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Queen Elizabeth II, the end of an era


Fragile Bird

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2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

There is something to be said for doing nothing when doing nothing is the right thing to do. 

Yeah doing nothing for literally a lifetime is ironically quite an amazing accomplishment.

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1 minute ago, DMC said:

Yeah doing nothing for literally a lifetime is ironically quite an amazing accomplishment.

For a political figure, ducking the kazillion or more opportunities she had to make it about herself is really…well, not what political figures do. I suppose in a weird way this is an upvote for birthright political office? Not entirely serious on the last, but there is a kernel of truth there. Kindof like how I think nepotism is a cancer in politics while simultaneously thinking Bobby Kennedy is the best presidential candidate I’ve ever heard of. Like, avoiding all the compromises it otherwise takes can, very rarely, lead to a better option.

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1 hour ago, Jeor said:

 

A sad time for Britain especially given its current political and economic issues, but I think Charles will do the job better than expected. He was very prescient on issues like the environment, he has rehabilitated his personal image, and he's been witness all his life to one of the greats. 

To the second Elizabethan age!

True, im a firm believer in giving people a chance and not poisoning the well up front.

His environmental consciousness seems genuine and makes him kindrid in spirit to me till i see otherwise.

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2 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

True, im a firm believer in giving people a chance and not poisoning the well up front.

His environmental consciousness seems genuine and makes him kindrid in spirit to me till i see otherwise.

At least he recognises the problem, though dowsnt stop him using private jets to go to llaces t tell everyone else to save the environment. Also he owns a LOT of rural property he apparently refuses to let go wild

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3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Well, rainbows appeared across both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle this evening, so may they be good portents for the UK.

It’s the UK. It’s always raining/not raining, so lots of rainbows.

Unless Liz Truss leads the Tory party on an endless adventure to find some pots of gold at the bottom of one of these rainbows, there are no good portents for the UK.

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The rainbow for the rainbow bridge to re-unite with the passed-on corgies.  And Philip after that, at a hunting lodge or a steeple chase track's stables?

An eagle flew over her when on safari with Philip in Africa when her father died.

This isn't the Queen's fault by any means, but there was some previous Canadian prime minister on our public radio station blathering on about how it was because of her Canada never had public violence, crime or poverty.  He must have emerged out of the same sort of world she and the court do since -- how out of touch with your own country and people can you be to say something that false?

 

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

The rainbow for the rainbow bridge to re-unite with the passed-on corgies.  And Philip after that, at a hunting lodge or a steeple chase track's stables?

An eagle flew over her when on safari with Philip in Africa when her father died.

This isn't the Queen's fault by any means, but there was some previous Canadian prime minister on our public radio station blathering on about how it was because of her Canada never had public violence, crime or poverty.  He must have emerged out of the same sort of world she and the court do since -- how out of touch with your own country and people can you be to say something that false?

 

Haha, Canadian chauvinism is our dark secret! I didn’t hear that interview, but there have been some good interviews with Canadian PMs, all of whom talked about her kindness and consideration and sense of humor. Brian Mulroney, who I probably loathed more than I should have, talked about how supportive she was in his campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. He announced that was a goal of his during his years as PM and he was a major force in the anti-apartheid movement when many world leaders just ignored the issue. I always thought he hasn’t gotten enough recognition for his role in ending apartheid.

He also talked about one of her visits to Canada when he was PM, when she stayed for lunch. They went to the dining room, she kicked off her shoes, drank gin and tonics and ended up staying for 3 hours telling stories about people she had met over the years, screwing up her schedule with the extra-long lunch. And when they had dinner she asked him to make sure his kids were there for the meal. Only adults had been invited, senior pols all.

Justin Trudeau was very effusive as well, having known the Queen since he was a young child when his dad took him to visit the Queen on a state visit. He just saw her in March during a Commonwealth meeting in London. He was a favourite of hers apparently. Elizabeth was very supportive when Pierre Trudeau announced Canada was going to repatriate our constitution, which was originally an act of the British Parliament, the British North America Act. Researchers went to the basement and dragged out the boxes to find the actual document, stored in the parliamentary archives. The physical document was brought back to Canada as part of the repatriation. 

And former Governor-General Michaelle Jean, first black GG, talked about how nervous she was about representing the Queen in Canada and Elizabeth told her she was representing Canadians, and they went on to talk about how Jean was a descendent of slaves and the Queen was a descendent of slave owners and how the world had changed, bringing the two women together. Lots of great stories out there.

