Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

No Justins, No Peace

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Everybody saw this coming.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Republicans do not pay their debts.

The revolution will be supervised.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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Reader Interactions

279Comments

  2. 2.

    Brachiator

    Woke up, could not get back to sleep. Now, I am taking a peek at the coronation on BBC. I could recognize Prince Harry sitting near the front in Westminster.

    It’s a bit weird that the big US media channels are also covering this live.

    The other big news is the absolute butt kicking the Tories are getting in the local Council elections. The Conservative Party also had in place stupid voter ID laws, which tried to favor older voters over younger voters. There may be a fair amount of negative fallout over this.

  7. 7.

    JPL

    I just started looking at the blog below on Jack Smith and I’m starting to thing the person who is tweeting is the other Jack Smith’s twin.

  8. 8.

    HumboldtBlue

    I am providing my own commentary to Salad, describing the Fluffle of Tickenwickenthorpe, The Mace of Cheddar — DAMN CHARLIE BROUGHT THE AFRO-GOSPEL SOUND TO WESTMINSTER!!!! — The Mole of Bu, the Herald of Glonberry on Twee and so on and so on.

  13. 13.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    This Jesus they speak of, sounds like he was a lovely liberal

  14. 14.

    JoyceH

    So today I learned that the Mall in London is pronounced to rhyme with pal. Wondering now why we pronounce ours “moll”.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    Thank dog for the choirs and the pages.  Otherwise, this whole thing could be taking place in a retirement home.

  20. 20.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    Betty Cracker @ Top:

    I’d be annoyed if it were my tax dollars paying for this absurd hoopla, but it’s kind of fascinating …

    It feels kind of like watching one of those old, casually racist, Nat’l Geographic specials about other cultures, but about white people.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    I like the blue and yellow carpeting.  Reminds of Ukraine.  Maybe on purpose.

  23. 23.

    JoyceH

    That crown is enormous! I think the one he wears when he leaves is lighter, surely!

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    That thing is just not really made to go comfortably on a human head.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    Charles has looked kind of self-conscious throughout.  He cannot wait for this to be over.

    Cut to Prince Louis yawning.

  28. 28.

    JoyceH

    It’s interesting that with all the modernity, he still has to verify that he is indeed a Protestant.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    First time it’s occurred to me that Ukraine and the European Union colors are very like each other.

    Take that, Brexit!

  32. 32.

    JoyceH

    I hope the news write ups will explain to us the significance and history of all the various gadgets he’s been presented with.

  33. 33.

    kalakal

    @JoyceH: Yes, it’s used as little as possible as it’s so big and heavy. Weighs about 5lbs.

    They swap it for a lighter one at the end

  35. 35.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    @JoyceH:

    That crown is enormous! I think the one he wears when he leaves is lighter, surely!

    You’d think they would have streamlined it by now, maybe into something like one of those Tolkeinesque Art Deco Elven circlets, but I guess they want the king to be reminded of the crown’s burden.

  38. 38.

    HumboldtBlue

    Camilla is wearing Queen Mary’s crown, does that mean they let her starve to death in the Tower from here on out?

  40. 40.

    Ken_L

    The crowns are more impressive when photographed on velvet cushions. When placed on human heads they look like the pageants we staged in elementary school.

  45. 45.

    Nelle

    Not watching,  though technically, as a New Zealand citizen, he’s my king.  Feels stupid to even write that.

  46. 46.

    JoyceH

    @Ken_L: I suspect they were designed to be good and visible from a distance, from the days before television cameras.

  47. 47.

    Llelldorin

    It’s the wee hours here. If I’m going to be an insomniac, there might as well be signing and swords and the Royal Rod With a Pigeon At The End and so on. It’s a lot more interesting than solitaire.

  50. 50.

    Llelldorin

    @JoyceH: Search for something like “candle lighter with bell snuffer.”  Apparently this comes up a lot for churches that go in for impressive candles.

  51. 51.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nelle: I know a Canadian who thinks that is actually the ideal situation with regard to the symbolic head of state: have one with no significant governmental power who is safely sequestered far, far away from your country. He seems to regard a head of state as something roughly analogous to nuclear waste. Observing United States politics from a very close distance was undoubtedly an influence on this position.

  52. 52.

    JoyceH

    @Llelldorin: we had those long candle lighter/snuffer gizmos at the church when I was a kid. And I used them, feeling all important in my choir robe. But the lighter I used wouldn’t come close to those candles!

  53. 53.

    hedgehog the occasional commenter

    Have to admit I’m a sucker for pageantry, and I love the music.  At the same time, I am grateful for the straightforwardness of our inaugurations, and that the oath is to no man or deity, but to an ideal.

  57. 57.

    JoyceH

    @hedgehog the occasional commenter: I’m impressed at the amount of pageantry for a ritual they do so seldom. You expect it from the Vatican, they’re pageantry 24/7.

    And whatever good things you can say about American inaugurations, they’re held out of doors – in January. With a speech.

  58. 58.

    Amir Khalid

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    Right now Malaysia’s own king, the Agong, is in London having to sit through this whole coronation rigmarole. I don’t envy the poor sod.

  60. 60.

    Llelldorin

    @JoyceH: Ah, cool! I can see ones that go up to 6′ handles at least by searching — I think that’d cover those mosters.

    If not, I suppose you could just do it Hanukkah-style and use one monster candle to light another. (Light one giant candle held horizontally, then use that candle as a candle-lighter for the rest…) That might drop an unacceptable amount of wax on expensive stuff, though.

  61. 61.

    kalakal

    @mrmoshpotato: On the other hand the tax income generated on the booze sold this weekend will more than cover it. Monarchist or no, everyone in the country will be hammered for the next 48 hours

  62. 62.

    JoyceH

    My sister and I went to Clinton’s first inauguration- couldn’t get anywhere near the actual event, just in the Milling Throng. Froze our butts off.

  66. 66.

    Llelldorin

    @JoyceH: I can imagine! And having ancient relics basically everywhere that isn’t the candle you’re trying to light can’t be easy on the nerves either.

  67. 67.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: We visited London last year and managed to get out of there a scant two weeks before Elizabeth II died and the whole country shut down. It felt like a real stroke of luck. It was kind of like the road trip we took down the US East Coast to visit family in 2011 where almost every place we went was hit by some kind of natural disaster (tropical storm, flooding, an actual earthquake) immediately after we left.

  68. 68.

    JoyceH

    (My experience comes from 1960s Methodism. Dad was the pastor and they liked having me and Jane as the acolytes because we were twins so of course it was Adorable.)

  72. 72.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mrmoshpotato: There’s a popular legend that William Henry Harrison’s fatal illness was brought on by his doing a very long inauguration speech in the cold, though it is probably untrue.

