Queen’s funeral

[yellowrider120 761]

2 hours ago, ricardo said:

Superb job done by the bearer party. Certainly my pick of the day.

How proud you would be to watch your son carry out that duty in front of the watching world! As you say, they were fantastic and deserve nothing but the highest praise. An incredibly difficult job carried out impeccably.  

[Midlands Yellow 3,913]

2 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

In my time serving my Queen and Country, when on parades I always enjoyed marching along to the sound of pipes and drums.....Just something about the swirl, the tempo, the passion and energy - and we all used to march with a bit of extra swagger.....

Today was a funeral fit for a Queen....and what a wonderful Queen she was.....Well done to all involved you did our Country so proud whilst the World looked on....

Upmost respect. 

[daly 499]

Everything went off perfectly 

A great send off for a fabulous Queen

 

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,421]

2 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

In my time serving my Queen and Country, when on parades I always enjoyed marching along to the sound of pipes and drums.....Just something about the swirl, the tempo, the passion and energy - and we all used to march with a bit of extra swagger.....

Today was a funeral fit for a Queen....and what a wonderful Queen she was.....Well done to all involved you did our Country so proud whilst the World looked on....

Great post Mello. Well done indeed. Brilliant stuff . 

[Herman 9,691]

3 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

The solitary Piper certainly put a bit o' grit in my eye.....

My hayfever started playing up....

 

[Ian 1,129]

Fascinating and deeply moving proceedings carried off with a unique sense of British culture and history.

Perhaps a timely reminder that tradition is not always archaic, and change is not always progress.

[ricardo 7,328]

12 minutes ago, Herman said:

My hayfever started playing up....

 

A difficult moment for many. You weren't alone.

[Herman 9,691]

2 minutes ago, ricardo said:

A difficult moment for many. You weren't alone.

Bagpipes can get a deserved bad press but that certainly hits the spot.

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

15 minutes ago, Herman said:

Bagpipes can get a deserved bad press but that certainly hits the spot.

It would have worked well as the final act of that service.

[yellowrider120 761]

29 minutes ago, Ian said:

Fascinating and deeply moving proceedings carried off with a unique sense of British culture and history.

Perhaps a timely reminder that tradition is not always archaic, and change is not always progress.

Exactly. Problem is we have this culture that some youngsters and the media follow that is set against the points you make. So easy to say stuff like...........'the monarchy is out of date, doesn't mean anything to me' etc. without saying what they do want instead and justifying how that might be an improvement. 

[Midlands Yellow 3,913]

5 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

Exactly. Problem is we have this culture that some youngsters and the media follow that is set against the points you make. So easy to say stuff like...........'the monarchy is out of date, doesn't mean anything to me' etc. without saying what they do want instead and justifying how that might be an improvement. 

The youngsters on the whole have embraced the occasion. I’d say plenty of folk of mature years have spouted out the points you make. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Midlands Yellow

[TheGunnShow 5,904]

17 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

Exactly. Problem is we have this culture that some youngsters and the media follow that is set against the points you make. So easy to say stuff like...........'the monarchy is out of date, doesn't mean anything to me' etc. without saying what they do want instead and justifying how that might be an improvement. 

If they merely want its abolition and a republic in its place then surely the part in bold is rendered pretty moot, isn't it?

[SwindonCanary 455]

The Navy did a fine job with the carriage 

Edited September 19, 2022 by SwindonCanary

[Nuff Said 5,078]

2 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

87% of the country are white.

But of the other 13%, a lot of them follow religions which if followed strictly forbid entering a church.

Many of the UK's muslims for example (about 4% of the population) would consider entering any church to be makruh, strictly forbidden. Many of the more conservative and orthodox Jews would consider it forbidden to enter a church too.

Yes, I know there were some Saudi's at the funeral, but the point remains valid.

So the difference between 13% and the actual percentage of non-white faces is down to their religious beliefs not allowing them to enter a Christian place of worship?

[ron obvious 1,495]

39 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

If they merely want its abolition and a republic in its place then surely the part in bold is rendered pretty moot, isn't it?