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As far as monarchs go, she was top notch.  Seemed awfully weird to see a news article referencing King Charles III today.  He's been Prince Charles for longer than I've been alive, and it reminds of that bit from Airplane II.  First the earth cooled, then the dinosaurs came...

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1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

As far as monarchs go, she was top notch.  Seemed awfully weird to see a news article referencing King Charles III today.  He's been Prince Charles for longer than I've been alive, and it reminds of that bit from Airplane II.  First the earth cooled, then the dinosaurs came...

It kind of amuses me that I can Google King Charles III and see photos of the late much-missed Tim Piggott-Smith in the title role of the 2017 film. Piggott-Smith was a character actor mainly known for playing a deeply disturbed and corrupt colonial district superintendent in The Jewel in the Crown

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I am not British, I am not a monarchist, but there is a sense of loss. She has been Queen of UK for all my love and her death is simply the loss of one of those life constants. It's a small, perhaps unimportant thing for me personally, but it just speaks what presence she was in our planet's life the past 70 years. 

Having said that, I find there is something profoundly sexist in some of the criticism she is receiving as I see people blame her for a lot of things - Charles, Andrew, William and Harry and all their personal sh*t. And perhaps we can hold her accountable for some things, but I find it distasteful when people blame the wife, the mother, the grandmother (the woman in general) for the numerous scre-ups of husbands, sons, grandsons (well, male). Through all of that, one actually realizes that this woman served her realm for 70 years and that people generally find her unreproachable in that. Which is frankly, truly amazing.

May she rest in peace. 

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I have no love for the royals or any monarchy, but it's wild to think that this individual, who had to work 7 days a week, 365 days a year, for 70 years, doing in effect an incredibly annoying job and she never had a bad moment. Hard to imagine many people could do that.

I hope the monarchy ends, like tomorrow, but for all the ups and downs, Elizabeth did live up to the title of Queen. 

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I agree. Whatever you think of constitutional monarchy, (and personally I think she did an exemplary job of being a ceremonial head of state) the Queen always did what she considered her duty. She clearly made mistakes (noticeably Charles' education and forced first marriage) but she had an impressive work ethic. She literally got off of her deathbed to carry out her last ceremonial change over of PM! (And poor woman, going from PM Churchill to PMs Johnson and Truss.)

So while I find the obsequies a bit overdone, I am not going to begrudge them. It is the end of an era. And I consider notional dancing on her grave a bit uncouth, in the way that dancing on, for example, Boris Johnson's would not be.

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1 hour ago, Mladen said:

I find there is something profoundly sexist in some of the criticism she is receiving as I see people blame her for a lot of things - Charles, Andrew, William and Harry and all their personal sh*t. And perhaps we can hold her accountable for some things, but I find it distasteful when people blame the wife, the mother, the grandmother (the woman in general) for the numerous scre-ups of husbands, sons, grandsons (well, male).

I think it's fair to say that she put the interests of the monarchy in front of the happiness of her offspring. As I see it, she is not blamed as a woman, but as the head of the institution that forced Charles into a loveless marriage, or had placed a 12-year-old Harry in the center of the state funeral of his mother. She demanded strict etiquette and protocol, and does not seem to have been very welcoming or understanding to the new members that came into the family. That backfired.

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16 minutes ago, A wilding said:

I agree. Whatever you think of constitutional monarchy, (and personally I think she did an exemplary job of being a ceremonial head of state) the Queen always did what she considered her duty. She clearly made mistakes (noticeably Charles' education and forced first marriage) but she had an impressive work ethic. She literally got off of her deathbed to carry out her last ceremonial change over of PM! (And poor woman, going from PM Churchill to PMs Johnson and Truss.)

So while I find the obsequies a bit overdone, I am not going to begrudge them. It is the end of an era. And I consider notional dancing on her grave a bit uncouth, in the way that dancing on, for example, Boris Johnson's would not be.

Just curious -- why do you think Charles's education was a "mistake"?  The report I saw yesterday says that her sending him to school instead of having him privately tutored in the palace like all previous heirs had been was meant to be a way to modernize the monarchy and integrate them more with society.

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1 minute ago, Ormond said:

Just curious -- why do you think Charles's education was a "mistake"?

He was sent to Gordonstoun school, which he hated and that arguably screwed him up quite badly. Though to be fair that decision seems to have been made by Phillip more than Elizabeth.

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1 minute ago, A wilding said:

He was sent to Gordonstoun school, which he hated and that arguably screwed him up quite badly. Though to be fair that decision seems to have been made by Phillip more than Elizabeth.

Interesting. From the little bit I've read on the subject, it was also Philip more than Elizabeth who pressured him to marry Diana.

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