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    My first glimpse of Prince Harry.  He is three rows back behind his brother

    ETA:  And immediately behind Princess Anne’s tasselled hat.  Making it even harder to see him.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @hedgehog the occasional commenter: …Though Biden’s inauguration actually was more modest in scope than most recent ones, because of the ongoing pandemic and the added security measures motivated by what had happened a couple of weeks earlier. Biden refused to move it indoors for symbolic reasons but that was probably good from an epidemiological perspective too.

  85. 85.

    kalakal

    @schrodingers_cat: No she’s not. Deliberately chose not to do so

    The biggies are the 2 biggest bits of thr Cullinan which was dug up in South Africa in 1905.

    After 2 years of not getting anyone to buy it was bought uncut by the government and presented to Eddy VII

  88. 88.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I remember Charles and Di’s wedding. Didn’t watch that either. That also got hours and hours of coverage on US TV.

    Went to a handbell workshop that year and I remember how the leader couldn’t stop gushing about “two hours of change ringing!” (Not all on TV I believe).

    Change ringing is 8 people playing the same 8 notes in different orders as they do this complicated choreography.

  89. 89.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Matt McIrvin:

    because of the ongoing pandemic and the added security measures motivated by what had happened a couple of weeks earlier 

    Never too early in the morning to say it was because a white trash mob of Dump-humping fascist shitstains tried to overthrow the government for their fat, orange, fascist, manbaby god.

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  Charles did not find it much off that.

    You could almost see a word bubble as he left.  “I never have to do this again!”

  96. 96.

    kalakal

    @Betty Cracker: Anne always was the coolest of the bunch. Olympic athlete and European Equestrian champion who once fought off an armed would be kidnapper who’d just shot her bodyguard.

  98. 98.

    RandomMonster

    @Matt McIrvin: …visit family in 2011 where almost every place we went was hit by some kind of natural disaster…

    A little warning when you’re in town, please.

  99. 99.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle:

    Charles did not find it much off that. 

    You could almost see a word bubble as he left. “I never have to do this again!”

    Hahaha.

  101. 101.

    p.a.

    I like (good) bread, but have no use for circuses…

    Did you know the English royal family only gave up it’s claim to be the legitimate rulers of France in 1803?

    Source: youtube channel History Matters, a quite a lot of fun channel.

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @JoyceH: I remember hearing “Pall Mall” cigarettes pronounced ‘pell mell’ growing up outside of Atlanta.

    Hehe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    There’s an Irish wolfhound, Seamus, in the parade.  Hope we get to see him.

    Wasn’t he in QE2’s funeral procession too?

  109. 109.

    Ken

    @Brachiator: The Conservative Party also had in place stupid voter ID laws, which tried to favor older voters over younger voters.

    The Brexit_sham twitter feed noted one particularly egregious example a couple of weeks ago — some state-issued transportation pass (bus, I think) where the Senior pass was acceptable voter ID, but not the Student pass.

  110. 110.

    Tony Jay

    LETTER FROM BREXITANIA

    Witness the Vilest Inheriting the System

     

    Being a sensible, grown-up soul with more years of hard-earned experience in my rear mirror than lie ahead of me, the sensation of slowly crawling out from under a weekend-long hangover is a pleasure that I’ve deliberately denied myself for the best part of a decade. Unsurprisingly it turns out that this was a really super-smart, unimpeachably gold-star lifestyle choice, and going forward I’m arranging to have it carved in great big capital letters onto the granite face of my personalised Me2Me Contract, right between the clauses stipulating Absolutely No Piccalilli and Promote the wearing of comfortable, corduroy pants.

    Now, don’t get me wrong here. Though a beer-boy by choice, I’m always more than happy to get myself on the outside of a bottle or two of nice Malbec, it just turns out that a whole box of excellent Shiraz was simply above and beyond the short-term capabilities of my middle-aged recovery system. Still, it was a family birthday party, or at least it started that way, and when Lady Jay said, “Let’s have another glass before bed” half a dozen times on the trot, there appeared to be only one acceptable response. So, the cards were allowed to fall where they may, and the next morning(s) came with a drawn-out groan and much painful reflection. Totally my own fault, lessons will be learnt, inappropriate to speculate further at this time, let’s move on.

    One side result of all the bleaugh that didst ensueth from the aforementioned error in judgement is that I treated all British news like it’s got rank body odour and a host of opinions on a whole plethora of topics that it wanted to corner me by the watercooler and share at length. Not right now, fucker of mothers, I’ve got water to drink and the Resident Evil 3 (Remake) to beat on Inferno level, and anyway, things are so steam-rolleringly grim over on this side of the Atlantic that you don’t really miss anything of note even if you do tag out for a few days. We might have shot our economy in the head and reduced our national culture to a revolving z-list kennel of right-wing shitbores all barking rice-paper thin justifications for greed and mistrust into each other’s faces 24/7, but one thing we can now mass-produce for the global market in any quantity it requires is bad news presented as good news by bad people. So don’t worry, if you’ve missed the latest reason to despair about the state of this benighted isle, there’ll be another zooming by in less than a minute, and this one will be a double-decker, triple-engined, monsterfucka with a jumble of serrated fangs at the wheel and a million kids’ wasted futures lodged in the treads of its tyres.

    I didn’t worry. I waited, infinite rocket-launchered some zombies, then I checked the news.

    The country did not fail to disappoint.

    So, in between the latest bout of Debt Limit Roulette, the reveals about Clarence Thomas’ indentured servitude and all those lovely guilty verdicts for Seditious Proudness, you may have heard that there’s some kind of big to-do taking place in London today. Apparently, an elderly billionaire and his second wife are being bought shiny new hats by the grateful peasantry of the United Kingdom, which must be nice for them, and the nation is being shut down so we can all passively attend a massive Party in order to celebrate the fruits of generational incest and the concept of hereditary wealth-hoarding on a monumental scale.

    I refer, of course, to the Coronation of King Charles III and his Queen, Camilla. An event that we were all told would herald a bright new dawn for the Monarchy, but which seems to be being greeted by the vast majority of the population with all the enthusiasm of a wet shart in a pair of itchy felt knickers. The BBC, as is their appointed role, are doing their very best to pretend that everything under the dome is proceeding according to plan, offering up Wall-to-Wall coverage of the GROWING NATIONAL EXCITEMENT that only its interlocking skirmish-lines of journalistically neutered hairstyles-in-suits seem able to discern about to crest the zeitgeist horizon, mostly through the medium of frenzied vox-pops with the usual collection of Union Cack draped nutters you can always find capering around the otherwise bunting-free moonscape of modern Britain.