Merely?? Why would it be necessarily be an improvement though? And how do you replace 1,000 years of history?

It's to do with memory. I remember (!) seeing a programme, perhaps by Oliver Sacks, which included a man who'd lost his short-term memory. He was incredibly distraught & upset, his life was almost unliveable. Our history is our collective memory & functions to keep us whole, gives us a national identity, even when there are parts we may not like. The monarchy may evolve into something else, in fact I'd suggest the reason it's still here is because it has evolved (c.f. Charles 1st & Charles 3rd). They are only in their position by consent - witness Charles 1st's fate & the Glorious Revolution - & there's no guarantee a republican leader would be so attuned to the public mood.

In fact something that's struck me since her death is the Queen's ordinariness. Seeing film clips of her as a young woman I see a not particularly gifted well-to-do woman who you could imagine living a middle class life, just raising a family with all the usual concerns. But she performed extraordinary feats of duty & service, demonstrating what average people are capable of if the circumstances demand it & they are prepared to rise to the challenge.

So in an odd way you could say she was our representative in government; a calm bastion of normality & constancy while all around her politicians of different stripes came & went, able to offer advice but not command.

Her successors may or may not be as effective but I think the example she set has had a profound effect. It's not a perfect system - no such animal - but I'm hard pressed to think of one guaranteed to be better.

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by ron obvious

[Nuff Said 5,078]

11 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

Her successors may or may not be as effective but I think the example she set has had a profound effect. It's not a perfect system - no such animal - but I'm hard pressed to think of one guaranteed to be better.

 

I don’t think anyone is claiming any alternative is guaranteed to be better. The point I would make is most proposed replacements would be more equitable in that there would be a democratic basis rather than a system where power is inherited purely based on an accident of birth.
 

BTW, I watched the ceremony for nearly an hour today despite not intending to. The coffin bearing and funeral in the cathedral were hard to stop watching no matter what your views.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Nuff Said

[ron obvious 1,495]

11 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

I don’t think anyone is claiming any alternative is guaranteed to be better. The point I would make is most proposed replacements would be more equitable in that there would be a democratic basis rather than a system where power is inherited purely based on an accident of birth.
 

BTW, I watched the ceremony for nearly an hour today despite not intending to. The coffin bearing and funeral in the cathedral were hard to stop watching no matter what your views.

It's counter-intuitive, but I fear that any republic would end end being less representative than the present monarchy. 

The very fact they are not elected means they cannot abrogate power to themselves, whereas I can imagine a republican leader acquiring more power than entitled to - on the grounds that they're democratically elected. The present system preserves a delicate balance between competing political & power bases which takes into account what could be called the national psyche 

Also I cannot imagine any republic performing the rites of tradition that we have just witnessed. And as I said for reasons of national memory, that which binds us together, these are incredibly important even though not easily quantifiable.

[sonyc 5,481]

11 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

It's counter-intuitive, but I fear that any republic would end end being less representative than the present monarchy. 

The very fact they are not elected means they cannot abrogate power to themselves, whereas I can imagine a republican leader acquiring more power than entitled to - on the grounds that they're democratically elected. The present system preserves a delicate balance between competing political & power bases which takes into account what could be called the national psyche 

Excellent points. I do worry actually that if we replaced the monarch (for whom she / he has no choice in the matter, despite the privilege) then we could get all kinds of narcissists and weird people wanting power. In fact, like so many politicians (of any stripe)! You can imagine a whole load of power-mad people wanting to be 'leader'. So, counter-intuitive it is, but I believe very valid.

Edited September 19, 2022 by sonyc

[sonyc 5,481]

1 hour ago, SwindonCanary said:

The Navy did a fine job with the carriage 

This is such a weird photograph. Someone arranged all that and it even looks like a version of Trumpton, a perfection to it that is unreal. Amazing photo. Blimey, we are good at choreography arent we!

[TheGunnShow 5,904]

49 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

Merely?? Why would it be necessarily be an improvement though? And how do you replace 1,000 years of history?

