Bank Holiday
May. 1st, 2023 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo I dreamed I was exchanging emails with an American friend who was on the run from the authorities. I asked if he could give me some idea where he was and he sent a picture of the place where he was currently holed up. On one side there was a street on a hillside that made me think of the north of England and on the other a plain covered in coarse dark green grass which stretched away into the mist. "That'll be the prairie," I thought to myself.
Today is a Bank holiday and so is next Monday. Today we celebrate Mayday which is ancient and socialistic- and next Monday we celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. All tastes are being catered for.
I still find myself referring to the monarch as Prince Charles. Old habits die hard.
Charles presents as a silly old duffer but there are dark things in his past. Not that the personal character of the monarch is of any great importance. It's the institution that matters. And it is the institution they'll be praying for when they shout "May the King live forever!" next weekend. At least I assume that's the idea. The alternative- that they're wishing eternal life to the individual- is plainly daft.
For myself I could wish the institution would shrivel up in the sun. I know there are arguments in its favour but they don't amount to much more than the injunction to "keep a-hold of nurse/ For fear of finding something worse." Yes, I don't want Tony Blair as my ceremonial president either but there are alternatives to a hierarchical system with some aggrandised bloke as its capstone...
I like that it's a bank holiday. It means I can do nothing with a good conscience because everyone else is doing nothing too. Our life- in old age- is busier than our life was in late middle age- and it's good to have rest days.
Today is a Bank holiday and so is next Monday. Today we celebrate Mayday which is ancient and socialistic- and next Monday we celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. All tastes are being catered for.
I still find myself referring to the monarch as Prince Charles. Old habits die hard.
Charles presents as a silly old duffer but there are dark things in his past. Not that the personal character of the monarch is of any great importance. It's the institution that matters. And it is the institution they'll be praying for when they shout "May the King live forever!" next weekend. At least I assume that's the idea. The alternative- that they're wishing eternal life to the individual- is plainly daft.
For myself I could wish the institution would shrivel up in the sun. I know there are arguments in its favour but they don't amount to much more than the injunction to "keep a-hold of nurse/ For fear of finding something worse." Yes, I don't want Tony Blair as my ceremonial president either but there are alternatives to a hierarchical system with some aggrandised bloke as its capstone...
I like that it's a bank holiday. It means I can do nothing with a good conscience because everyone else is doing nothing too. Our life- in old age- is busier than our life was in late middle age- and it's good to have rest days.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-01 09:03 am (UTC)Dream on!
Even if I were not a republican, I'm a Quaker and we don't swear oaths.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-01 09:13 am (UTC)