Thursday, April 21, 2016 

90 glorious years.

From world war to World War Z, reluctant heir to hair apparent, Lilibet to I'm now so old that my pussy is haunted, Septicisle reflects on nine decades that have shaped a royal dynasty.

1926-1936: The nappy years
When the home secretary, Sir Tolbert Jingobird-Pustule is torn away from the pressing matter of giving his manservant a damn good thrashing to witness the birth of Princess Elizabeth, no one imagines that the ugly little bag of flesh and bones, remarked upon by the Queen Mother to more resemble the royal wastepaper bin after one of her gin parties than a child, will be Queen.  Elizabeth, soon known to everyone as Lilibet after the amount of drink she is slipped most nights by her parents to shut her up, was third in line to the throne.  Growing up in a life of the utmost privilege, Lilibet spends most of her days chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool, shooting peasants outside of nothing I put here is going to scan, is it?

1936-1946: That American woman, and mass death
Entering her teenage years Lilibet dreams of nothing more than being a country fishwife, settling down and spending her days nagging away at a husband, who as a matter of course cheats on her on a regular basis.  This is all shattered when her uncle Teddy insists on marrying some American brass everyone regards as a bit common and is duly forced to abdicate.   Now second in line after her father, who apart from his Kingly duties stars in a film about declaring war on Germany but not being able to get the right words out, a happenstance that ends with life imitating art, Elizabeth hides her parents' contraceptives in an attempt to escape her fate.

Happily, she shortly afterwards meets "Blockhead" Phil of Greece at Royal Navy College Croydon, where the straight-talking seagull puncher is the only student in the entire school not to be a raving homosexual.  Noted royal commentator Vincent Bandersnatch described it as destiny.  It was in an attempt to meet Phil that Elizabeth and Margaret famously sneaked out from Buckingham Palace into the crowds on VE Day, only for the pair to become caught up in the moment and get drunk on half a pint of Watneys Red Barrel.

1946-56: Apple pie and dressing up
In a still garlanded radio broadcast, Liz pledges to "devote" herself to "your service".  This is an offer quickly taken up by the rest of the royal household, the future Queen banished to the backstairs for months on end as punishment for showing them up.  She and Phil marry in November 1947, despite it being well known to all, including Liz, that Phil spent the night before the event in the bed of prominent society hostess Kitty Malone.  Malone dies in mysterious circumstances within a week.  Most of the royal families of Europe are invited to the wedding, except Phil's sisters who married Germans, naturally, and Ted and his tart, whom spent the war years trying their best to convince the rest of the royals that Hitler wasn't a bad sort really, just misunderstood.  It is on a trip to what Phil calls "Bongo Bongo Land" that George IV dies from complications arising from his haemorrhoids, and Lilibet the Unlikely duly becomes Queen.

1956-66: Tramp stamps and Johnny Foreigner
With the country at war with Egypt, Phil puts the royal household on a similar footing.  Servants are shot at dawn for the most minor of alleged misdemeanours, while savage beatings are administered by the precocious Charles as punishment for not wiping his backside properly. The young prince is soon known to everyone alternately as both Ronnie and Reggie.  Exposed in the News of the World, the prime minister Rab C Nesbitt orders that Charles be sent to borstal; instead Nesbitt is found hanged the next day.  After a drunken frisson with a Hackney sex worker in December of 1963, Phil is arrested.  The entire matter is quickly hushed up, but not before the press gets wind of a VIP with a tattoo of a crown on his lower back having been accused of cottaging.

(Continues interminably for thousands of pages, broadcast hours, Commons debates, etc)

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/21/2016 05:45:00 pm | |

Wednesday, September 09, 2015 

Long may she reign.

Tributes were paid today to a woman who has spent the past 63 years on the toilet.

The lady, Bessie Warhammer the IIIrd, 96, from Cleethorpes, was diagnosed with Hopkins' dysentery, an especially virulent and incurable form of the infection in 1952.  Although it is not known at precisely what time Warhammer took to the brick shithouse in her back garden, it is believed her lengthy reign on the porcelain telephone has now broken the record previously set by Lady Victoria Price, who famously suffered so badly from incontinence that she walked around with a convenience strapped to her at all times.