It's to do with memory. I remember (!) seeing a programme, perhaps by Oliver Sacks, which included a man who'd lost his short-term memory. He was incredibly distraught & upset, his life was almost unliveable. Our history is our collective memory & functions to keep us whole, gives us a national identity, even when there are parts we may not like. The monarchy may evolve into something else, in fact I'd suggest the reason it's still here is because it has evolved (c.f. Charles 1st & Charles 3rd). They are only in their position by consent - witness Charles 1st's fate & the Glorious Revolution - & there's no guarantee a republican leader would be so attuned to the public mood.

In fact something that's struck me since her death is the Queen's ordinariness. Seeing film clips of her as a young woman I see a not particularly gifted well-to-do woman who you could imagine living a middle class life, just raising a family with all the usual concerns. But she performed extraordinary feats of duty & service, demonstrating what average people are capable of if the circumstances demand it & they are prepared to rise to the challenge.

So in an odd way you could say she was our representative in government; a calm bastion of normality & constancy while all around her politicians of different stripes came & went, able to offer advice but not command.

Her successors may or may not be as effective but I think the example she set has had a profound effect. It's not a perfect system - no such animal - but I'm hard pressed to think of one guaranteed to be better.

 

Who says it has to be replaced? I think we've inadvertently gone past each other a little bit. You seemed to initially say that people are proposing that the monarchy is scaled back without proposing what should be done instead, and I simply said they often just want the monarchy flat-out removed. @Nuff Said has actually pretty much said what I was going to say.

To be fair, your remaining argument strikes me as being a bit like Toby Young's (I don't mean that in a bad way, BTW) in his hilarious book How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, saying it's actually a grand example of how the UK is anything but meritocratic - the notion of meritocracy being actually a dystopia, as he was in a very unique position to know as his father put the term into public awareness. Can't really agree that a lady who had such a privileged upbringing could ever really be a public representative in much of a shape or form though.

Being "attuned to public mood" is why I tend to be a fan of regular referendums though, as per Switzerland. No better way of gauging it.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

2 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

So the difference between 13% and the actual percentage of non-white faces is down to their religious beliefs not allowing them to enter a Christian place of worship?

Can you honestly, hand on heart, say that 13% of your families friends and associates are non-white, and can you honestly, hand on heart, say that last time you went to a family funeral or wedding... 13% of those present were non-white? 

And if you went to the funeral of an Asian man, as an example, would you expect to find that 87% of the people present were white? 

[Captain Holt 518]

9 hours ago, ron obvious said:

In fact something that's struck me since her death is the Queen's ordinariness.

I mean, where do I start?

[lake district canary 4,530]

9 minutes ago, Captain Holt said:

9 hours ago, ron obvious said:

In fact something that's struck me since her death is the Queen's ordinariness.

I mean, where do I start?

???  Start what? She was just another human being doing the best she could with the cards she was dealt with, just like we all try do.  Her deck of cards was different to most of ours, having been born into royalty, but given that, she did pretty well in keeping it real over her whole time as heir to the throne then queen - that's pretty much 84 years. 

[Monty13 2,229]

10 hours ago, SwindonCanary said:

The Navy did a fine job with the carriage 

They did, barring some hilariously bad drill moments 😂  but it wouldn’t be the Navy if not 😊

[Monty13 2,229]

10 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

If they merely want its abolition and a republic in its place then surely the part in bold is rendered pretty moot, isn't it?

Wanting something removed without a plan or reason to replace it is anarchy. Republics were generally built on a set of principles.

You can’t not have a head of state. You can’t have all their responsibilities and the other responsibilities of their family just taken away with no replacement.

Its not a simple thing to just abolish the Monarchy in this country, that does not mean it can’t be done but it needs to be done with thought and care.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Monty13

[ron obvious 1,495]

56 minutes ago, Captain Holt said:

I mean, where do I start?

With analysing that statement would be a good place.

[ron obvious 1,495]

9 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

Who says it has to be replaced? I think we've inadvertently gone past each other a little bit. You seemed to initially say that people are proposing that the monarchy is scaled back without proposing what should be done instead, and I simply said they often just want the monarchy flat-out removed. @Nuff Said has actually pretty much said what I was going to say.