    To be honest, though, it’s a pretty half-hearted effort. For all the breathless coverage of every “ZOMG!! They spoke politely to a commoner in a red, white and blue plastic hat, how down-to earth and humanising!!” event and all the fusty, crusty talking heads wheeled out from the willow-shaded quadrangles of always temperate Oxbridge to tell us exactly how fascinated we should be by every facet of this Trump Hotel Lobby style baroque chintz, it feels like they’re going through the motions of a schedule crapped out by committee nigh on a century ago. The BBC is a Corporation systematically crippled by years of underfunding and stripped of all cumulative authority by the scandals swirling around the ideological bias of its Tory-appointed leadership (which we’re also being told we can’t discuss because it’s apparently antisemitic to do so, thanks FTF Guardian) and while they do as they’re told over at Broadcasting House these days, there’s very little sign that it’s doing much more than lying back and thinking of a very different England.

    I suppose all those years of the tabloid Press gleefully depicting Prince Big Ears as a slightly batty old envirowimp with odd views on architecture that even the former Queen couldn’t trust to wear the Crown did more damage to the foundations of this new Carolean Age than the Establishment accounted for. Throw in the lingering bruises left by the car-crash they made of their ‘Diana Situation’, the ensuing transformation of the Royal Family into a cheesy soap opera of stick-thin heroes and seductively dusky villains that the Trash Media could feed to its trash viewership, No-Sweat Andy’s Randy Misadventures on Rapaedo Island, the revelations dribbling out about how many laws the Royal Estate has exempted itself from, and how mind-bogglingly rich owning more or less every square inch of land that isn’t a Tesco, Asda or Waitrose has made them, and then the simple fact that we, the people, are involuntarily spending somewhere between £100 million and £250 million of OUR money on a flashy gender-reveal party (surprise! This time it’s a boy!) for a privileged ubertoff with almost £2 fucking billion quid in the bank while spiralling living costs and widespread inequality are the only matters on the minds of most of His Britannic Majesty’s subjects, it all seems like a terrible misreading of the national mood.

    To his (infinitesimal and roundly irrelevant in the wider context of the situation) credit, Chuckie (With All The) Cheese appears to have taken his head out of the horse’s arse he’s married to long enough to commune with the spirits of his ancestors and conclude that all the pre-Coronation talk of the populace being encouraged to verbally swear allegiance to our glorious new thronesquatter might have been one PR faux pas too many. Today he’s had his people doing the rounds of friendly outlets revealing that Charlie was never at all comfortable with the idea of millions of people sitting hunched in front of their flickering wide-screen TVs all paying homage to his unworthy self at the exact same moment, and not just because a more ‘Evil Psychic Alien Genius masterplan that will turn us all into mind-controlled frog soldiers reminiscent of the first Tennant Era of Doctor Who’ scenario would be hard to think up. It was suggested that the stunt was all the idea of that crusty old Etonian and all-round Tory suck-up the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has in turn quickly made it known that all the new elements of the rejigged coronation service were agreed in advance with Buckingham Palace, which translates from Establishment Politesse into the common English phrase “You come at the Archbishop, you better not miss”.

    Anyway, I don’t really give a shit which cossetted posh white boy came up with the stupid idea in the first place. C3 can PO, as it’s the wider British Establishment – that rotten and cancerous parasite on the gusset of the Body Politic – that truly needs to be excised sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, it retains more than enough moneymaking power and accompanying unity to reflexively crush even the mildest attempts at reform, so that’s not going to happen any day soon. In the meantime, we can only concentrate on practical matters, like debating how the roll-on effects of so many bodies being thrown under buses might impact on the safety of Transport London’s drivers and passengers.

    After all, it’s not like anyone can safely voice a protest about this whole farce. There’s not the omni-present weight of Establishment omerta on any expression of anti-Royalist sentiment like there was when Rich Lizzie Schwartzerfrei shuffled off her diamond encrusted coil, but the Government has happily exploited Old Big Ears’ desire to give his chain-smoking grasper of a wife the kind of Absolutely Traditional and Not At All Scaled Down extravaganza of a Coronation that that simpering slut of a Spencer bitch would have expected had she known her place and not broke the Broodmare Bargain. An event on this scale, with the Monarchy teetering on a precipice of unpopularity this high and so many foreign heads of state invited Westminster Abbey resembles even more of an Illuminati Walpurgis Night orgy than usual, requires a titanic security effort, and it just so happened that the Tories totally coincidentally and completely unrelatedly had a ready-made Public Order Bill ready to go that’s stuffed to the gills with new Police powers that basically outlaw peaceful protest and threaten uppity proles with long prison sentences and unlimited fines if they dare to express any opinion that doesn’t boil down to “Please, Sir, would you like some more it all?”

    The anti-Royalist group calling itself ‘Republic’ (because your GOP has made titles like ‘The Republican Constitutional Reform Movement’ unpalatable) even received threatening letters from some anonymous spook in the Home Office suggesting that any and all protests over the Coronation weekend ‘might’ be judged by ‘someone’ to be ‘potentially’ illegal. The Government, of course, wouldn’t clarify in interviews what kind of democratic protests were considered acceptable under their authoritarian new POA, because then the undesirable elements would just seek “exploit any loopholes” in order to get away with their unpatriotic tomfoolery, wouldn’t they? It seems to me that it’s pretty hard to find any loophole in the micro-second gap between “Are you here to cheer for His Majesty like a good little subject?” and “Taste my truncheon and stop resisting arrest with your face, scum!”, but I guess that’s why I’m not a high-flying Government or Shadow-Government Minister.

    There was also the claim by Tom “I was in the Army, so am Honourable” Tugendhat, the Minister for State Security, that the Metropolitan Police LARPing it up as Genoshan Magistrates for the weekend was actually an economic stimulus measure, because Protest = Loss of Profits, but I think by that point he was just openly trolling the fuck out of State Media. If he’d been given longer at the microphone, he’d have declared that every protestor arrested would be traded with Hades, Lord of the Underworld, for the souls of all the deceased members of England’s 1966 World Cup winning squad, so really the harsher the Police crackdown, the better our chances of bringing back the trophy in 2026, and who wouldn’t want that, eh? It’s coming home, indeed.