Leading the messages of encouragement was prime minister David Cameron.  Speaking in the Commons, he described Warhammer's long battle with the sewage system as "truly humbling".  "Bessie has such a sense of selfless service that she thought today should just be an ordinary day.  When so much else has changed, that one woman could have made the sacrifices she has, not seeing her children grow up, witnessing her house burn down and being unable to do anything about it as she was indisposed, refusing to lower the Warhammer standard when Princess Diana died, things we can hardly begin to imagine, on today of all days her honour must be recognised.  Truly, her smallest room struggle has been the brown thread running through three post-war generations."

In one of her final acts as interim Labour leader, Harriet Harman added that it was "no exaggeration" to say Warhammer was "admired by dozens around the world".  "Many of those people are still having to poo in a hole in the ground, and Bessie's story reminds them that they too can aspire to live in a toilet of their very own.  The Labour party will do everything it can to help them achieve those dreams."

Speaking from the specially constructed bathroom in the nursing home where she now lives, Warhammer maintained the understated air she has become known for.  "This was not a title to which I have ever aspired, but I thank everyone for their touching messages of great kindness.  Now will someone please put me out of my fucking misery?"

In other news:

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

9/09/2015 08:04:00 pm | |

Tuesday, August 13, 2013 

Waiting for kingship.

Here's a question that doesn't seem to have an answer: just how long does it take someone to prepare to become king?  Depending on whether you measure it from when Mumsie became Queenie, or from when little Prince Charlie was born, the one and only Duchy Original has either been waiting in vain for 61 or 64 years.  Despite being the longest serving heir apparent in British history though (® Wikipedia), it seems he still isn't quite ready to take on the reins, at least if we're to believe successive governments.  Both the coalition and the last Labour government vetoed the release of 27 letters written by Charles to ministers over a seven-month period, although it was left to Dominic Grieve to explain this was necessary as to prevent anyone falling under the misapprehension that Chaz wasn't politically neutral when expressing his "most deeply held personal views and beliefs", when all he was merely doing was "preparing for kingship".

This latest defence of our glorious Prince of Wales comes after the Mail discovered that since 2010, Charles has had just the 36 meetings with ministers (or 53, if you count the ones with juniors as well).  That this is almost certainly more than some of those ministers have had with the prime minister is clearly nothing to be concerned about; no, according to Tim Loughton, one of those lucky enough to have dunked biscuits with his royal highness, it's a "grotesque caricature" to portray these meetings as lobbying sessions.  Rather, ol' big ears is a concerned citizen who just so happens to have the influence to get personal sessions with senior politicians, and he's "well briefed and knowledgeable", the engagements even "hugely beneficial".  Again, these meetings also help him to prepare for his "future role as king".

Indeed, Clarence House presents these cosy arrangements as being the "Prince's right", even his "duty", to bring his "unique perspective" and "reflect the many issues people raise with him personally".  If we were being cynical, which we're obviously not, then we might suggest at this point that discussions that consist precisely of Charles regaling ministers with all the jobs people he's met do might be a bit dull.  Clearly though, Charles is nothing if not a sponge, soaking up the concerns of ordinary people only to then drench the minister unlucky enough to have picked the short straw this month.

The first question then leads to a second.  If Chaz's preparing for kingship only ends once he's crowned, then just how did Brenda herself get ready to become queen?  Did she start preparing to become queen only once she was heir presumptive, was it from birth, or was it from when she took on public duties during WWII?  Did this involve bringing her "unique perspective" on how the war could be brought to an end sooner, or did she perhaps confine her views to the nationalisations of the Labour government after 1945?  Was there a meeting between Ernest Bevin and Liz on what should be done about India, maybe, or have a chat with Nye Bevan about the establishment of the NHS and the possible inclusion of homoeopathy?

Whichever it was, Lilibet prepared for her queenship for only a fraction of the time Charles has been doing so, and most tend to agree that on the whole, she's been fairly good at it.  Isn't it then perhaps time that the heir stopped preparing and maybe started, err, acting like an actual monarch?  Or is that too terrible a prospect for all concerned to consider?

