A morph of photographs. I think it is touching. I turned down the sound, for some reason I Chariots of Fire was annoying with that, but the images themselves are obviously arranged with a great deal of fondness and this diamond jubilee tribute video changed my view of the woman and of the institution.
And unrelated, on the other side of the continent on the other side of the ocean on the other side of life from queen Elizabeth, here is Steve Jobs telling a joke so charmingly self-deprecating that even Bill Gates has a laugh.
44 comments:
She did her pull during WWII and is Blighty's last real link with its glorious past.
So, as a proud American, let me say, "God bless the Queen".
President Ford played "The Lady is a Tramp" for her US visit in the 70s.
An Obama retrospective would show him with decreasing amounts of sawdust in him.
Belmont Club
My mother-in-law would fly into tirades over Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Queen Elizabeth.
That is not the least bit interesting.
But what is interesting is the fact that she seemed to bear no grudge against Madonna or Princess Diana.
I really don't know how she feels about Kate Middleton, which is more of a boast than a confession on my part.
That soggy bint and her inbred offspring are why men fought and died to free our once-great country from England.
Fuck the queen and all she stands for.
NBC news headline: The Big Chill: A dominant Obama meets a cool Putin at G20.
From rhhardin's link to Belmont Club:
“It was very odd. Obama is treating him like he was greeting a doorman,” she said … “This is a show of power,” she said. “In addition, he leans in toward Putin with his upper body, placing himself slightly into Putin’s personal zone. Notice Putin pulls back ever so slightly, which indicates that Obama has the upper hand.”
Oh yeah, that's a sure sign of an upper hand. A real show of "power." (Eye roll.)
Just as Gore had the upper hand over Bush, oh so memorably, here.
"Dominant"! LOL. And yet, heavy sigh. This is the POTUS: pathetic. Cringeworthy. Disturbing and depressing.
That morph of photographs is poignant indeed. As it would be of any human being, though-- that she's the Queen is irrelevant to the poignancy.
Sixty Grit's contempt for the royals made me think of this great anecdote, recounted by Caroline Blackwood, about Francis Bacon and Princess Margaret.
Well, I always preferred sculpture to painting, but other than that, yep.
Now think about how it came to be that there are thousands of professionally taken portraits of a young girl in England - a place at that time so impoverished and economically moribund that millions could not even find work.
Of course - she was heir to the throne! Fabulously wealthy. She now owns several square miles of downtown London, having had to relinquish such baubles as India and Kenya and whatnot. But she kept the crown jewels, so there, peasants!
How did she get all that? Her daddy gave it to her. Where did he get it? His daddy. And so on and so on.
I once worked with an obnoxious Aussie (is there any other kind?) who was a die hard royalist. Even though at the moment of his birth he knew he could never ascend to any title of royalty, he loved the idea of being ruled by his betters. What a tool. He is now a commie living in LA. I hope the Mexicans have their way with him when the troubles start.
Seriously - who prefers being a subject to being a citizen?
But I am swimming against the tide, I know that. We are all subjects now.
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
God bless her and keep her alive in her royal quest to outlive her wretched spawn.
For the future of the Monarchy. For England.
Well, at least Charles.
She just keeps going an going. Good for her.
RH - NBC has (also) turned this nation into a doormat.
And Yashu, I referenced that moment from the 2000 debates yesterday but was too lazy to link up some video. Thanks for doing that! It's Bush's second finest moment, and probably Gore's best. (Yes, my opinion of Gore is that low.)
Sixty Grit has intellectual integrity when it comes to contempt for those who adulate.
I like that.
I was born a free man. I intend to die that way, too. But I've said too much already. ;^)
I like Queen Elizabeth because of this and also because she is so reserved. Reserve is a quality terribly lacking these days.
Looking at her makes me sad because her life has spanned the pitiful collapse of a once great country. That has to ache.
The morphing thing was a bit creepy.
Her dogs are smarter than her children.
They started her out in pearls at an early age.
Also, I hope I age as gracefully as she has. Especially since I suspect I will live to see my country run into the ground just as badly as hers was in her lifetime.
If one has a billion dollars that one inherited, one can afford to age gracefully. Minions are helpful, too.
yashu said...