To be fair, your remaining argument strikes me as being a bit like Toby Young's (I don't mean that in a bad way, BTW) in his hilarious book How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, saying it's actually a grand example of how the UK is anything but meritocratic - the notion of meritocracy being actually a dystopia, as he was in a very unique position to know as his father put the term into public awareness. Can't really agree that a lady who had such a privileged upbringing could ever really be a public representative in much of a shape or form though.

Being "attuned to public mood" is why I tend to be a fan of regular referendums though, as per Switzerland. No better way of gauging it.

Now that's the sort of privilege I suspect 99% of us could do without. 99% of us in the developed world are born into the sort of wealth & privilege that simply didn't exist for 99% of the population a hundred odd years ago - & a lot of those material goodies didn't even exist, no matter what your privilege.

Now you could say she had an atypical upbringing, born with the possibility that she may well become the most public, the most observed person in the kingdom, & the one with the highest personal & public responsibility & duties, for which she will have been trained from a young age. Does that mean she wasn't aware of the feelings of the rest of us? I'd suggest that her actions throughout her reign proved otherwise. As has often been mentioned, the only time she got it wrong was when Diana died, caught out by the unprecedented (& arguably inexplicable) tide of emotion that followed. And she rapidly rectified that situation

[TheGunnShow 5,904]

6 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

Now that's the sort of privilege I suspect 99% of us could do without. 99% of us in the developed world are born into the sort of wealth & privilege that simply didn't exist for 99% of the population a hundred odd years ago - & a lot of those material goodies didn't even exist, no matter what your privilege.

Now you could say she had an atypical upbringing, born with the possibility that she may well become the most public, the most observed person in the kingdom, & the one with the highest personal & public responsibility & duties, for which she will have been trained from a young age. Does that mean she wasn't aware of the feelings of the rest of us? I'd suggest that her actions throughout her reign proved otherwise. As has often been mentioned, the only time she got it wrong was when Diana died, caught out by the unprecedented (& arguably inexplicable) tide of emotion that followed. And she rapidly rectified that situation

Not quite, but I will always say she'll never really have had the experience regardless of how much empathy she clearly showed. If we're going to complain that many of our politicians are massively out of touch as they've not had a much more typical upbringing, then by definition you really do have to double it for the Queen.

As a guy, there are some women's issues I'll never have full insight into by dint of the fact I'm a bloke. As a proud non-parent, there are some issues I'll never grasp fully when a parent vents to me. And by the same logic, an exceptionally wealthy lady from a very privileged background won't always be able to fully grasp the struggles her subjects faced. It's night and day between simply "being aware of the feelings" and fully grasping them.

Would also say in protecting Prince Andrew to some extent that she also looked like she misjudged matters. Agree that Diana was a misstep, and would also agree, if that is your stance, that the tide of emotion that followed her death was in the realms of the twee.

Edited September 20, 2022 by TheGunnShow

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

11 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

It would have worked well as the final act of that service.

I now realise the piper was playing while the coffin was lowered, presumably mechanically, into the crypt. I wondered at the time why I hadnt seen that. Perhaps it was felt it looked too much like a conjuring trick, potentially verging on the comic, so instead the cameras showed the piper.

[dylanisabaddog 4,840]

A fascinating thread with some well thought out views. My view on the monarchy has always been one of ambivalence but I've sometimes wondered if having a monarchy gives the country delusions of grandeur. So much so that we appear to have voted to leave the EU simply because we think we're better than other countries and don't need them. 

My view going forward is that most people didn't respect the institution, they respected a woman who was quite extraordinary in every way. I don't think Charles has the ability or charisma to match her and I don't think he'll ever shake off the memory of his treatment of Diana. 

At the moment the opinion polls suggest support for the monarchy but those opinions are heavily age weighted. Much like the EU, give it another 20 years and a generation will have died and the public view will be much more negative. The institution may survive with an inspirational leader but that's not Charles.