The Royal Family

[headshot]

I first discovered my country could go collectively insane in the first week of September 1997.

Millions of people suddenly got hysteria, feeding in on each other, losing all sense of rationality. Over a million people banded together on the streets of London in a bizarre faux-grief over someone they never met - in fact, over a fictional character who in reality was a very different person. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/polit ... scene.html

Oh f.cking hell. I remember watching that thinking "WTF is happening!?".

When Diana was killed, I remember my mum coming into my room to tell me...after a particularly heavy night at Edward's No8 in Birmingham.

I just said "Oh, really" and rolled over in bed. I never understood the extreme hagiography.

[Little waster]

When Diana was killed, I remember my mum coming into my room to tell me...after a particularly heavy night at Edward's No8 in Birmingham Legends in Newcastle.

I just said "Oh, really" and rolled over in bed.

You are me and I claim my five pounds.

I also recall the hatefull stuff which was printed in the weeks leading up to her death by very same newspapers who wailed the loudest when she died, cynical gaslighting c.nts.

[nezumi]

When Diana was killed, I remember my mum coming into my room to tell me...after a particularly heavy night at Edward's No8 in Birmingham Legends in Newcastle.

I just said "Oh, really" and rolled over in bed.

You are me and I claim my five pounds.

I also recall the hatefull stuff which was printed in the weeks leading up to her death by very same newspapers who wailed the loudest when she died, cynical gaslighting c.nts.

I literally did the exact same thing myself when my mum came in to tell me! I was at school at the time so no heavy drinking, I'd just satyed up late to watch SuperRock on either MTV or t'other one... I forget, it was a while ago.

[shpalman]

Nobody came to tell me, I just remember putting the radio on as I woke up and wondering if I was on the right station; Radio 1 continued to play the same three tracks of mournful library music for about three days.*


(* I didn't stay in bed for three days)

[cvb]

I remember it f.cked up the tv schedules for a while. I don't like the royals at all and I don't think they should exist.

[nezumi]

Do you approve, disapprove? Why? Do you think this will change when the Queen carks it? Does it really have to be Charles next? And is William actually going to be any better?

[jimbob]

I remember it f.cked up the tv schedules for a while. I don't like the royals at all and I don't think they should exist.

Before then - I thought it a slightly expensive, but relatively harmless institution because I couldn't imagine anyone took them seriously.

[shpalman]

I remember it f.cked up the tv schedules for a while. I don't like the royals at all and I don't think they should exist.

Before then - I thought it a slightly expensive, but relatively harmless institution because I couldn't imagine anyone took them seriously.

What about now that it's been revealed that the queen lobbied for change in law to hide her private wealth?

[lpm]

Elizabeth Windsor hides how ghastly the rest of them. She was competent before her dementia and didn't let her prejudices and snobbery interfere too much with the job.

Once Margaret Windsor died, Charles became the most unpleasant person in the country. He doesn't even treat people like his subjects - he treats them as objects. By all accounts William is the same, a massive snob who mocks the millions of his fans for their pathetic gullibility.

Anne is just another rich person but does the job OK. Andrew is a paedo. Edward is utterly useless (but his ultra-conservative wife Sophie at least works hard at a long list of minor charities).

The only interesting ones are Philip Glücksburg, currently styling himself Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh - he's openly offensive which is both entertaining and more honest than the rest of them. And Harry Windsor, who has kicked off against the rest in an enjoyable way, and is now being dragged through the mud by the firm's hitmen in the tabloids.

[jimbob]

I remember it f.cked up the tv schedules for a while. I don't like the royals at all and I don't think they should exist.

Before then - I thought it a slightly expensive, but relatively harmless institution because I couldn't imagine anyone took them seriously.

What about now that it's been revealed that the queen lobbied for change in law to hide her private wealth?

Yes. As I said - it was after seeing the hysterical response in 1997 I moved from being indifferent to being a republican. And that is just one example - see also the veto power of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster on many items of law.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... f-cornwall

[Grumble]

My sister told me about Diana dying. I said, “oh right” and went off to work (on the deli counter in a supermarket). I was astonished by the amount of attention it was getting when I got to work. And for the next weeks. Our next door neighbours went to London to see the floral tributes, I bet they added to them as well.

[shpalman]

the royal household could receive almost £220m a year from wind[farms,fall]

The Queen and the Treasury could receive an offshore windfarm windfall of up to £9bn over the next decade, after an auction of seabed plots attracted runaway bids from energy companies including the oil company BP.

The crown estate’s first auction of its seabed licences in a decade will earn the Queen’s property manager £879m a year, for up to 10 years, and clear the way for six new offshore windfarms and enough clean electricity generation for more than 7m homes.

The money will be collected by the crown estate and handed to the Treasury before 25% is returned to the royal household in the form of the sovereign grant – a funding formula under which the Queen receives a quarter of the crown estate’s earnings.