    And it’s not like the Security Forces need to worry that anyone is ever going to hold them to account for beating the shit out of a few yellow-banner waving Communards. Sir Plastic Panderer and his Nu-Labour Corporate Franchise Opportunity Formerly Known As The Labour Party have no intention whatsoever of passing legislation to revoke the POA’s powers should they win next year’s election. That would be far too ‘progressive’ and risk rendering them unelectable with the mid-1930s rural Bavarian voters they’re so focussed on wooing to their side. And anyway, ‘Republic’ are one of the groups on the list of organisations local Labour Party groups have been forbidden from affiliating with without the specific approval of Dear Leader’s rubber stamp Politburo National Executive Committee, alongside such fleshharrowingly dangerous sects as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition, London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, Jewish Voice for Labour, Somalis for Labour, Sikhs for Labour, All African Women’s Group, Health Campaigns Together, the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group and the Peace and Justice Project, the new organisation set up by the former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Labour Right, so deluded about being cast in the Saturday Morning Savvy Kidz Wake-Up Hour Show that they’re always happy to work hand in hand with Tories and hard-right billionaires, but absolutely opposed to having anything to do with uppity browns, peaceniks, pro-abortion Catholics, left-wing Jews, Africans, Asians, Women, Health campaigners, climate defenders, Trades Unionists or former twice elected on a landslide leaders of the Party. This in a week during which they’ve made it disgracefully clear that Black, left-wing women who have campaigned against and suffered from obscene levels of racism throughout their lives can just shut the fuck up and listen attentively when Middle Class White Jewish Men of the Right mansplain the true meaning of racism to them and been awarded the Nick Clegg Medal for spineless two-facery by reneging on yet another Starmer campaign promise to abolish tuition fees in higher education.

    But let’s look at all the pageantry, everyone. Doesn’t he look handsome in his uniform? Doesn’t she look beautiful garlanded with all those shiny rocks? Aren’t we all lucky the mulatto one isn’t there to ruin it all by making all the cameras focus on her suspicious good looks? Let’s all wave our flags and stuff quiche down our gullets and try to forget, for a little while, that the defining image of this run-down heist of a decrepit country is a ragged and creased Union Jack hanging limp and wet from the flagpole of an empty church next to a hand painted sign saying FOOD BANK THIS WAY and a poster demanding STOP THE BOATS/STOP THE RAPES.

    Doesn’t anyone do dirty bombs anymore? FFS, they’re right there!

  112. 112.

    Ken

    @JoyceH: All very Gormenghast. “You will now proceed to the left side of the throne, holding this egg whisk in your right hand, where the Earl of Throckmorton will hand you the sapphire rod, which you will take in your left hand…”

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    Sad they never incorporated breaking a bottle of champagne over the newly crowned monarch’s head as part of the hoop-de-doo.

  115. 115.

    Gin & Tonic

    Another pro-putin russian has car trouble:

    THE PURGE: Pro-Putin writer and political activist Zakhar Prilepin has been wounded in a car bombing outside the city of Nizhny Novgorod. Prilepin was an outspoken supporter of Putin and wrote frequently to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.https://t.co/Oqe0LjcZ8n
    — Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) May 6, 2023

  118. 118.

    There go two miscreants

    @JoyceH: ​It’s interesting that with all the modernity, he still has to verify that he is indeed a Protestant.

    Does he wear a French tickler? (Monty Python ref.)

  119. 119.

    different-church-lady

    I’m glad he won, but Charles is too old, and he shouldn’t run for king again in ‘27.

  121. 121.

    Ken

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:Change ringing is 8 people playing the same 8 notes in different orders as they do this complicated choreography.

    It’s a key element of Dorothy Sayer’s The Nine Tailors, which is where I first heard of it. Intrigued, I listened to some clips on youtube, and it’s clearly an acquired taste.

    There is some interesting mathematics behind it, since the goal is to ring all possible permutations of the bells, once each. There are physical restrictions — this is a ton or more of metal, rotating on a wheel and ringing once as it goes round, so you don’t pick out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on them.

    And the choreography mentioned above is in part because of the ton of whirling metal. If you misstep and get your foot (or arm, or neck) tangled in the bell rope, you will be going up in the air.

  122. 122.

    oatler

    Those not stupefied by soggy Coronation Quiche may if they want to tune in to COMET Tv’s  Tales From the Darkside marathon, which is showing “The Last Car” 1:30 PM EST.

  125. 125.

    Tony G

    @Brachiator: One of the many things that I’ll never understand is the fascination that a lot of Americans have for their British Royal Family.  Honestly, why should anyone care?  But apparently many people do care.

  126. 126.

    Andrya

    @JoyceH:  Remember all the paranoia about Muslims after 9/11 (and it’s still active on the far right)?  In 1605, a Catholic terrorist tried to blow up Parliament (at a time when the king would be present) and the Brits are still a bit paranoid about Catholics.  Four centuries and counting…

  128. 128.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony G: It’s celebrity drama that doesn’t really affect us and that we don’t have to pay for. And sometimes it involves weird pageantry. All this helps it function as entertainment.

  130. 130.

    Elizabelle

    I think he should have included Prince Harry on the balcony.  He has two, count them, two sons.  Harry is still his child.  Harry served his country.  His absence diminishes the celebration. Peevish.

  138. 138.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Tony G: For me, living in a young country, it’s about Old Stuff. It’s rare in the US to run into a 17th century building and then only barely (like the 1695 church here in Philly). In your country you have 14th-century garden sheds.

    Old Stuff for me includes traditions going back centuries, like all this silly pageantry and the weird relationship I’ll never understand between the royalty and the government. Not enough for me to actually watch it, but I still find it cool.

  139. 139.

    prostratedragon

    Come to think of it, our U.S. representatives were in Ukraine colors also, Dr. Jill in blue and granddaughter in yellow.

    The singing was excellent — Gospel and Welsh, no less! And the orchestra players were having a gas.

  140. 140.

    BC in Illinois

    There are those who are making a point about Dr. Jill Biden and her g’daughter, coming to the coronation in blue and yellow dresses, in honor of Ukraine. I wouldn’t doubt it.

    Others point out that Westminster Cathedral is also carpeted in blue and yellow. However, it seems that this is merely coincidental. Blue and yellow have been used in coronations before.

    The latter point is right, of course. They are the colors/colours of the European Union.

    It’s a subtle anti-Brexit statement.

  141. 141.

    Another Scott

    Man, the BBC folks really cranked up the “Sharpening” knob in that picture of Camilla, didn’t they (top picture in the top video)??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Tony G:

    The only thing I can think of is the US’ shared history with the UK that would explain it

  145. 145.

    Queen of Lurkers

    @schrodingers_cat: I think the Kohinoor is still behind bullet proof glass in a section of the Tower Museum where you have to pay extra to get in. I remember seeing it some 25 years ago on my first trip to London.

    The mysticism of the coronation used to mean something at one time when the monarch had actual power. Now it’s just meaningless pageantry to generate tchotchke.

  146. 146.

    Tony Jay

    @Layer8Problem:

    Since this country put representatives of the Right in charge of absolutely everything that matters, our society has been pulled into a very bad habit of gobbling down utter bullshit as common sense and dismissing the simple truth as some sort of weirdo conspiracy theory.

    What’s going on in London today is an ugly farce overlaying a dangerously authoritarian power grab. I’m just pouting and laughing at it. A bit.

  147. 147.

    scav

    With all the face paint and gizmos, it’s somehow a bit like any of the bowl games at least from the point of fan participation.

    Did somehow enjoy the green lady of the lake with the sword in a green man kind if way.

