Really?

[poliphilo]

The TV pundits keep saying it's unlikely that any future politician will ever have such a grand funeral. How can they possibly know? Do they think history is over?

Comments

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

>> it's unlikely that any future politician will ever have such a grand funeral. How can they possibly know?

It is a reasonable inference bordering on certainty, based on the fact that England is slowly running out of money, and it won't be able to afford this again. :D

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But that's a short term view. Who knows what state we'll be in in another century or two. :)

Besides, we mounted this funeral in spite of not really being able to afford it.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Perhaps that's what's meant - that we might learn from the unpopularity of this one -

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"Ever" is a long time, though. Even if we learn, what are the chances our great-great-grandchildren will remember?

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

True

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But what if another Churchill were to come along?

He might.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that he deserved t, either -

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But then, who does?

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Just so - I didn't make myself clear. State funerals aren't, in my view, for politicians - they are an international "jolly" for royals and their relations. I doubt that there'd ever have been another, if there hadn't been all that fuss over Churchill, because there aren't enough royals left, to make it worth doing.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

If it's not hyperbolic it's hardly worth saying, seems to be the view. It's a kind of semantic inflation, in which bad sense chases out the good.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And yet I don't feel that the British people- as a whole- have much appetite for this grandiosity. The funeral was designed to hit us hard- and it didn't. it was just another thing on the News.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I thought that it was more designed to appease the overseas grandees, who wanted a state funeral to show off at.
In the result, no-one was happy - they didn't get their carriage parade and other perks, and we still grumbled about the cost

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And then the whole thing got kicked off the News by the bombings in Boston.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

All future politicians will be launched into the sun.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Now that would be expensive!

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Worth every penny.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yes. We've been living on borrowed time since the Mayan calendar ended, and now that New Zealand has legalized gay marriage, it's only a matter of days before the world is destroyed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, of course :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm a historian and history has a long memory even if individuals don't!

There's a chiel amangst ye taking notes and faith he'll [sic] prent it!'

[(Anonymous)]

Do they mean Blair won't get a funeral like this one?
Jenny x

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe it is because they think that Blair won't get one.
Jenny x

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He won't.