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

8/13/2013 06:35:00 pm | |

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 

A plastic newspaper, edited to mislead.

When it comes to taking comments out of context, or to be accurate, deliberately misconstruing them, the hatchet job being performed on Hilary Mantel comes second only to the monstering Jeremy Clarkson received in late 2011 when his joke on the One Show was misunderstood by nincompoops.  "Venomous", says the Daily Mail's front page, Mantel savaged for daring to suggest the People's Kate is perhaps a little dull, as though she was "machine-made" for her role as duchess and (eventual) queen.  "Completely wrong and misguided", says David Cameron, taking a break from selling weapons to foreign johnnies to talk to the media, and what's more, she's "a fantastic ambassador for Britain".

A comment which says pretty much everything about how politics now sees the royal family.  Almost 80 years ago the then prime minister tried but ultimately failed to persuade Edward the VIII not to abdicate; now their usefulness extends only to how they influence Brand Britain.  As for how the rest of us view a family on welfare that is most certainly exempt from the bedroom tax, much of it comes from a media that doesn't really know what to do with them, post-Diana.  Once the likes of the Mirror urged royal princesses to make their mind up on whether to marry or not; now the closest they get is pondering as to whether they should publish incredibly grainy shots of Kate in a bikini.  The Sun might print Harry buck naked, covering his crown jewels with his hands, or indeed put a model wearing just a bikini and a pout on its front page the day after her violent death, but to publish snatched shots of a pregnant princess is now beyond the pale.

The end result of this decision as to which members of the royal family should be protected or venerated and which should be mocked or held in contempt is, as always, the most cynical humbug and hypocrisy.  While none of the papers would touch the shots of Kate on holiday with a barge pole, they will of course describe her as "putting her bump on parade" when she does venture out into the glare of the cameras.  Harry, meanwhile, used as a propaganda prop by the MoD, was treated even worse, his "comments" about killing Taliban which were in fact nothing of the sort becoming the story in part because of his open disgust for the media as made clear in the interview.  No one can say anything even slightly detrimental about Brenda herself, while it's all but permanent open season on Charles and her other two sons.

Even the most cursory glance at Mantel's speech makes clear that she is not saying unequivocally that Kate is an automaton, without character or personality or any of the other things that the Mail and other papers have got up in arms about, but rather that this is how the media and indeed the royals themselves have constructed her image.  Mantel writes in her very first paragraph that she "saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung", not that she is, or was.  Mantel sees her like this because this is how either the royals or the media want her to be seen, and in her view, it's as far from the image of Diana, as she was presented and later presented herself as it's possible to imagine.  The worst that can be said about Mantel's depiction of Kate is as the Heresiarch says, it comes across occasionally as "gratuitously mean", even if it also seems to be all but confirmed by the responses from Cameron and the boss of her charity.

More intriguing though is quite how far Mantel appears to fall for the cult of Diana.  This entire paragraph, taken from mid-way through the speech is almost certainly a shoe-in for the next Pseuds Corner:


In the next stage of her story, she passed through trials, through ordeals at the world’s hands. For a time the public refrained from demanding her blood so she shed it herself, cutting her arms and legs. Her death still makes me shudder because although I know it was an accident, it wasn’t just an accident. It was fate showing her hand, fate with her twisted grin. Diana visited the most feminine of cities to meet her end as a woman: to move on, from the City of Light to the place beyond black. She went into the underpass to be reborn, but reborn this time without a physical body: the airy subject of a hundred thousand photographs, a flicker at the corner of the eye, a sigh on the breeze.

A sticky stain on the newspaper, perhaps?  Quite why Diana continues to inspire this kind of almost idolatry is unclear: Mantel describes her as both receptive and passive, but she was also manipulative and more than capable of playing the media at their own game.  Her Panorama interview with Martin Bashir is the ultimate example of the underdog turning the tables on her accusers, and while she may have been uninformed by history as Mantel writes, she succeeded in writing her own.  Charles undoubtedly deserves all he gets and more, yet the idea that there were three people in the marriage is to completely forget about Diana's lovers, as indeed she wanted the public to.

