God Save The Queen!
” … ‘cos tourists are money!” For some reason that fine old Sex Pistols anthem comes to mind, with the news of the new American non-socialists cozying up to QEII, after dissing that commoner Brown and the staunch US ally of a nation of which Liz is titular head.
Times of London: Protocol is abandoned as Michelle cosies up to the Queen.
UK Telegraph’s Toby Harnden: Nice iPod. BTW, Her Majesty’s already got one. Harnden offers this from Obama.
“There’s one last thing that I should mention that I love about Great Britain, and that is the Queen,” he said at the end of his joint press conference with Gordon Brown.
“And so I’m very much looking forward to meeting her for the first time later this evening. And as you might imagine, Michelle has been really thinking that through — because I think in the imagination of people throughout America, I think what the Queen stands for and her decency and her civility, what she represents, that’s very important.”
Interesting coming from a guy who put Churchill’s head in a box and packed it off to the British Embassy in an apparent snit over Britain’s imperial history.* Stick around, O, see if you can get some pointers on civility.
Malkin: Happy April Fools Day, Queen.
Riehl with the Emily Post Institute: Cringeworthy.
Gateway: Made in China, on slave wages! Midwest Jim adds that the Royal Narcissist uploaded his own speeches.
Hot Air: Because nothing says special relationship like cheap gadgetry. What’d he get Phil? An Xbox?
Powerline: What, no queen mattress? Yeah, no kidding. State Department gag writers slacking. Speaking of which, I’m not sure whether Goldberg at The Corner made this up or not.
Ace: Obama’s mix tape for Her Majesty.
Jake Tapper has the upload list. What? No Sex Pistols? “Send in the Clowns” irony noted. O, cruel blogosphere.
Surber, channeling the cruelest cut a Brit can deliver: “He spoke slowly, in a meandering manner. Some might say that he was thoughtful and professorial. Others might call his manner circuitous, even yarny. Am I saying that he was a bore? Oh dear. I find that I possibly am.”
OK, we’ll go out with the Sex Pistols. Kind of rude to the old dear, but at least they were honest about it. Vid here. Lyrics follow:
God save the Queen
her fascist regime,
they made you a moron
a potential H-bomb.God save the Queen
she ain’t no human being.
There is no future
in England’s dreamingDon’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need.
There’s no future
there’s no future
there’s no future for youGod save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God savesGod save the Queen
‘cos tourists are money
and our figurehead
is not what she seemsOh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
all crimes are paid.When there’s no future
how can there be sin
we’re the flowers
in the dustbin
we’re the poison
in your human machine
we’re the future
you’re futureGod save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God savesGod save the Queen
we mean it man
there is no future
in England’s dreamingNo future
no future for you
no future for me
* What she represents, O, in addition to good manners, is a somewhat more ornate and expensive version of what the flag represents to Americans. The nationhood, civilization and ironically enough, representative government and freedom for which countless Brits, Australians, Canadians, etal, have fought and died, which helped shape the modern world. A lot of history, good, bad and ugly. History’s most marked and purposeful evolution of absolute monarchy to a modern democratic state, from which along the way, we sprang. Quaint, some would say wasteful and a little silly, but there she is. Royal scandals much like our own political and celeb scandals notwithstanding, to this day her offspring strive to serve as examples to the nation just like she did. Got to see her and Phil once when I was a kid, at the British Embassy in Bangkok, when the local Brits and colonials were invited to receive her. She has always reminded me of my mother, who was of her generation, as an Australian was her subject, and remembered her as an inspirational figure during the war. It’s not so much the resemblance, which was vague. It was more in her grace, confidence and dignity in all circumstances, a sense of what was right and a determination that it should be defended.
Hey, I just realized. If my mum was queen, and I was a royal … I’d be a walking scandal machine.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:40 am on Thursday, April 2, 2009
One Response to “God Save The Queen!”
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April 2nd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Mr. H and I, and our two small children (too small to remember, in fact) saw the Queen, riding a horse in her birthday parade, June 1979 (I don’t remember the exact day of the parade, except that it wasn’t actually quite her birthday). She was dressed in a red riding coat, a black riding helmet, and black jodhpurs, IIRC, the kind of uniform you associate with fox hunts, and I remember thinking what a surprisingly tiny woman she was. She also had the sourest expression on her face, mitigated by this:
She is a dead ringer for my maternal grandmother (or vice versa), and that woman was the epitome of chilly British reserve, despite her (our) family having been native-born southern Americans for some two and a half centuries. At this stage of my life, I no longer fault her (or them) for that: they kept up a tradition of English civility that is sadly lacking in today’s society.