is always a dangerous thing).

It’s well known that we, as a nation, are considered a little weird by our European cousins, and, dare I say, by the rest of the world. Eccentricity is in our genes and we express ourselves in bizarre ways.

If you don’t believe me, here are two examples.

First, we have gurning competitions.  Are you wondering what gurning is? It’s basically pulling a funny face and we have competitions throughout the country.

(Cheeky) people have suggested that I could win the World Gurning Championship with very little effort whatsoever.

Second, we have Morris Dancing. I used to work with a Morris Dancer and she turned up to a fancy dress party, clad in her full regalia, whereupon, after a couple of glasses of wine, she stunned us all by performing a solo Morris Dance in the middle of a crowded room, with lots of applause, mainly because we appreciated the eccentric nature of her display. She was passionate about her art, so passionate that she eventually married a fellow Morris Dancer. I wasn’t invited to the wedding but I can imagine that the entertainment would have involved bells, waving hankies and shaking sticks.

Here’s an example of Morris Dancing:

Strange, isn’t it?

There are more examples of British weirdness, such as cheese rolling and bog snorkelling that may make any foreigner wonder whether we are all slightly unhinged.

While the whole world has produced eccentrics, I feel that we have more than our fair share.

We have people like Paloma Faith, Noel Fielding, Eddie Izzard,  Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed  and, though it pains me to say it, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson could be a future Prime Minister - God help us all!

Brian Blessed - "GORDON'S ALIVE!!!"

Eddie Izzard - Very funny and very surreal

Noel Fielding in one of his more sensible moments

Ozzy will soon have a frog in his throat.

Paloma Faith? Eccentric? HA HA HA!!

Stephen Fry - A man so intelligent it makes the rest of us look totally thick!

Of course, there are honorary foreign eccentrics worth a mention too, like Björk and Lady Gaga but I like to think that these people are also outrageous, something that we Englishmen are a little reluctant to be (with the possible exception of Ozzy Osbourne).

To be honest, when you look at the royal family, and the upper classes there are many weird people mingling in those big houses and palaces.

Possibly my favourite is Prince Phillip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, a man who constantly makes us cringe with his ill-considered outbursts. Political correctness isn’t one of his strong point.

"Have I embarrassed you again, my dear?"

Here are some of the things he has said:

(To a Scottish driving instructor) “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough for them to get them through the test?”

(To a 13 year old boy while visiting the Space Shuttle) “Well, you’ll never fly in it. You’re too fat to be an astronaut.”

(To a female sea cadet) “Do you work in a strip club?”

(To a Kenyan woman) “You are a woman, aren’t you?”

Eccentricity is a Scottish trait too as I discovered last Saturday when I attended a Burns Ball. That sounds a lot ruder than it is – I will reveal all in my next post.

I’ll leave you with a song by Paloma Faith that I actually like (much to Mrs PM’s utter shock):