NBC news headline: The Big Chill: A dominant Obama meets a cool Putin at G20.
Domiannt?
They're really living up to that MSLSD nickname.
It struck me how her vertical brow furrow sets in at around 1m47s. Her son Charles must have begun vexing her around that time.
I disagree with the idea that Britain has collapsed. The British EMPIRE collapsed. Which was a different thing entirely. Anyone want to be on whether living standards in old Blighty are better today than they were in 1935?
Those nations do have demographic problems, but so do most of the heavily industrialized nations, including China.
@Sixty: I see you have glommed onto "bint" as an alphabetically ameliorated alternative.
Good on you.
That was fascinating.
I was mesmerized by her teeth. She still has the originals it seems from the morphing photographs and they are not the usual picket fence British teeth. They did go from a yellowish to brighter white in several photographs but not sure if that is a function of the film or that she had her teeth whitened. But they were still HER teeth.
I hate it when people take their perfectly good but idiosyncratic teeth and turn them into a Joe Biden type of false teeth. Cher in my opinion ruined her look not only with the excessive plastic surgery but especially when she changed her charming teeth. I'm glad the Queen didn't do that. It makes her more humble and human.
The morphing hats were pretty fascinating too. I began to get an acid flash back type of feeling about the Mad Hatter.
Icepick--the 2011 London riots convinced me that England has collapsed.
Several illustrative aspects:
--The sheer numbers of feral, nihilistic, morally void young people grabbing and destroying anything they could get their hands on
--The reluctance of the city to respond with force; police were instructed to observe but not intervene
--The utter disinterest of the powers that were in protecting private property
--The fact that only the city's immigrants were willing and able to protect their own property-I'm remembering photos all the Pakistani men between 11 and 81 lining up in front of their businesses with cricket bats and grim expressions while native Britons were doing this
--The utter capitulation of the law-abiding to the forces that would do them harm.
The Britons who perservered through the Battle of Britain must be spinning in their graves.
Hey, I'm trying, E. P. And you can take that any way you care to.
Perhaps a better phrase might be "I'm working on it". Much work to do.
Plus I like Monty Python - the sketch with the Bwittians. "Good muck over here!" If I had a dollar for every time I said that I would have several dollars.
the 2011 London riots convinced me that England has collapsed.
Several illustrative aspects
And this is different from the United States....how? I don't disagree with you. I just think we need to admit to ourselves that we are in the same collapsed state as England.
Until the government takes away our firearms we still have a bit of an advantage over our limey brethren.
Of course, they are working on taking away our firearms, and when that happens, hello anarchy.
DBQ:
A. I live, by the grace of God, in Texas. It should go without saying that riots in which the citizenry cower helplessly while the ferals smash/loot/burn their businesses and literally take the clothes off their backs would not happen here. For heaven's sake it is perfectly legal for me to fatally shoot someone fleeing from my house with my TV under their arm. Even in blue-island San Antonio, Houston or DFW, it would not happen. The rest of the country, other than the usual suspect coalition of gungrabbers and the like, still believes in defense of self and property. England, even in the countryside, does not.
B. I agree entirely that dear old USA is just as screwed as the UK, but in different ways and for different reasons and along a different. People get arrested in England for racial slurs, for God's sake. We're not quite that far gone yet.
*along a different timeline
When I was in London, I was advised that table service is extremely inattentive by our standards and that a tip of 10% was more than adequate, even in very nice restaurants in the financial district.
Eventually it became my surmise that there must be some sort of unspoken rule by which commoners aren't allowed to be treated like royalty.
At one point, I considered trying to special-order a roast swan but then I thought the better of it, having earlier discovered to my embarrassment that the locals can be made peevish by that sort of humor.
I live, by the grace of God, in Texas
If it were not for several factors my husband and I would be moving to Texas in a heartbeat. Amarillo and surrounding areas are appealing.
1. Our business is tied to the land. Wells, water pumps, water tanks and water systems. We have a good clientele and a large geographic area wherein we are one of only three providers of the service and the company has been in business since the early 1970's. (We purchased it from the original owner's family) And it has a good reputation.
