An Overcast Day

[poliphilo]

Yesterday we bought some brisket. This morning I got up at 6.30, put it in the slow cooker, then went back to bed for a couple more hours.

This is the weekend of the diamond jubilee. The media tell me the country is hugely enthused about it. I'm trying not to be, but I'm not sure I'll succeed. Margaret Drabble has an article in The Independent this morning about how we're all of us- royalist and republican alike- fixated on the Royal Family- and I'm afraid it's true. I may not love the Windsors but I can hardly get enough of them. Show me a newspaper comments page and if there's an essay there about how awful they are it's the one I'll click on first. 

The heat wave broke a couple of days back. We had rain on the day of the funeral. Dot's hallway was full of umbrellas. I'm writing this mid-morning and Ailz has just asked me to switch the light on.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The war shaped Britain's (heroic) image of itself. It's not a small thing that the generation that lived through it is passing away. There's a huge cultural gulf between the generation that remembers the war and those that came after.

Drabble views the 40s and 50s through the eyes of childhood. As I do. I doubt whether things were really simpler then. By contemporary standards those were years of deprivation, but we didn't feel that at the time. You don't miss pizza if you've never had it.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

More and more, I'm struck by the utter pointlessness of the Royals. It would be edifying to see them bouncing along in a tumbrel, on the way to their just desserts, but those are the only circumstances under which I should ever wish to see or hear of them ever again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've waited all my life for them to do something so utterly unspeakable the nation feels it has no option but to shrug them off in disgust. At the time it seemed like the death of Princess Di might be such a moment, but it passed.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Okay, you've lost me: how could Diana Spencer's death have been so utterly unspeakable?

Also, that's the precise moment I realized that I did not care, not even a little. I didn't even care about the children losing their mother. Imagine one of these inbred relics from an unwanted past wasting a moment on you or me?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

For a while there it seemed plausible that the death was a hit and that the Royal Family had ordered it. If that could have been proved they'd have been toast.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I never understood that one. Always seemed like wishful thinking, to me.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

A lot cooler here too thank goodness. WE do moan about the weather though as a nation

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Don't we just!

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

The nobility, and royalty, touches a number of things deep within us, I think.

Firstly, it's the idea behind it - that there would be an intelligent, wise, benevolent ruler that would care for his/her people and their needs... it is no wonder that there was such a thing as the concept of "Divine Right" when you think about it, as well as the concept of royalty being descended from Gods. I think royalty in particular can be seen as a surrogate deity in some respects. (Obviously, the reality of those who ruled generally falls short of this ideal).

Secondly, it's the idea of a life of relative ease - the idea of being wealthy enough to be able to do what you want when you want and how you want.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The idea is extraordinarily powerful. And misleading. has there ever been a real life monarch who lived up to it?

Alexander the Great, perhaps?

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

In what respect? Alexander certainly did as he pleased, but was by no means wise or particularly benevolent.

I think Henry FitzEmpress deserved the crown he wore. Few did. I was somewhat shocked to learn that a British monarch has not led his own men in battle since George II, 269 years ago this month.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Alexander came to mind because I'm reading Mary Renault.
She makes him seem enlightened by the standards of the time.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. Thanks. My money is still on Henry. We take it for granted but common law was shockingly enlightened in his day.

What is Alexander's legacy, I wonder? aside from giving Caesar something to bawl about. Hellenism results from his conquests but whether it was even deliberate is debatable.

My impression of Alexander remains my first, had from a history teacher long ago. Philip died and left his son the most effective war machine the world had produced to date. The rest was inevitable.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I suspect that not even "God" can live up to what his followers expects of him. Yet still there is the hope for that ideal.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I find the whole history of Queen Elizabeth and her family to be really interesting. I have a feeling that I would be one of the celebrators.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

interesting, yes.....