Grant Me The Carving Of My Name

[poliphilo]

I caught the replay of Richard's interment. Like everything else in the sequence of ritual it was more or less note perfect. I particularly approved the opening hymn- words by GK. Chesterton, music by Anon as arranged by Vaughan Williams: they couldn't have chosen better.

O God of earth and altar
Bow down and hear our cry
Our earthly rulers falter
Our people drift and die...

Talking about appropriate words,there was a poem written for the occasion by Carol Ann Duffy. I haven't been much of a fan of her work- but this was magic. They had Benedict Cumberbatch read it. He turns out to be distantly related to the Plantagenets- though   by now I suspect everyone in England is-  apart, of course, from the current royals.

There's been a lot of media hostility to what Leicester has laid on.The Mail sneers, the Guardian blusters. It baffles me. All I can think  of while breasting the foam is, "Have they no poetry in their souls?"

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I witnessed the eye-rolling but couldn't make out what he was objecting to.

The business of the reburial went to the high court, didn't it? How much more of a fuss did they want to Dean to kick up?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

They got Richard's birth date wrong in the eulogy -- July instead of October. And also a couple other things. And also also he and his colleagues were slighted a bit. Thus saith the Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/a-historian-gave-the-most-british-look-of-despair-when-someone-screwed-up-richard-iiis-birthday-at-his-reburial-10139268.html

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a fairly basic error.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, from reading his FB page, I get the feeling that everything is All About Him. Either that, or someone is maintaining it for him.

I think that folks who constantly refer to themselves in the third person are unspeakably self-referential and pompous. It's okay to do it once in awhile -- especially when someone is referring to you in a group conversation and you want to make a snappy retort.