  149. 149.

    narya

    @MazeDancer: With Camilla it’s clearly because she was/is a smoker; those lines around the mouth are one of the things I gave up when I quit smoking. It’s a very specific set of facial lines

    ETA: smoking in general ages your skin, especially facial skin. I remember a woman in a smoking cessation group in her late 70s or so when she quit; next time I saw her she looked 10 years younger.

  150. 150.

    Elizabelle

    @BC in Illinois:

    Blue and yellow … are the colors/colours of the European Union.

    It’s a subtle anti-Brexit statement.

    I agree.  Would bet QE2 would have liked to knock some heads over that stupidity.  Or make speeches warning against all the falsehoods.  [ETA:  There were some serious benefits to belonging to the EU.  As Britain FAFO.  Londongrad.]

    Meanwhile, climate change is one of Charles’ biggest concerns.   And the wags want to make sure he STFU on the whole topic.

    It’s been ridiculous to watch the perfidy and cowardice of the Tory prime ministers, a whole series of them, and the Queen and her family had to just keep their lips zipped.

    Not saying they should weigh in on daily politics. But having to be silent over breaking up with the EU — one of the stupidest decisions ever, made by a bunch of stupid people on the basis of lies by known liars — and not acting as environmental stewards for the future?

    It has its tragic aspects.

    Why be king, if you can’t have Nigel Farage drawn and quartered?  Or at least tossed into the Tower.  For decades.

  151. 151.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: According to a commentator on MSNBC who seemed pretty dialed in (an American married to Earl Flapdoodle or something), the issue is that William can’t stand the sight of Harry, not that Charles wanted to exclude either son.

  152. 152.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Queen of Lurkers: Most of that stuff they used in Charles’ coronation is in a section that you literally ride past on a moving walkway to keep the crowds moving along. I remember the orb and scepter, and how my daughter immediately identified the orb as the Holy Hand Grenade from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and about thirty seconds later I heard some other random tourist say “The Holy Hand Grenade!” So naturally I had to say the same thing in this thread.

    The Koh-i-Noor is in the old Queen Mother’s crown and I think that was in a separate case in the next room.

  156. 156.

    JMG

    We’ll see how America measures up in the weird clothes competition later today, as it’s Kentucky Derby day. I think we’ll do well in the Ladies’ Hats event, but after that, I don’t like our chances.

  159. 159.

    Brachiator

    @Tony G:

    One of the many things that I’ll never understand is the fascination that a lot of Americans have for their British Royal Family.

    The US did not sever relationships with Britain after the revolution. Certain levels of American society always had much in common with the UK.

    On the celebrity level, during the Gilded Age, a number of wealthy Americans married British aristocrats. And when British aristocrats and royalty visited the US, it was always reported in New York and Washington newspapers, in the Society or gossip section.

  161. 161.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    On the celebrity level, during the Gilded Age, a number of wealthy Americans married British aristocrats.

    That’s what happened on Downton Abbey. I remember it was often an attempt to save the great British estates like DA with new infusions of American wealth, IIRC

  162. 162.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: ​Unfortunately, I think that their former closeness had a “you and me against the world” aspect that was unlikely to survive once they began forming real adult relationships. They probably don’t truly understand each other.

  163. 163.

    scav

    @NotMax: Groom IN the stool, please, how can one wish Farage in close personal attendance in intimate moments on anyone.  Although I’d personally stuff him in after Rees-Mogg, for purely personal reasons.  Quick succession though, definitely.

  165. 165.

    R-Jud

    @MazeDancer: Re the sausage fingers: my dad, who’s 72, has pretty bad arthritis in his hands and he becomes very sausage-fingery as the day goes on. That’s possibly what’s going on with Old Chuck here. That or some kind of kidney issue.

  166. 166.

    Suzanne

    Harry is the only good-looking one. Kate looks old and dour.

    Man, for people who really should understand how to exercise soft power by now, they really shit the bed with Harry and Meghan.

  167. 167.

    Betty Cracker

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I assume Harry’s book is the source of the hard feelings? Aside from things covered in The Crown series on Netflix, I don’t know much about the royal family either. The show hasn’t depicted events beyond the mid-1990s so far.

  168. 168.

    MazeDancer

    @narya: Smoking! Been so long since I even knew anyone who smoked, wouldn’t have thought of it.

    Still, she looks terrible.Charles looks terrible.

    Jill Biden, who will be 72 in a few weeks, looks great.

  170. 170.

    Suzanne

    @MazeDancer: Kate and William are younger than Mr. Suzanne and I, and both of them look considerably older. Their skin looks wrinkled and saggy already.

    I get that the British don’t do Botox and fillers and stuff, but I don’t, either.

  171. 171.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

     

    @Suzanne:

    Man, for people who really should understand how to exercise soft power by now, they really shit the bed with Harry and Meghan.

    They let their racism overwhelm any good sense they have

  172. 172.

    MazeDancer

    @Suzanne: Kate does look very mean. She, too, looks at least 10 years older than 41.

    And William is 40??

    Truly cannot understand why these absurdly rich and coddled people should look anything other than happy and grateful.

    And if they don’t like the job, they should get out of it. Harry looks fit and happy.

  174. 174.

    Tony Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Harry broke ranks and outed the appalling racism his wife had been expected to put up with from the pyramid scheme the Prince of Peggers and his own heirs are in line to head up and enjoy all the privileges of.

    One does not chose a woman over the continued primacy of The Firm. And one specifically does not go on Oprah and tell the world about it.

    Unless one is an actual human being. Not something the Windsors are capable of understanding.

  175. 175.

    sab

    @MazeDancer: My husband is about Jill Biden’s age and smoked for forty years and he looks a good ten years older than his chronological age. He quit about ten years ago. He uses his appearance to scare young smokers, especially the women: “keep on smoking and this face is your future.”

  177. 177.

    Suza

    @Betty Cracker: William hates Harry because Harry has been up-front in interviews, the book, etc. about the royals being racist and also just classist and shitty. He has said straight-up that the palace courtiers sacrificed Meghan’s image to protect Kate’s. And that William and Kate encouraged him to wear the Nazi costume.

    I also think that William just cares more about the whole monarchy institution (which makes sense, he has more to get out of it), and sees Harry as damaging it by outshining him and his wife. The Royals have always been threatened by some members getting too popular.

  178. 178.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: William hates Harry because Harry has been up-front in interviews, the book, etc. about the royals being racist and also just classist and shitty. He has said straight-up that the palace courtiers sacrificed Meghan’s image to protect Kate’s. And that William and Kate encouraged him to wear the Nazi costume.

    I also think that William just cares more about the whole monarchy institution (which makes sense, he has more to get out of it), and sees Harry as damaging it by outshining him and his wife. The Royals have always been threatened by some members getting too popular.

  180. 180.