That slight diversion into pretension aside, Mantel's speech is beautifully written, and if nothing else its seizure by the Mail means that many more will read and hear it than otherwise would have done.  I haven't read any of her novels so can't comment on how they ultimately play out, but her speech portrays the monarchy as a centuries long tragedy, and brings out the loneliness and futility of being a part of it, whether it be the guests at Buckingham Palace avoiding speaking to Brenda or the detritus of the event Charles was attending which he must notice everywhere he goes.  Where I part company with the Heresiarch is when he says "Kate herself is an entirely blameless woman, doing her best to make sense of her bizarre role in national life".  The second part is certainly true, and she may well be blameless, but she most definitely did have a choice as to whether or not to join the entire rotten institution.  She may not be able to control the way she has since been projected, or how her sister (or just a part of her anatomy) has been made into a sex object in her stead, but she didn't have to go along with the pantomime.  And ultimately, that's why she has to put up with the occasional jibe thrown her way, misconstrued in repetition or otherwise.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

2/19/2013 07:41:00 pm | |

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 

An absurd decision for an absurd institution.

In the year of Brenda's diamond jubilee, you expect there to be a certain amount of royal bum-licking, just as you expect those Tory MPs still over-awed by the sheer majesty of generations of inbreeding to jump on anyone daring to suggest the monarchy isn't the most magnificent institution on the planet.  When the brown nosing reaches the heights it did in David Cameron's Conservative party conference speech though, where he described Lillibet as the "finest head of state on earth", it's difficult not to be staggered by the level of cynicism involved in such a statement.  

Never mind the implication that, regardless of the flaws of democracy and the individuals who put themselves forward for such a position, the hereditary passing on of patronage is still a superior system in the 21st century, it's the absurdity of saying such a thing at all.  Why celebrate the Queen's actual position when you can celebrate the person?  And moreover, why say it when it's the equivalent of saying The Sun is the best tabloid newspaper in the world, or indeed that Katie Price is the best topless model turned one person brand in the world?

This is the kind of mindset you have to enter in to to even begin to comprehend the decision by Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, to veto the release of 27 letters written by Prince Charles to various government departments over a seven-month period during 2004 and 2005, as ordered by a freedom of information tribunal.  The Guardian has been trying for 7 years to get the letters released under the FoI legislation, and is now considering appealing against the decision by successive governments not to do so at the High Court.

To judge by what we know of Chaz's personal interests, you'd imagine that the letters in question must be terminally boring.  Tessa Jowell spoke today of his interest in the "perceived lack of traditional skills such as stone masonry and hedge laying", which you can file alongside his fascination with chocolate box architecture, homeopathy, fox hunting and the dangers of nanotechnology.  Not a bit of it, if we're to believe Grieve. 

According to his statement, were these 27 letters to be released, there's the very real danger that Charles would be seen to be disagreeing with government policy, endangering his party political neutrality.  Moreover, the letters while containing nothing improper, do reflect his "most deeply held personal views and beliefs" and "are in many cases particularly frank".  At the same time however, Grieve argues that Charles is doing nothing more than engaging in what would fall under the "tripartite convention" once he becomes monarch, whereby he is perfectly allowed to make his own personal views known to ministers.  Hence his lobbying of them is simply part of his "preparing for kingship".

As arguments go, this has to be one of the most spectacularly fatuous to have been given by an otherwise decent minister for some time.  If we take Grieve at his word, his statement implies that the next in line to the throne (or indeed, any of the others who come after Charles in the line of succession, as you never know when we might have a Nepalese style massacre on our hands) is preparing for their ascent to the throne from the moment they are born until they either become monarch or die waiting.  Anything they write to a minister, regardless of how inappropriate or party political, is therefore part of their preparation for their future role.  Despite it being us serfs who pay for the royals to continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed, we're not allowed to know how they lobby in private and how this might influence government policy because, err, it might encourage us to believe they're not politically neutral after all.  We're meant to just take at face value the insistence of ministers that they are.  Indeed, if we were to know, then it would damage the very concept of "preparing for kingship".

