God Save The King

[Josquius]

I know it's 2022 and all that. I never watch TV.

But wow. The schedules. All 5 of the main channels non stop news. BBC 1 and 2 duplicates. BBC 3 and 4 off air saying you must watch bbc1. Lesser entertainment channels like e4 have regular programming with a big bar along the bottom saying important news, change the channel.

Aye this is a big event and it's really sad and all that but... This feels a tad OTT.

[Valmy]

Michael Jackson dying got that level of non-stop coverage for days over here so it makes sense.

Granted being the king of pop might be a bigger deal than constitutional monarch.

[Sheilbh]

As always happens when there's moments for gestures of solidarity - France really gets it, always deepens my view that we're sort of sibling nations. Among others Macron's very impressive statement, Paris turning off the Eiffel Tower's lights and the Elysee this evening:


Also reading Macron's statement can't help but shake the feeling he'd quite like to be a monarch - or remember his analysis about the "figure of the king" being the great "absentee" in French politics. There was a Le Monde column - perhaps on that sibling/neighbourly contrast - of Macron attempting to fill the royal void in France, while the Queen helped make Britain forget the anachronism of monarchy.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know how to judge that sibling nations remark. That sounds like perhaps wishful thinking on the Brit side  .

[Josquius]

I dunno. I can see it. We bicker and call each other names and fight about absolutely everything... But when shit gets serious we have each others back.

[Sheilbh]

I think there's something there. Compete with and want to beat each other, but tend to "get" it/each other when needed.

Plus two post-imperial middle powers with delusions of grandeur who have a history of fighting each other but are now close frenemies (especially militarily - there's a French general commanding a division of the British army).

Edit: And Macron's statement:
https://twitter.com/peddersophie/status/1567969171740442624?s=46&t=IxtG5xtPmQgdv3ibxtehbA

[HVC]

Only within the last 150 odd years once Germany got its shit together and the uk got nervous. The 800 years or so before that was a different story. Absolute mutual disdain verging on murderous hatred depending on the decade/war.

So at best you're now cousins with a past  that cheer for the same football team  but beyond that you have a strained relationship

[Sheilbh]

Those 800+ years are part of it. All I'll see is you all seem to have very placid relations with your siblings

[Grey Fox]

10 days of mourning in Canada.

[Josquius]

Only within the last 150 odd years once Germany got its shit together and the uk got nervous. The 800 years or so before that was a different story. Absolute mutual disdain verging on murderous hatred depending on the decade/war.

So at best you're now cousins with a past  that cheer for the same football team  but beyond that you have a strained relationship

Anglo-French wars tended to be pretty cordial affairs.

[HVC]

Those 800+ years are part of it. All I'll see is you all seem to have very placid relations with your siblings

Not all of us aspire to be the Gallagher brothers

[Valmy]

Hey! They also teamed up against the Russians and the Spanish before that.

And Scotland and France were best buds, France even invented Calvinism for them. That was nice, right?

[Jacob]

Those 800+ years are part of it. All I'll see is you all seem to have very placid relations with your siblings

Same with Denmark & Sweden. Apparently ~30 wars and we're definitely "sibling nations".

[mongers]

Some theatres dimmed their lights on Thursday but most other performances went ahead as planned, including the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Richard III in Stratford-Upon-Avon and Matilda The Musical in London.

In a statement, the company quoted a passage from Shakespeare's Henry VIII, about the baby princess Elizabeth I: "She shall be, to the happiness of England / An aged princess; many days shall see her / And yet no day without a deed to crown it."

[Josephus]

A Tweet by The Toronto Star, today, is so true:

The Queen, who died Thursday at age 96, was the last royal to wholly personify the traits of duty, discretion and personal dignity.

That's a really backhanded compliment at her family.  Poor taste.

?

It's saying that her kids do not personify those things.

Why take a swipe at the kids?  Just say that she personified those virtues and leave it at that.

That would make it a backhanded insult, not compliment. i think.