    Betty

    @Elizabelle: That was a weird aspect of the ceremony where they repeatedly talked about exercising his power with justice and protecting the people. What power to do anything meaningful?

  181. 181.

    Layer8Problem

    @Tony Jay:  Charles Stross on Mastodon is having none of it, boosting images of arrests of peaceful protestors and Google Maps images of the location of UK coronation street parties compared to the location of UK food banks.

  182. 182.

    Jay C

    @Matt McIrvin:

     He seems to regard a head of state as something roughly analogous to nuclear waste.

    Pretty perceptive: after all, look at the last one we had….

  184. 184.

    Tony Jay

    @Suzanne:

    The days of Britons not doing Botox and so on are loooong in the past. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone under the age of 40 who hasn’t had something tucked, trimmed, toned, tweaked or otherwise chemically or medically treated.

    If the Windsors look drained and old it’s because their souls are rattling around at the bottom of a feeding tube injected into the third stomach of whatever inhuman abomination dwells beneath Windsor Castle in the Chamber of a Thousand Screams.

    Or because they’re up all night while Wills trawls Grindr for discreet rough trade that he’s not already on first name terms with.

  185. 185.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    They let their racism overwhelm any good sense they have 

    It isn’t just racism. The British have a slightly different flavor of bullshit based on social class and strict hierarchy. As the royal family transitioned to basically being celebrities, they have an expectation that attention commanded will also follow that same hierarchy.

    One of the biggest areas of conflict when Diana got really popular is that she outshone Charles. She was more attractive and interesting, kinder, more charismatic. And the public stopped giving a shit about Charles’ causes and statements and all that nonsense. She was really good at all the celebrity parts of the job. Enter Meghan, who is biracial, American, totally outside the British class system…. and more interesting, better spoken, better educated, and more attractive than Kate. Can’t have that.

  189. 189.

    Tony Jay

    @Layer8Problem:

    That’s the only Charlie the country should be listening to right now.

    @MagdaInBlack:

    Just like everyone else he’s free to seek his consensual thrills where and with whomever he chooses. And just like everyone else I’m free to mock him for it. So I gleefully will.

  190. 190.

    Suzanne

    @Tony Jay: Well, I simply hate to be catty….. but I felt like Camilla needed some better foundational undergarments under her dress. Like, come on now.

  192. 192.

    TS

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    Leave my king alone!

    Agreed – much easier – and cheaper than voting for a President

    As a BBC commentator noted – how many countries could have 2 monarchs and 2 PMs within the life time of a bottle of milk – and no wars or overthrows of any governments involved.

  193. 193.

    Tony Jay

    @Suzanne:

    Those tentacles she sprouted after last night’s traditional droit d’monstrosite with Uncle Rrrrr’lllaaarrrrrggghhhyyyyllllll the Atrocious had to be accommodated somewhere.

    The now blind/mute ladies in waiting who fitted it did the best they could, under the circumstances.

  195. 195.

    Suzanne

    @TS:

    As a BBC commentator noted – how many countries could have 2 monarchs and 2 PMs within the life time of a bottle of milk – and no wars or overthrows of any governments involved. 

    Honestly, that’s what happens when the country doesn’t really have much world influence any longer.

    There are times I think of just how unbelievably goddamn dumb Brexit was. Just breathtakingly stupid and self-defeating.

  200. 200.

    Juju

    Meh.
    Also, my father, a physician, always said if you want to keep your looks, don’t smoke, stay out of the sun and choose the right parents.

  201. 201.

    Layer8Problem

    @NotMax:  If he lived today he’d probably walk around muttering to himself “Son of Jor-El, kneel before Zog!” giggling.

  202. 202.

    Tony Jay

    @NotMax:

    Assumes teeth-clenched jaw shape and RP accent.

    “One can never be entirely sure of such things, can one? One simply has to rely upon the good judgement of one’s people who attend to these matters.”

  203. 203.

    Almost Retired

    I slept in.  Chuck Three is king, and no angry Tudors or Plantagenets crashed the ceremony to try and reclaim the crown from the Germans.  So there’s that.

  204. 204.

    catclub

    I’d be annoyed if it were my tax dollars paying for this absurd hoopla,

    Do you know how much money goes to ‘Military bands’ compared to the National Endowment for the Humanities?

  205. 205.

    Eolirin

    In other news it seems like McConnell had signaled a clean debt ceiling bill will be subject to a filibuster and has enough support from the rest of the Senate caucus to enforce it, so unless we can move it through budget reconciliation in the Senate and I’m not sure we can do that even assuming we can get a longshot discharge petition through the House, it looks like Biden will need to be using the 14th amendment solution.

  206. 206.

    catclub

    @Tony Jay: ​
    &nbsp

    ;Just like everyone else he’s free to seek his consensual thrills where and with whomever he chooses.

    Wasn’t that what some Epstein guy would say about 16 year olds?

  208. 208.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also…. William use to be considered the good-looking one. When he was younger, there was literally fangirl posters of him for sale. People talked about how much he looked like Diana. Now the Windsor genes have asserted themselves, he looks old and gross, and Harry is much better-looking. So…. this undercurrent that Harry and his wife were getting all the attention that William and Kate wanted….. and then Harry and Meghan get pissed that they’re being made to look bad in order to maintain the William and Kate pair….. so they say FUCK THIS SHIT and stop “serving” the family. Which of course, makes the family look small and petty, and William and Kate small and petty, too.

  210. 210.

    Tony Jay

    @catclub:

    Only entirely dishonestly and by wilfully twisting the meaning of ‘consent’ into a Get Out Of Jail Free card for well-connected ephebophiles.

    Really, you’d have to ask Andrew about all that. Maybe tag his nym (Sweatlessandreckless) on one of the dark web Right Royal Liason sites and see what he thinks?

  211. 211.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

     

    @Brachiator: Perhaps the most famous of of these Gilded Age, transatlantic marriages was that of American beauty Jennie Jerome and the talented Randolph Churchill. He was the 3rd son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough; her father, Leonard Jerome, was ” a financier, sportsman and speculator” based in New York.

         The couple met at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August, 1873, having been introduced by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

    Although they became engaged within 3 days, the marriage was delayed for months while the parents argued over settlement.

    Miss Jerome and Lord Churchill finally were married April 15, 1874 at the British Embassy in. She was 20, and he was 25.

    From Wikipedia 

  213. 213.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I got a link to People magazine’s photos and with some exceptions, the onlooking subjects looked joyous and the crowned ones and attendees looked dour. Royalty isn’t what it’s cracked up to be besides the billions.

  215. 215.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: I don’t really have a dog in the William vs. Harry fight, but I am struck by how polarizing it is. I follow people on Twitter whose political views are otherwise totally in accord, who stake out vehemently opposing viewpoints on this question..

  216. 216.