And so ministers of the capability of Grieve have to humiliate themselves to ensure that the rantings of a Prince are protected and the monarchy as a whole is not embarrassed.  There's a very simple choice here for Charles: either emulate your mother and let your views be known truly in private, or renounce your title and join the rest of us proles at the back of the queue in getting our letters read and answered.  Alternatively, we could just decide that Elizabeth the II will also be Elizabeth the Last, solving the whole wretched problem. Clearly though, when the Saxe-Coburgs make for the "finest head[s] of state on earth", homeopaths or not, the end of this rotten anomaly seems as far away as ever.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

10/17/2012 09:52:00 pm | |

Tuesday, July 03, 2012 

Because they're worth it.

Here's a teaser: when does a journey of 542 miles cost £19,583? Stumped? Staggered that even the most exclusive charter company would ever dream of demanding nearly 20 grand to take a couple from Aberdeen to London? You shouldn't be. For this couple were, of course, members of the royal family. In the aftermath of last year's riots, it was decided that Charles and Camilla were needed to travel to the capital to show some sympathy for those who had lost everything. Rather than thinking it would make better sense to go first class by train and perhaps delay the feel your pain tour for a day, with the money saved going to a fund for the victims, they of course jumped straight on a plane. Today the Graun reports that thousands of claims for compensation following the riots have been rejected, while one couple whose flat was destroyed by fire received less than £2,000 in damages.

£19,583 is, it must be said, relatively cheap when set against the £67,215 expense of chartering a jet to fly Big Ears to Saudi Arabia to commiserate with the lovely ruling clique there on a death in the family. The Duke of Gloucester meanwhile went on a similar jaunt to Tonga, costing an incredible £91,381, while Edward and Sophie went to the human rights paradise Bahrain, a snip at a mere £18,068. Overall, £6.1m went on ferrying the royals about the place in the style to which they've become accustomed.

We have to keep in mind, you see, that as individuals we only pay 52p each a year for the entire shower, a sum which will now barely get you a Mars bar from the local corner shop. Frankly I'd rather have the chocolate but we have to accept that for some strange reason that the first people to be famous simply because they're famous are incredibly popular. Who cares if all they do is wander around, shake hands with the occasional unpleasant person and then go back to being waited on for the rest of the day? £19,583 is clearly a small price to pay for the effect that Chaz 'n' Cams must have had on those they visited, even if Haringey isn't exactly what you'd call a hotbed of royalism.

Why then should be we worry about little things like how that £19,583 could have paid for a whole year's worth of Jobseeker's Allowance for 5 people unable to find work? Quite clearly we shouldn't because, to judge by the number of sanction referrals coming from those companies contracted to provide the Work programme, most of those on the benefit are workshy ingrates who need some very tough love to get them back into the jobs market. Collectively, they asked the Jobcentre to sanction claimants on 111,000 occasions, with the advisers agreeing with their decisions less than a third of the time. Sanctions vary from benefit being cut to being stopped all together, for periods ranging from a week up to six months. As Richard Whittell from Corporate Watch put it, at the current rate more will have lost their benefit through the Work programme than been employed through it.

This it seems is the new reality of the welfare state under the coalition. Where Labour brought in the Work Capability Assessment, administered by Atos, currently inflicting misery on thousands of the disabled and sick who are being told they are in fact fit for work, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have turned their attention to punishing the unemployed despite there not being enough jobs to go round, or the economic growth needed for the Work programme to operate with even the slightest chance of success. It doesn't matter that this is self-defeating, as shown by how a small percentage of those placed on Mandatory Work Activity ended up on Employment and Support Allowance as an apparent result of being forced to work for their meagre £71.00 a week, it goes down well with the hard pressed that do have jobs. An ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph found that an overwhelming 56% thought the benefit system was too generous as it stands, with only 12% saying it should be more generous, and 24% thinking it was about right. 48% said that JSA should be time-limited, with 36% disagreeing. There were more even splits on some of the other specific policies David Cameron set out in his speech last Monday, but nothing that will make the Tories think again about trying to ram through such changes.