2. We are too old to start a new business in a new State. It is too hard to build up the reputation. If we were in our 30's or even 40's it would be a consideration.
The rest of the country, other than the usual suspect coalition of gungrabbers and the like, still believes in defense of self and property
Amen to that. Not too worried about the other stuff up here in our little redneck corner of California. But when the shit hits the fan....and it will....I guess I won't be going to see the rest of my family down in the Bay Area. Behind enemy lines and all that.
My feelings are closer to Sixty Grit's. I always have felt royalty is to be mocked at every chance. All royalty. Everywhere.
I saw this link on a site that does nothing but mock royalty, including the queen, and horribly, lizards and such, one would get the impression they despise her, the institution, and all the people in it. And I always have suspected behind all that their true feelings are more complex than that. I've heard them say they only keep royalty around for the American tourists anyway.
Then this.
It was clarifying to me. And her life did span all that. And through the comments I learned that she does not personally own the crown jewels, the State does, and she does not own all those palaces, those are more like the White House, and although quite wealthy, her personal wealth is something closer to 250 M than 1B or 1T that some people in the comments to the YouTube video assume.
I was fascinated with the morph of teeth and then the hats, hats to crowns, to hats, she surely does rock those hats. So when a hat turns into a crown, I'd think, "holy shit, that's a real crown not a pose for the picture crown, it actually means something, and the whole things seemed more humble, this little person under the weight of that crown and everything that means, then a hat, then another that, then a more modest crown, but still carrying the weight of the history of the entire empire embodied in one little woman who has endured right through WWII and the bombings with something akin to a Mona Lisa smile. I found I had more fondness for the person after watching the video a few times, and less impulse to mock. But no less dislike for the ridiculously outdated institution, this video helped me get why any of it is still around.
I stand corrected. A quarter billion is way different than a billion.
How ever will she survive.
Bint...
I remembered reading that Queen Elizabeth forbade that she should ever be photographed while eating. Something to do with maintaining appearances, apparently.
A quick image search on Bing confirmed that photos of her masticating are as rare as swan's teeth.
That's the kind of power money can't buy.
still carrying the weight of the history of the entire empire embodied in one little woman who has endured right through WWII and the bombings with something akin to a Mona Lisa smile
I thought the same as well. What a drag it would be to never be able to retire from being Queen. To know that was your fate from childhood, no matter what you really wanted to do with your life. Plus you have to drag along with you the responsibility of your not so stellar children possibly inheriting the position. No wonder she is hanging in there, trying to out live her idiot son Charles.
At least in our country that doesn't have royalty (yet) the President or Senators can retire. GWB doesn't have to carry the weight of being President from childhood to old age and can, if he wanted to, chuck it all.
This hereditary filling of a position, Queen or Lord, is something that is abhorrent and we should seriously consider the ramifications of this process when we hear the media's assumption that Hillary should be President because it is 'her turn' or that Chelsea should get some sort of political post because of her heritage or even the ludicrous idea that Michelle Obama should run for President. The dynastic ambitions of a Bush, a Clinton, an Obama etc are something that we should not only avoid, we should repel the notion. The liberals are all twitterpated about the idea of Michelle or Hillary. They just can't help themselves from longing for a dynasty or despot to rule them.
DBQ, here's a story about Elizabeth and her sister Margaret and the fate of being Queen:
Margaret grew up in the peculiarly isolated world of royal children, surrounded by adults, doted on by the public, and strictly brought up.
When Margaret and Elizabeth were born, their father was the Duke of York, second son of the king. Although the public was fascinated by "the little princesses," the girls lived largely outside the public eye.
The abdication of their uncle thrust their father onto the throne and set Elizabeth on the path to monarchy.
Margaret, only 6, told her sister: "Does that mean you're going to be queen? ... Poor you."
Her uncle retired, so there is a precedent. On the other hand, her mother lived to be 101, so maybe Lilibet can outlive her jug-earred, horse-lovin' retarded son Chuck.
Why the equine enmity, Sixty? What do you have against horses?
While I never want to be a neigh sayer, Chuck's wife is, shall we say, handsome, in a Secretariat sort of way.
Oh, come on, Sixty. She's no Sarah Jessica Parker.
Whoa!
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