    Rusty

    @Tony Jay: Thank you for this.  We were US expats living outside of London from 2005-2009, and our youngest was even born on the NHS.  So we carry a real fondness for the UK and all it’s quirks and oddities.  I had completely missed the new anti-protest law until this week a British fellow choir member here in the US mentioned it along with ”those damn fascist Tories”.  Yikes.

  217. 217.

    Miss Bianca

    @Geminid: Jeez. I can’t believe that anyone would care enough to pick sides, other than the family itself.

    However, William and Kate remind me enough of certain of my White Privileged relations that I find myself thinking, “If Harry and Meghan stir up this much animosity in The Firm, they’re probably all right.”

  218. 218.

    patrick II

    The heart is a funny thing.  From a distance, it would seem unlikely that one would dump Princess Di for Camilla.  But Charles couldn’t live without her.

  219. 219.

    The Pale Scot

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s just as easy to elect some largely harmless older person to be your head of state and be genially colorful but otherwise unobtrusive;

    That’s why Ireland has Mike Higgins.

    Here he is showing off his shillelagh to the Pope

  220. 220.

    guachi

    California’s dumb recall election cost $200 million. At least the coronation is interesting to watch.

  221. 221.

    Tony Jay

    @Rusty:

    Shocking, isn’t it? Almost like they think there’s going to be a lot more protests on the horizon.

    Just wait, they’re soon be using these new laws against striking nurses and teachers.

  222. 222.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: Retired photo editor Susan Vermazen is a good example of the pro-William side. She’s very much a partisan of the Royal Family in general, so she takes their side in this fight.

  223. 223.

    Scout211

    I posted last night about the latest J6 defendant convicted and sentenced yesterday For 14 years in prison It is the longest prison sentence so far.

    Yesterday, prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Stewart Rhodes to 25 years.

    And this morning, a story about identifying the person known as “Pink Beret” who has been in the most wanted J6 list but was not yet identified until an ex-boyfriend was shown her photo and he called the FBI with the tip.

    No. 537 on the FBI list is a woman wearing a white coat and black gloves, carrying a black Dolce & Gabbana purse, who has been the subject of Jan. 6 conspiracy theories. In one image, with her eyebrow arched, she looks dead at the camera like she’s Jim from “The Office.” In another, she’s standing near the Capitol, appearing to direct rioters with a stick.

    Atop her head: a pink beret.

    “I stopped dead in my tracks,” the designer, who asked not to be named to avoid harassment and threats, recalled in an interview with NBC News. “I’m like, ‘That’s Jenny.’”
    He sent in a tip to the FBI. On Monday, he said he got a call from the bureau, confirming they were investigating Jenny. By Friday, a law enforcement official confirmed to NBC News that the bureau had identified “Pink Beret” as the clothing designer’s ex, Jennifer Inzuza Vargas, of Los Angeles.

  224. 224.

    Miss Bianca

    @Geminid: See, I just don’t understand why the hell *anyone*, outside the Royal Family itself, would be “pro-Royal Family”. Even the best of them are just parasites on the body politic, as far as I’m concerned.

  225. 225.

    smintheus

    Pretty grim. Police have repeatedly warned, harassed, and now arrested anti-monarchist demonstrators.

     

    It seems even worse that such gross violations of human rights are in service to a pair of sleazeballs who already broke life-long vows of loyalty in the most public and shameless way imaginable. “Never trust a liar” used to be a bit of common sense.

  227. 227.

    kalakal

    @scav:

    Did somehow enjoy the green lady of the lake with the sword in a green man kind if way.

    That was Tory MP Penny Mordaunt who moonlights as a SwordBearerGram with a sideline as Chairman of the Privy Council

  228. 228.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Eolirin:

    In other news it seems like McConnell had signaled a clean debt ceiling bill will be subject to a filibuster

    He has?  Not doubting you per se, but that’s a reversal of his previously stated position.  Where did you see this and what did he say?

    ​EDIT – Not doubting you, but I sure don’t trust the press.​

  230. 230.

    suzanne

    @Geminid: It’s one of those things where the stakes are so small.

    I was raised by my grandfather, who loved the UK and deeply admired their traditionalism. So he taught me a lot about the history of the monarchy. I have never really grokked why anyone cared about it as an institution, though. It seems deeply silly to take it so seriously. I enjoy my share of shallow celebrity gossip, though, and i think Meghan is lovely and intelligent. And Kate strikes me as dumb as a stump.

    The entire country seems to be saying to the world “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS?!?!” before they get their asses kicked in an alley. Again, they have a lot of soft power to wield, but they’re too wrapped up in themselves to do it as effectively as they could.

  231. 231.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: I see this as a matter of differing sensibilities. If you were to check out Ms. Vermazen’s Twitter account, you’d probably agree with her liberal, Democratic viewpoint on most things. Just not this one.

    Fortunately, this is unlikely to become a wedge issue among Democrats. It’s like the Designated Hitter: some people are for it, some are agin’ it, but most people don’t really care.

  233. 233.

    Jackie

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Reported by The Hill:

    “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has signed onto a letter stating he and more than 40 members of the Senate GOP conference will not back “any bill that raises the debt ceiling without substantive spending and budget reforms,” The Hill reports.”

  234. 234.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jackie: ​
    Then I guess we’ll have to see if they mean it or are running their mouths! McConnell is the most shameless liar in American politics. Nothing comes out of his mouth that isn’t calculated for effect rather than truth. Whatever he decides, he could get 41 members of his caucus to stick guns up their noses and pull the trigger.

  235. 235.

    kalakal

    Frankly I’d hate to be a prominent member of the Royal Family in this day and age. The poor sods are born in a goldfish bowl and everything they do and say is recorded, “analysed”, and held against them. Unlike most celebs they didn’t choose it, and as they’re born in the system don’t actually realise the full implications until they’re teens/young adults. It’s probably why the spouses tend to look so grim, it doesn’t hit them until too late. Like being the star of the Truman show but knowing it’s all fake but you can’t quit without a total shitstorm.

    Also they can’t trust anyone, confide in anyone, there’s a very lucrative market in memoirs & tell alls beckoning to all around them.

    I’d hate it

  237. 237.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TS: When Liz Truss went out I noted during her 7 weeks in office she’d served under more monarchs than any PM since Winston Churchill.

  238. 238.

    scav

    @kalakal: Mmm, well, alas, maybe not enjoy the actual Tory lady so much as having a strange Lady of the Lake lady governing by random sword distribution vibe echoing through the vaulted transept.

  245. 245.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid: ​

    This Twitter thread gives a good look at the bifurcation of love for Harry and hate for Harry, Willie and Megs are mentioned as asides.

    @The Lodger:

    Not to mention the Spotted Dick of Swindon.

    Capt. Jack Aubrey’s ears perk up, he does love a good spotted dick.

