[Bones McCoy]

[Abernathy]

Strange how people engaged in uncritical adulation for the deceased epitome of privileged entitlement, really don’t like people displaying any kind of privileged entitlement in order to avoid waiting in a horrifically long queue to see a box with a flag on it. Innit ?

[Youngian]

You’d expect obsequious toadying from Hoyle but this is deranged. And why’s the bishop nodding? You’d think the birth of Jesus would be numero uno for a man of the cloth.

[Abernathy]

Sadly further confirmation that Hoyle is perhaps the stupidest Speaker in history.

[Youngian]

Bank holiday pub lunch in this fine pub tomorrow where I expect some refuge from this awful media circus. An I’m not even anti Queen or a Cromwell apologist. And haven’t even watched hardly any of the proceedings. I have been enjoying Kevin Costner and Kelly Reilly throwing their weight around as cattle baron top dogs in Yellowstone. Its very good, like a cross between Dallas and a revisionist western.

[mattomac]

If truth be told I’m happy to have had a week off from Liz Truss utter lunacy of policies.

One utterly weird thing and one thing that has bemused me this week is this “greatest monarch of all time”, I’m not sure how you measure it, but if you did in some context she wouldn’t be that high up.

Then again it’s often drilled into us that a man who had 2 of his wives murdered so he could divorce over and over again in some kind of obsessive male privilege type approach to monarchy lineage is highlighted as “a great monarch”. You’d class his behaviour as utterly insane today, so many murdered so he could set up a new church which meant he got direct line to God, saying that the fact anyone does is baffling in itself.

[Andy McDandy]

Great often means memorable. Those monarchs who quietly got shit done (Henry VII, Edward I, Henry I, Edward IV etc) don't tend to get films or plays made about them.

[AOB]

You’d expect obsequious toadying from Hoyle but this is deranged. And why’s the bishop nodding? You’d think the birth of Jesus would be numero uno for a man of the cloth.

People in sects and cults think irrationally. We've witnessed irrational words and behaviour repeatedly this last week.

[Watchman]

And Huw Edwards says through gritted teeth;
“And I’m delighted, yet again, to welcome Giles Brandreth with the same fucking amusing anecdote about how he nearly ate one of the Queen’s corgis”

[Andy McDandy]

We had anyone like Branson turning up and waving to the crowd like it's a film premiere yet?

[AOB]

We had anyone like Branson turning up and waving to the crowd like it's a film premiere yet?

Not that I've seen. But the Crown Prince of Bahrain strutted in like The Fonz.

[Youngian]

We had anyone like Branson turning up and waving to the crowd like it's a film premiere yet?

Bolsonaro has been making a tit of himself and most Brazilians don’t seemed to be a pleased as these guys

[Youngian]

And Huw Edwards says through gritted teeth;
“And I’m delighted, yet again, to welcome Giles Brandreth with the same fucking amusing anecdote about how he nearly ate one of the Queen’s corgis”

I know more interesting anecdotes about Steve Davis. They’d run out of stories by lunchtime when the Duke died. Much less to the royals than meets the eye.

[AOB]

Seeing all the policemen in the old style custodian helmets reminded me of the miners strike. Thatcher's Army.

Hopefully Republican views ahead of the coronation will get a good airing. The majority the last ten days have kept their views to themselves, or to the similar minded, as it's not the appropriate time, but there will be no such qualms next year.

[Youngian]

Murdoch TV rolls out the classy big guns for the occasion

[Abernathy]

Good ceremonial and all that mullarkey today. Cracking music - I’ve always loved that Beethoven funeral march - but the funeral tea - the purvey as it is called in Scotland - seems to have been non-existent. Couldn’t they run to a few bloater paste sandwiches? Or a scotch egg or two?

[davidjay]

Good ceremonial and all that mullarkey today. Cracking music - I’ve always loved that Beethoven funeral march - but the funeral tea - the purvey as it is called in Scotland - seems to have been non-existent. Couldn’t they run to a few bloater paste sandwiches? Or a scotch egg or two?

Nobody wants to chip in anymore. Back in the day you'd have had Camilla spreading and Anne slapping the ham on but these young 'uns don't know what hard work is.

[kreuzberger]

... Anne slapping the ham on ...

I am officially bewildered.

[Oboogie]

Back in the day you'd have had Camilla spreading

Thanks for putting that image in my head. No really, thank's a lot.

[kreuzberger]

Radio Four this morning is telling the audience about overseas coverage of the Queen's funeral. The loud and proud assumption is that such international attention is quite unique.

No doubt, much of this is backed up by the gestures shown by, for example, the Swiss and German authorities with, again for example, the illumination of the Matterhorn and the Brandenburg Gate with, in turn, an image of Maj herself and the Union Flag.

This interpretation plays extraordinarily well with the likes of the Express Tendency which just loves to bray and beat its chest at the thought of international superiority. The only problem with that is that it is pitiful bollocks.

Let's all play a game; does Berlin kow-tow through the streams of tears to the United Kingdom's supremacy, or does it like to reinforce its own identity as the capital of an outward-looking, internationalist country which is able to demonstrate its sympathy with another country's turmoil? Clue; this unquestionably and instantly recognisable national symbol is otherwise nightly illuminated in Ukrainian yellow and blue, Belarusian red and white, and, for example, was virtually broadcasting the French colours during the waves of terrorist attacks.

This symbolism is merely a way of showing solidarity with other communities. The UK is unique in that such gestures wouldn't even cross its mind. Indeed, the UK is unique but perhaps not in a way to be proud of.


EDIT: Apparently, the Telegraph believes that world figures wouldn't tip up for the Queen of Sweden's funeral. Ergo; all that breast beating is right and proper.