For as John Harris sets out, to be on benefits at the moment is an incredibly lonely place. About the only support you're likely to receive is from the unions, as politicians of all hues are terrified of being seen as soft on scroungers. The Labour party, rather than directly opposing the abolition of housing benefit for the under 25s, instead concentrates on criticising the administration, rather than the changes in criteria, seeing this as a "safe" area where it won't face the opprobrium of the Daily Mail. Those on the Labour benches who have previously spoken out, such as Emily Thornberry, brought up on a council estate by a single mother reliant on benefits, have gone silent. Individual MPs, whose constituency caseloads must be overflowing with the fallout from those told they no longer qualify for ESA, are also being slow to admit how many people the system is currently failing.

As the largesse thrown towards not just the royals but also the Olympics shows, the idea that there's no money left or that we can no longer afford an "unreformed" welfare state is a nonsense. It comes down to a choice of how we want our society to look like, as David Cameron acknowledged last week. When we can subsidise the chartering of jets by our social betters to foreign climes simply because another royal in a far away land has died, or pay the likes of A4E the equivalent of £11,000 for every person they manage to get in work, then we must be able to provide people with living standards that ensure they don't have to rely on food banks. My fear is the same as John Harris's and that of the police: that rather than improving, things have only got worse since last year's riots. The exclusion some are going to feel when Olympics fever is shoved down their throats is hardly going to help, and with the police liable to being even more trigger happy than usual while the greatest show on earth is on, it's hard not to see the potential for a situation similar to the one in the aftermath of the shooting of Mark Duggan arising again. And if it does happen, they can't say this time that they haven't been warned.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

7/03/2012 06:46:00 pm | |

Wednesday, June 06, 2012 

The shape of things to come.

As you might have noticed, I decided not to pass too much comment on the jubilee. With the exciting four days of fun, frolics and relentless sycophancy finally past, it would have been nice if the same policy had been adopted in general. Almost every single article or broadcast could have been done in advance, with a sub or work experience kid left to edit them as appropriate, such was the predictability of it all. From the papers on the right that couldn't hold themselves back in praise of this Britain that they wish still existed, to the Guardian treating the whole thing semi-ironically, everything you expected to be written was and nothing that might have enlivened proceedings was allowed to puncture the atmosphere of stifling conformity.

It also proves once and for all that whatever the BBC does, it will get criticised for it. Having decided to televise the Thames pageant almost in its entirety, it was left with the task of making something inherently tedious that lasts for hours as interesting as it possibly could. This it did by not focusing wholly on the sight of boats slowly making their way along the river, but by occasionally switching to segments presented by the likes of Tess Daly and Fearne Cotton. Asking for it as this perhaps was, the idea that these segments were in any way worse than the interminable shots of the Queen and the rest of the family, equally bored as the rain poured down, is ludicrous. If the BBC hadn't brown nosed enough (and it's worth remembering that the tabloids complained that Peter Sissons wasn't wearing a black tie when he announced the Queen Mother's death) then the press would have screamed just as loudly; as it turns out, if anything the Beeb's been critiqued for being too obsequious, but then it always has been towards the royals. Anyone subsequently claiming that the organisation is dominated by Trots should be forced to watch the BBC's entire output of the last four days, Ludovico technique style.

Doubly ironic is that Monday's concert, widely regarded as the best of a bad lot, was entirely funded and produced by... the Beeb. Then again, it didn't exactly have much to compete with, especially when so many in the face of all evidence declared that the torrential rain on Sunday hadn't dampened the pageant, and if anything improved it. Yes, some really do seem to be back in the old habit of trying to convince themselves that regardless of how bleak everything seems, the reality is that Britain always comes up trumps when the moment arrives. And look at the selfless dedication of the monarch and hangers-on regardless of the unpleasant conditions: they sat there and shivered like everyone else! Hardly anyone dared to suggest that the whole thing would have been a bit shit even if there hadn't been a cloud in the sky; about the closest we got was Simon Jenkins suggesting it would have made sense to postpone it until a clear day, and that some of the rowers, having been on the water for 8 hours, were angry and in distress by the end.