It means the royal household could receive almost £220m a year and its share of the deal could climb up to £2bn over the next decade.

[malbui]

Guillotine them all.

[plodder]

I think when Liz goes Andrew won't have the protection he currently enjoys. That's going to be fun.

[Fishnut]

I first discovered my country could go collectively insane in the first week of September 1997.

Millions of people suddenly got hysteria, feeding in on each other, losing all sense of rationality. Over a million people banded together on the streets of London in a bizarre faux-grief over someone they never met - in fact, over a fictional character who in reality was a very different person. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/polit ... scene.html

Oh f.cking hell. I remember watching that thinking "WTF is happening!?".

When Diana was killed, I remember my mum coming into my room to tell me...after a particularly heavy night at Edward's No8 in Birmingham.

I just said "Oh, really" and rolled over in bed. I never understood the extreme hagiography.

I found out because a friend of mine called me to check I was ok. It was very sweet of her but I still have trouble following the chain of logic that led her to be concerned about me. I think it was because my dad had died suddenly a couple of years earlier she was worried it would be triggering for me, but why Diana's death in a car accident would make me think of my dad dying of a pulmonary embolism I'm not quite sure.

Watching William and Harry walking behind her coffin, in full view of the world, did make me incredibly angry. It felt an incredibly cruel thing to do. They may be royal but they were just kids. I couldn't help but think about my own dad's funeral and how I spent most of it, including the car-ride to the crematorium, bawling my eyes out. They had to be all stiff-upper-lip and even now it makes me boil with rage that anyone thought that was an appropriate thing to do to kids.

I don't really give a sh.t about the monarchy either way tbh. It's a pointless institution but we have loads of them. I don't like the idea of someone being in charge just because they were born into a particular family but our 'democratic' politics isn't that much better and at least the royal family do seem to have a clear (if rather distorted) sense of duty to something bigger than themselves.

I hope that when William takes over he copies the European monarchs and gives up the pomp and circumstance to just be ridiculously wealthy.

[Little waster]

My sister told me about Diana dying. I said, “oh right” and went off to work (on the deli counter in a supermarket). I was astonished by the amount of attention it was getting when I got to work. And for the next weeks. Our next door neighbours went to London to see the floral tributes, I bet they added to them as well.

We then got to go through the whole cringe-inducing charade with the Queen Mother a few years later.

I remain indifferent to Diana, both before her death and after, but I can still recognise the tragic aspects of her demise; died young in an accident, young family, work for charidee, badly treated by the press and the rest of the Royals, the whole melodramatic soap opera of it all.

With the Queen Mother you didn't even have that; she was what 102(?), died of old age after a comfortable life of indolence; an entire life doing nothing of any real significance*, meh doesn't come close to the level of ennui she instilled. Yet there we were, supposedly united as a nation, hysterically weeping in the streets for the amusement of others.

My flatmate-at-the-time's mother and gran went to the lying-in-state and after 4 hours pointlessly queuing in the rain hadn't got anywhere near her before they gave up and returned home, apparently proud of themselves for having properly "demonstrated their respect". How very English.




*sorry I meant single-handedly fighting off the Nazi menace.

[malbui]

My most abiding memory of Diana's death was the utterly needless cancellation of sport afterwards. FFS.

[JQH]

Nobody came to tell me, I just remember putting the radio on as I woke up and wondering if I was on the right station; Radio 1 continued to play the same three tracks of mournful library music for about three days.*


(* I didn't stay in bed for three days)

Not just Radio 1. Every f.cking station. I assumed at first that Brenda or her mum had pegged it.

[Rich Scopie]

I was in New York when Diana carked it. Every bar I went into I had Americans buying me beer to console me over "the death of your princess".

Loathed the woman. Still do.

[El Pollo Diablo]

It's good to see the forum being the proud bastion of national representation that it is.

[JQH]

It's good to see the forum being the proud bastion of national representation that it is.

It's good to see it maintain its tolerance for minority views.

[Vertigowooyay]

I remember being told of a friend of a friend who was in South Africa at the time who went into a shop and saw all the headlines, only to be accosted by a semi-hysterical woman who'd clocked he was British, saying "What I don't understand is why Pavarotti was chasing her on a moped in the first place".

[Lew Dolby]

Don't remember D's death but I do remember the day of her funeral. Who's idea was it that pubs should stay shut at lunchtime ?? Why !! Why !!!!

Was in the Lakes with my very aged parents. Pissing down heavily. Took forever but finally found an open pub at Elterwater - full of people asking the same question.

[Blackcountryboy]

If we get rid of the Royal Family we need a Head of State - Nigel Farage doesn't appear too busy nowadays; he would have a good chance if we did it by election.

[nezumi]

If we get rid of the Royal Family we need a Head of State - Nigel Farage doesn't appear too busy nowadays; he would have a good chance if we did it by election.

We need a vomit emoji.

Actually, why do we need a head of state anyway?