  246. 246.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: I’ve noticed that too and have also been surprised by the vehemence. It’s a celebrity slap-fight, FFS! ;-)

  247. 247.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    That’s what happened on Downton Abbey. I remember it was often an attempt to save the great British estates like DA with new infusions of American wealth, IIRC.

    Yep. Quite a few British aristocrats squandered their wealth gambling or making other extremely foolish mistakes. American Dollar Princesses were flush with hefty family wealth.

    Also, after the Civil War, there was a huge decline in the number of wealthy and socially acceptable Southern men for rich Northern ladies.

    A bit of extra craziness. A wealthy New York family typically preferred that their daughter marry European royalty than the son of the wealthiest Chicago industrialist.

    Weird snobbery.

  248. 248.

    Joseph Patrick Lurker

    For fuck’s sake, monarchies should not be a thing in 2023. It’s time to abolish all of them.

  250. 250.

    Annie

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Er, no.  The Queen Mary referred to was the wife of George V.  Crown was made for her for the 1911 coronation.  She was King Charles’ great-grandmother.

  251. 251.

    scav

    @kalakal: Beaten by the also-ran heir to a lettuce-outlasted PM. Quite a definition of low bar there.  Ah well, can wander with a sharp stick for a long time and has some dress sense — could be worse.

  254. 254.

    Annie

    1.  I’m sure Tony Jay will correct me if this is wrong but I believe Parliament can vote to abolish the monarchy any time it wants to.
    2.  No one here can possibly want the monarchy abolished—having too much fun snarking about it.
    3. I think there’s some value in having the head of state be a different person than the head of government.  I think it’s a good idea to have a frequent visible reminder that a country exists separately from its government.  The United States is one of the few countries in which they are the same person.
  255. 255.

    Geminid

    @Annie: France is also a major country where the president is head of the government. I think South Korea is another.

    When politicians pressed Chatles DeGaulle to step back into politics and end the political crisis of the late 1950’s, he insisted on a new constitution with a powerful president. The 5th Republic has turned out to be fairly stable since, considering France’s history of fractious party politics.

  256. 256.

    Annie

    @Geminid:

    I had forgotten about de Gaulle — don’t know how I could possibly do that!  Thank you for the information about South Korea, did not know that.

  257. 257.

    Ken

    @scav: a strange Lady of the Lake lady governing by random sword distribution vibe

    Plus, that was a legend of the British kings, at least two or three major invasions ago. As some have quipped at the “Britain for the British” protests, are they going to start by getting rid of the bloody Saxons?

  258. 258.

    Tony Jay

    @Annie:

      I believe Parliament can vote to abolish the monarchy any time it wants to.

    Technically, I’m sure it can. It’s been done before following the Civil War, but without the election of a majority Government that had Republican reforms in its manifesto it’s vanishingly unlikely.

    Basically, the British constitutional system is what you’d get if Charles I got the Absolute Monarchy he wanted, but then all of that power was invested in the institution of Parliament. A change to a Republic would rip all that up and require us asking and answering a LOT of tough questions about who we are and what we want our country to be.

    The mind boggles at how that might turn out.

  259. 259.

    mrmoshpotato

    I see this thread is still alive – unlike Lizzy (in a box.)

    And the Declaration of Independence is a laundry list of reasons why George III could go fuck himself.

  260. 260.

    scav

    @Ken: Would that be FIFO, or more the plate-stacking approach?  Bloody Normans or Angles/Jutes/Saxons first?  Vikings / Danes bag the middle step either way.  And good luck if they have to drive the Scots out of Scotland, those Irish interlopers.

  261. 261.

    Librarian

    @Geminid: Yes, actually parliamentary systems have heads of state, most elected, and some monarchs, like the European monarchies and Japan.

  262. 262.

    Geminid

    @Librarian: Malaysia has a king, the Agong. Normally he stays out of politics, but after their last election, there was an impasse on forming a government and the Agong stepped in to help facilitate the new one.

  263. 263.

    Brachiator

    I think that Thailand still has a king. The Netherlands has a king or queen and I think recently started to downsize the royal family.

    And I think many take the existence of the Saudi royal family for granted. People who thinks the British royals should be abolished don’t get as upset about Saudi royals.

  265. 265.

    columbusqueen

    Meghan reminds me far too much of my bitch cousins in law who have wrecked my extended family, so I’m not a fan. I also question how much of a paladin for racial justice she really is. Based on her & her mother’s statements in the Netflix doc, she seems to have mostly passed as white in Hollywood & didn’t view herself as black til she moved to Britain.

  269. 269.

    Annie

    @Tony Jay: thank you but this brings up another question for me.  Can a newly elected Parliament enact something major that was not in its election manifesto?  I wonder, because of the meaninglessness of American party platforms.

  270. 270.

    Tony Jay

    @Geminid:

    And we’ve always liked getting our altered states on. Mead, though. Tried it once, that stuff is sweet. 

    @Timill:

    Drunk arguments can get way out of hand really quickly, can’t they?

    @Annie:

    Sure they can. If they’ve got the votes to override opposition they can legislate anything they please. I think the only obligation (that isn’t always honoured) is that if it is in the manifesto, MPs of that Party have to vote for it (or at least not vote against it) when the time comes.

  272. 272.

    Annie

    @Brachiator:

    yep.  Netherlands has a king;  he attended Charles’ coronation.  So did the kings of Spain, Sweden and Belgium.  Grand Duke of Luxembourg was also present.  Norway sent their crown prince.    Don’t know if there is sentiment in any of these countries to abolish these monarchies.

  273. 273.

    Geminid

    @Annie: Amir Khalid said the Agong was there. That’s a long trip from Malaysia to sit through all that.

  274. 274.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay: there are all kinds of meads out there, from the very sweet to the very dry. I prefer the dry side, myself.

    (My phone wanted to autocorrect “meads” to “meds”. FAIR ENOUGH!)

  277. 277.

    Darkrose

    @Tony G:  One of the many things that I’ll never understand is the fascination that a lot of Americans have for their British Royal Family.  Honestly, why should anyone care?  But apparently many people do care.

    As my wife put it, it’s the equivalent of following your ex on social media. Plus it’s kind of fascinating to watch people dress up in strange, elaborate clothes and do stff–it’s theater.

    But it’s also because we don’t have anything like it. The pagentry and archaic traditions are weird, but there’s a comfort and a sense of connection that comes with ritual. I haven’t set foot in an Anglican church in over 20 years, except for my mother’s funeral, but I still know the order of the service from memory. That said, listening to a tired old man in a gold bathrobe swear to uphold the Protestant faith was a great reminder of why separation of church and state is a good idea.

  278. 278.

    Ithink

    Can anybody post a new embedded link here on the blog to this original video? It’s apparently private now! I wanted to see it.🤕

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