The whole weekend suggested though that if there's one thing the establishment doesn't have, it's sense. You would have imagined for example that there would have been hundreds, if not thousands of people prepared to volunteer to act as stewards for the Sunday, even if they required a crash course to do so. The last thing you thought would have been allowed to happen was for some of the job to be farmed out not just to the private sector, but to firms taking part in the DWP's inaccurately named work programme. Having been burned over those forced to work for their benefits in the likes of Poundland and Tesco, only something on the scale of making a group of the unemployed stand in the rain for 16 hours, having dumped them under London Bridge at 3am without anywhere to sleep, wash or change clothes could reignite the protests over workfare. The juxtaposition of hereditary patronage, unearned wealth and class superiority all being fawned over while this sad crew monitors it for either £2.80 an hour or sweet Fanny Adams, with the empty promise of a job doing the same at the Olympics the only sweetener really couldn't be starker.

Downing Street shoots back that it was a "one-off" and that Close Protection UK has apologised. In truth, they only thing they've said sorry about was dumping them under London Bridge at 3am when they weren't meant to be there until 5; leaving them with nowhere to change and without access to toilets for 24 hours is apparently part of the job, as is then taking them to a camp site in a swampy field. Buckingham Palace has naturally not commented, although the Queen or those who represent her are astute enough to recognise that this was the last thing they would have wanted.

Regardless of whether you support the principle of the monarchy, are indifferent towards it or loathe it with a passion, there was at least the possibility of avoiding the whole thing, or just dipping into it if you felt like it over the past 96 hours. The viewing figures suggest that despite the hype, far fewer were interested this year than they were for the wedding 12 months previous. There might have been 3,500 street parties, but to claim this was a nation united is absurd, or indeed that there has been communion simply isn't true.

What's more, there's no such opportunity for escape when it comes to the aforementioned Olympics, when there's not just four days of it but a whole three weeks, all of which are work days even if it's during the silly season. London is essentially going to be shut down for the duration, and MI5 and friends are already hyping up the supposed terrorist threat, as though there hadn't been an immense target they decided to ignore on Monday night. Even if the cost of the jubilee was far more than the £15m claimed, it's small change when compared to the £9bn spunked on an extended sports day. The only consolation is that at least when it's over, everyone involved goes home. We seem to be stuck, if not with Liz who you can warm to, then her spoilt obnoxious offspring for some time to come.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

6/06/2012 05:44:00 pm | |

Monday, May 28, 2012 

Never mind the jubilee.

Peter Wilby in the Graun:

The glossy newspaper supplements are out, the BBC (supposedly a hotbed of subversive lefties) is preparing wall-to-wall coverage, MPs are going on holiday for two weeks, the populace is ready to put out the flags and the picnic tables. In an orgy of deference, we are celebrating Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. If any other country were paying homage to an unelected head of state in this way, while the living standards of the majority of the population fall and schools and hospitals struggle with diminishing resources, we would call it "the cult of the personality" and probably think about invading.

Well, quite. I thought last year the wedding showed just how quickly a lot of people would adjust to a dictatorship, and if the pre-emptive arrests are repeated again this time without so much as a squeak of protest as before it will just underline the point.

Labels: , ,

Share |

5/28/2012 05:05:00 pm | |

Friday, October 28, 2011 

This is a dead parrot!

The Graun's editorial on the changes to the rules of royal succession says it "would be churlish not to welcome the news". Would it? What exactly is the point of making an institution which is discriminatory by its very nature ever so slightly less discriminatory? Whether you want to compare it with putting lipstick on a pig or nailing a dead parrot to its perch, it's an absolutely nonsensical gesture. Anything that helps to prop up something, however slightly, that should just be abolished is a waste of everyone's time.

(Interestingly, I wrote a far angrier rant against this change back in '08 which I'd completely forgotten about.)

Labels: , , ,

Share |

10/28/2011 12:27:00 pm | |

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 

First and last comment on that engagement.

Pass the fucking sick bag.

Labels: , ,

Share |

11/16/2010 10:42:00 pm | |

Thursday, September 25, 2008 

Won't someone please think of the Catholics? (and the women...)

I think I can leave you to come up with your own clichéd analogy - rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, fiddling while Rome burns, etc - all of which would more than apply to the ludicrous proposed constitutional reforms of removing the barrier to a Catholic becoming monarch, while also allowing the first successive heir, regardless of gender, to ascend to the throne.

You would have thought it was patently obvious, but you cannot improve an institution based on the hereditary principle and the accident of birth by making the rules ever so slightly less discriminatory. In fact, doing so brings it even further into disrepute: modifying the monarchy at this stage to make it slightly more equitable and less openly bigoted gives the government's seal of approval to the head of state being anything other than elected. It gives the impression of both fawning and respect to a bunch of inbred half-wits whose only modern function is to be propaganda props for the army, having failed to find anything else to do with their lives, whilst giving the nation's tabloid journalists something to write about when they spend the other part of it falling out of London's more exclusive clubs and bars.

It's not even as if there is any great need to modify the religious rule, as the royals themselves have already figured out a way to get round it: Peter Phillips, 11th in line to the throne, was still so desperate to retain the chance of becoming King should a bomb drop on Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle or Harry or someone else go postal ala the Nepalese Crown Prince, that his fiancée, baptised a Catholic, swiftly converted to Anglicianism. If these unimpeachable scroungers are so desperate to remain royalty, let them convert, however cynically, to the Church of England.

Unfair perhaps though may it be to pick on just one person for their response, but you really would expect the Liberal Democrats to be a little more circumspect in giving it the OK:

Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dems' spokeswoman on equalities issues, said: "This is an overdue but welcome move. Whilst the hereditary principle itself is obviously still a bit dodgy, at least this modernisation ends the outrageous discrimination against Catholics and women."

Quite so. I mean, there's nothing outrageous whatsoever about a dysfunctional family receiving at the very least £40m a year from the taxpayer just because of who they were born to, it's the fact that this wonderful institution discriminates against Catholics and women that we should really be concerned about.

If we aren't going to rid ourselves of the entire shower, then surely we can at least make the whole charade slightly more accountable. Let's take a leaf out of the management cost cutting guide and get each member to reapply for their "job" every so many years. There won't be any chance of them actually losing it of course, but at least reading their self-justifications might be good for a laugh. Alternatively, we could call the bluff of those who so seem to love the royals over politicians and get them to job-swap and see how they fare in their respective tasks. Who knows, we might even be so impressed with the results that our first president could be Princess Eugenie. Well, she couldn't be worse that the next generation of Milibands....

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

9/25/2008 11:59:00 pm | |

Friday, August 08, 2008 

Aren't we just great?

You have to laugh, somewhat sadly at the Press Complaints Commission bigging itself up because the Evening Standard apologised within 36 hours of its completely inaccurate front page story claiming that the Duke of Edinburgh had prostate cancer:

This complaint reveals the clear advantages of coming to the PCC with complaints of privacy intrusion. The process has been quick: the final settlement was negotiated less than 36 hours after the original complaint was made. In contrast with some legal actions, it has involved no further private details – which in this case would have related to Prince Philip’s health – being released into the public domain. The apology has been prominent and proportionate. And the PCC costs nothing to use. The article under complaint has been removed from the newspaper’s website and replaced with the text of the apology, which appears on the homepage and then will be archived permanently.

On the contrary, it reveals the clear advantages of going to the PCC if you happen to be a member of the royal family and if the story is demonstratively untrue. Prince Philip was hardly likely to sue, doubtless his doctors could quickly be prevailed upon to show that the story was false, and the paper therefore had no option but to apologise profusely and quickly. It's more down to the fuss that Buckingham Palace made as soon as the paper was published and the resultant publicity than anything to do with the wonderful nature of the PCC.

If, on the other hand, the story had been about someone with no money or without fame, where the person could not instantly prove that report was completely inaccurate and where there was no publicity whatsoever, the PCC would have probably done nothing whatsoever about it, or months would have passed before even the slightest error was admitted on the newspaper's part. It's such a shame we can't all be members of the royal family, isn't it?

Related:
Enemies of Reason - Oops we did it again

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

8/08/2008 11:59:00 pm | |

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates