Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
So it is with these events of state that we are living through: the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the seamless passing of the monarchy to her eldest son. That's what the commentators are calling it - seamless. And it has been. The great engines of state have been fired up, to secure the transition: as the Queen is mourned, the King is celebrated. History, as we record these things: the Kings and Queens of Britain.
But for us; opening windows, walking along, dogs getting on with their doggy lives, the horse scratching its backside, the ploughman and the ship's crew - what has any of this Queen and Kingly History to do with us? As Mr. Eliot has it, we are useful to swell a progress, start a scene or two, deferential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious....and to pay for it all. And just in case we do not play the parts assigned to us, the chaps in the comedy hats at the Proclamation at St James' Palace that Charles is now King were carrying nasty looking guns topped off with lethal steel.
This isn't just choreography - although it was beautifully done - I daresay the tradition was instituted in order to stick those honed steel blades into anyone objecting to the new monarch.
Harris and I went along to the local Proclamation at the Merkit Cross at the Kirk Green. For History, you know. It was all understated in an amateurish, Orcadian sort of way. The floral tributes were underwhelming (18 of them - I counted), as was the crowd; God Save the King was played by the Salvation Army Brass Band and the dignitaries didn't sparkle in the sunshine.
But we all went Hip Hip Hurray so convincingly that a dog in the assembled multitude joined in, a beat behind the last Hurray. And the soldiery was limited to one wee lassie in military fatigues standing beside the Mayor. No fixed bayonets here in this outpost of the British Isles.
The really important question is how many days do I get off for the funeral, or will they cheapskate us again? How can we do proper mourning if we're at work? We can't expect the BBC to do all the heavy lifting. We're needed to swell a progress.
Talking of the BBC, Laura Wotsername
has abandoned politics. She’s been interviewing all the surviving Prime
Ministers of the Queen’s reign and teasing out of them all their little
anecdotes – Gordon the Ruiner recounted attending a barbecue at which Phil the
Greek did the cooking and Brenda set the table, Teresa May remembers dropping
the cheese at a picnic under the Queen’s eye, Call Me Dave drooled about the
Queen serving guests at an al fresco event with her own hands – such
condescension, such noblesse. Is that the best they can do? Was she really so bland, such a nonentity that the best her ministers can come up with is boring stories about barbecues?
Putin has sent his respects. He venerated the Queen. There'll be no Russian special operations at the funeral.
 |
| Distinct twinkle in the Presidential eye |
No, the ones to worry about are the Provos –
they’ve offed more members of the Royal Family than the Russians have. Mr
Ishmael always said it was a good thing that the Provos had no idea how to conduct a war. If they
actually wanted to secede from the United Kingdom, the Abbey would be a prime target; then, when the ambulances
all arrived at London Hospitals, bearing the wounded and bloodied survivors,
the Hospitals would blow up.
Not advocating this, you understand.
Anyway, here's some nice music:
26 comments:
Its remarkable how well the organs ofThe State can put on a royal funeral, but otherwise couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.
They should be able to make a good show of it, mr mike, the money we give them. Funny how, in a country with endless funds to pour weapons into Ukrainia and to present us with shiny State Funerals, the poor are dependent upon Foodbanks and Charity Shops clothe even the middle classes. Anyway, it is a sobering thought that I am a Monarchist. I will probably turn out to be still a Catholic. There's no accounting, else, for the shameful tears that have plagued me this last few days. I'll be the first to decry the outrageous theft perpetrated by the monarchy against the people of Britain, the showy pomp with which they surround themselves, the truly rotten characters of some of the late Queen's brood, the haughty avarice of all of them, the expensive and elitist educations that confirmed their entitled superiority and their poverty of intellect coupled with unreasoning self-belief - I swear, when Charles was shaking hands with the crowd, he believed he was dispensing the Royal Touch to heal his subjects - and the crowd believed it too, thrusting forward hands to be pressed by royal fingers.
It was a fine thing, though, to see Nicola Sturgeon at The Accession Council, silent for once in her goddamn life, dressed in black instead of one of her many colourful little suits, taking up pen to proclaim her allegiance to the King of the United Kingdoms that she has been busily attempting to rip apart for the best part of 20 years. If turning out to be a monarchist is the price of being a Unionist - hey - I'm a convert, God Bless you, Sire.
Has anyone considered it questionable wisdom rigging up a 73-year-old in full Ruritania Lord High Something kit and then marching him up one of those quite steep hills they have in Edinburgh, and all this in the sunshine and for a mile or two? The old boy does seem to be labouring.
Aye mr mongoose, good King Brian seemed to be a labouring up the hill, puffing and blowing a fair bit, limping into the Kirk.
Still, p’raps the exercise he needs having never even wiped his own ringpiece in seventy three years.
I was hoping someone in the crowd might have put on a Jimmy Savile face-mask but having just looked on amazon (where you can get Trump, Kim Jong-Un, David Beckham, Nigel Farage, inter alia) I see there are none to be had.
Would Gnasher have jumped in for mouth-to-mouth if he'd collapsed, do you think?
v./
Seventy-six, gentlemen, not seventy-three.I think he's doing pretty well for a man his age - but then, it is to be expected, with all the care we've lavished on him over the decades.
Brilliant thought, mr verge - it was in The Princes and the Paedos, was it, where mr ishmael revealed the closeness of Savile to the Prince of Wales? You will put us right on the reference.
There has been a bit of desultory protest, quickly suppressed, with police and security muscling in to suppress Freedom of Speech.
This about sums up the Aussie view.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-has-no-need-for-a-head-of-state-royal-or-not-20220912-p5bhhf.html
It ill behoves the Australian Mr Robertson to come over here and leech his life off the Mother Country and then turn around and say that Australia doesn't need it. (IMVHO that is.) It's a bit like all the Scottish parasites - who infest the BBC and dominate the political discourse of London - and who turn around and moan with every breath.
What's going on in that Ukraine, mr mike?
Im about the same age as Chuck and i ride a bicycle 15..20 up to fifty miles a day and i feel fine...Though if i had to ride his worn out old bike id be knackered too
Count Von Zeppelin
i hear the pound's crashed - it's the weight of those ears wot dunnit.
anyhow, it's all nonsense: the queen's not dead, she's just awn strike...
you see, old widow cranky refused to sign-off on an arms-shipment to ukraine...
and so the head-girl trussed her up and locked her in a cupboard...
cue charles the nerd who - unhappy about mummy's enforced retirement - is proposing to smoke a peace-pipe with putin - and be duly proclaimed a russian asset...
although not of course before he's packed the prince-of-troubles - his prodigal brother - orff to the eastern front.
From your Royal Correspondent, Down Under:
The streets and golf courses of Sydney are silent in the lack of comment on the death of their Head of State: "who?".
As a nation beloved of sport, at half time, we are giving the points to Anne (what a courtesy) and her silent partner, Admiral Sir Tim - he could still be a winner. Charles III was looking off the pace, and a little over coiffured - a la the boy Steel.
re Ukraine, Mr mongoose: That was finished months ago. You may be noticing your bills; and Europe is about to go "heads up in the shit" to quote from a recent thread.
I ask, mr mike, merely because the news is full of a plucky Ukrainian advance on two fronts. And even talk of a third front to cut the land bridge.
In other news, it appears that the evidence of my eyes and of my ears must both once again be denied and Good King Chas is in fact an intellectual titan and a touchstone of moral authority. Whodda thought it, eh?
Poor Mrs Fish btw. I saw here last evening doing her loyal schtick at Edinburgh Aiport. She alone in a wide-brimmed hat and having to hold it on her head as the wind blew across the tarmac, as it does at airports. Princess Hockey Sticks looked down her considerable nose at her and almost smiled. "Can she not even dress herself?" Madge popping her clogs actually on Scottish soil must have set back the SNP by a decade but I am sure that there is a battle plan.
Mr mongoose: the 2 "offensives" thus far have been a disaster for Ukraine and NATO (I know you will have read otherwise).
The Kerson offensive achieved nothing for Ukraine and they lost 4-5000 killed and many more wounded - hospitals throughout Ukraine are overwhelmed.
The Kharkov offensive was a different matter, it was an advance on positions the Russians vacated. The Ukraine forces were lured into the open and again suffered heavy casualties from artillery and aviation. Estimates are 3000 killed plus wounded and the slaughter is ongoing as I type.
I strongly recommend this essay to read: the first part sets the historical background; the second part deals with the current Kharkov "offensive"
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/fall-like-a-thunderbolt
Thank you for the link, mr mike - an informative insight into Russian strategy and a counter blast to the very little war "news" that has been allowed to filter past our celebrations of monarchy here in Britain.
The death of one and the accession of the other may not have cut much ice in Australia but we are assaulted by continuous media coverage of the Liz and Charles spectacular.
It is the viewing of the flag-draped lead-lined closed coffin that is dominating the channels of the state at present. People have been queuing for 30 hours, overnight, for the privilege of being admitted to Westminster Hall to file past the bier on which rests the mortal remains of the QE2. 500 portaloos line the route and fast food vendors supply the linear crowd. All planned well in advance of the Queen's death in secrecy in Royal Deeside. Apparently, she died at 4:30 pm, but the news of it was not released until 6:30 pm. During those 2 hours, news commentators were still issuing bulletins about the queen being under close medical supervision. Have we been told, yet, what was the cause of death?
I watched the Viewing of the Coffin for an hour last evening. It was impressively well choreographed and policed. My abiding impression of the event was the dreadful physical condition of the thousands of people trudging past the coffin. The British, after 70 years of the National Health Service and income support, are in really bad shape. They were supported by sticks, walking aids and zimmer frames, or conveyed along in wheelchairs and mobility scooters. White sticks were apparent, as the blind were supported to view the spectacle. There were many really big units, as my chum describes the clinically obese. Was this pitiable crowd a representative sample of the state of Britain's health? Or was it that the sick, the halt and the lame were over-represented, engaging in a mystical experience, in which they believed some healing miasma would float out of the coffin and they would skip away? The whole event certainly had a deeply religious ambience - it seems that monarchy-worship has replaced Christianity -just as the Ancient Egyptians and medieval populations believed, the King/Queen is a personified deity. As mr mongoose said, Charles, despite all evidence to the contrary, is now an intellectual titan and a moral touchstone. Because he's been transfigured into a god.
And the dress-sense of the British! Are they really so poverty-stricken that the masses cannot afford flattering and decent clothes? And why do the big units choose to wear skin tight vests with straps that reveal their bra straps and tattoos?
Mrs I: I have just spent a few moments on the live feed of the "walk past the coffin" web site.
I concur: never seen such a miserable unfit looking bunch of plebs. The scientist in me would say: "this is bias - only unfit miserable sods go visiting a coffin". But I must say (I think I already have said this back down when) that my last visit to the UK approx 5 years ago was a shocker. The lard-arsed, tattoo wearing, zimmer frame using, and generally grey looking miserable masses were not what I remember from 30 plus years ago. Also, the food was shit: I couldn't wait to fly out.
I must correct you: the good king Charlie III is 73 NOT 76; although, he looks a lot older than 73. I'm not a cardiovascular specialist, but I would venture that the thickening waistline, the pudgy fingers, the red face and heavy jowls are not the sign of a healthy heart. God forbid I have to live through a re-make of Royal Funerals.
Yes, the obvious hunch had come to me that it was vacated territory in the East. I had not followed through on that with the simple military tactic of mapping and recording where you were yesterday the better to shell the bollocks off it today but then I am not paid to think like that.
It is a desperate charade, I fear. I would not put it past the fuckers to maintain the war through the winter simply so that they can blame the Rooskies for the abject failure of what we must laughingly call energy strategy. My local conspiracy junkie - I have reported here before, I think - thinks that carbon fuels are being saved for the elite to keep them warm through the coming ice age. Do they not know that this is a decent strategy for a long weekend but not several fucking thousand years. We'll have risen up and hanged them all by Michaelmas when and if any of that shit it happens. And we will be back in shape, lean and hungry the. Not a turkey twizzler in sight.
Flicking the TV on and I find that folk now viewing the Madge started queuing at 5am. So that's a six hour wait. Long enough but no the thirty hours touted. We shall see.
I sit corrected, mr mike, I looked up his birthday - 14th November 1948. So he is 73, but only for a couple of months longer. I don't know why I was so sure he is 76 - probably the Alzheimer's kicking in. Or the fact that he looks at least 76.
Quite apart from the fact that the British miserable masses are "lard-arsed, tattoo wearing, zimmer frame using, and generally grey looking", the clothes are indescribable. But I'll have a go at decribabling them: jeans are now worn so skin tight that there are ragged slits for the knees to poke out in order to allow the wearer to bend them. Multiple ragged slits up the front of said jeans allow sight of fake-tanned orange legs. The pre-ragged jeans are bought that way and cost more than jeans that are not slit to rags. Women, whatever size they are - the bigger they are the more likely they are to wear them - wear an item of clothing called leggings. They have abandoned wearing a skirt, dress or tunic over them, so the general effect is that they have forgotten to put their skirt on. Leggings are so tight that it is dreadfully easy to see their camel's toe. Males have taken to wearing children's clothing all the time - so they kit themselves out in baggy shorts from Sports Direct, which they pair with what we used to call pumps or daps, but now cost hundreds of pounds. Tattoos adorn most body parts, so clothing choices are based on what will best display them. Women seem to prefer to wear tight tops, stretched over a roll of heavy flesh that extends from the waist to under the bust. However, they obviously continue to find the opposite sex sufficiently attractive, despite the ugliest clothes ever devised, to induce pregnancy. Pregnant women continue to wear their usual leggings and tight tops, stretched to the point of transparency, over their burgeoning bellies.
That's a horrifying picture you paint, Mrs I.
I've noticed also the general regression to childhood, not just in dressing, but also in speech and thinking. One aspect which amuses me is the fashion of drinking coffee (or other stuff) from oversized polystyrene containers which have a nipple or resemble a baby's cup. Maybe in their miserable lives they are harking back to early days when they had the comfort of sucking their mothers tit? All in all, not a sign of a healthy society.
And the films they watch are kiddie movies, brightly colourful superheroes, lots of action, explosions, good versus evil, simple dialogue and lots of noise.
It is all the triumph of emotion over reason.
“Women, whatever size they are - the bigger they are the more likely they are to wear them - wear an item of clothing called leggings. They have abandoned wearing a skirt, dress or tunic over them, so the general effect is that they have forgotten to put their skirt on. Leggings are so tight that it is dreadfully easy to see their camel's toe”.
Eggsfuckinzacly mrs I, how any red blooded young male could find this ‘look’ attractive is beyond me.
Overheard in the pub one evening: there are only three things that never tell lies; babies, drunks and woman's yoga pants (leggings).
It is a slovenly life we have learned to lead. My father wore a coat and tie every day of his life and I haven't had a tie around my neck since the last funeral I went to. That said, some of the Madge viewers are in a truly shocking state - although I see that there is now a queue for the queue. There was an old lady from the NE on a few minutes ago. She's in the holding pen and is booked on a train home this evening. Well, pet, 14 hours from now doesn't fit into today let alone into 8:30. It is all a very curious business. The suspension of rationality. One imagines that Saturday will bring absolute mayhem. Queues for queues for queues.
The BBC let slip last evening BTW, mr mike, that the Ukraine might just now be "vulnerable because of its success and its stretched supply lines". I guess that means that having been drawn forward a la Stalingrad, they are being ground into a bloody pulp. This winter is going to be ugly.
A queue for a queue, mr mongoose? Must be a cryptic clue in there somewhere, with QE2 as the answer.
I would recommend, to any ishmaelites yet to do so, 5 or 10 minutes watching the Peeb's live feed of Hoi Polloi v Catafalque. WTAF, as a txt msg would put it. And all (which fits, come to think, with mrs ishmael's observation about the religious hole being filled in folk's heads) on faith - for all we know they are drooping their nuts to a packet of Ritz Crackers, or a Buck House Gift Shop Snow Globe, or a desiccated corgi.
v./
as those gathered hereabouts may have remarked, my overwhelming sense of institutionalized grief just does not allow me to accept that her most glorious majesty has finally popped her handmade anello & davide's and gone to meet her cobbler...
well you know, i can believe that the queen has of late been very seriously ill - with bone-cancer, reportedly...
however, to imagine that her royal highness would actually allow her own physical degeneration to be deployed as an expedient political distraction from the desperate stench of nato's last-ditch neo-imperialist decadence in ukraine, simply stretches my already over-extended credulity - and indeed i yet derive comfort from the sweet salutary thought that, having taken refuge in a secluded balmoral-summerhouse, our erstwhile monarch, is, as we all mourn her, merrily swigging away at a bottle of vintage scotch, and chanting down the telephone-line to a somewhat bemused president putin, those immortal words: "you're goin' home in a fuck-in' ambulance".
now, as regards the state of the nation's dress, i'm afraid i must diverge from your acrylic assessment, mrs ishmael, for to my - admittedly uncultivated - eyes, the moirologists mobbing the abbey in their lugubrious lifelong quest to file past the royal catapult, seem surprisingly tidy in their sartorial appearance, and so much so, in fact, that i sense all these coronally-inclined congregants to be merely awe-struck american tourists, the black jogging-bottom brigade preferring, in true british fashion, to sit this solemn occasion out from the safety of the living-room sofa - attired in appropriately sombre loungewear and duly surrounded, one presumes, by an obligatory cluster of commemorative lager-can-cairns, by a de rigueur deep-pile carpet of ceremonially discarded pizza-packaging, and by a hungry home-guard of respectfully snuffling staffies and bull-dogs.
finally, please spare a thought, if you might, for the unrecognized gallants of britain's military intelligence service - who, having queued for 14 hours in order to complete the undercover-course of their duty, then find they must return to "go" in order to repeat this mother of morose marathons.
Is she in the coffin do we think? Peak hilarity was Ben Wallace standing guard in the Royal Peashooter's kit.
Reality has gone, you know, the whole world over. We have some terrible Satan-Disney production instead.
Hunker down as best you can, something wicked this way comes. Has come.
as those gathered hereabouts may have remarked, my overwhelming sense of institutionalized grief just does not allow me to accept that her most glorious majesty has finally popped her handmade anello & davide's and gone to meet her cobbler...
well you know, i can believe that the queen has of late been very seriously ill - with bone-cancer, reportedly...
however, to imagine that her royal highness would actually allow her own physical degeneration to be deployed as an expedient political distraction from the desperate stench of nato's last-ditch neo-imperialist decadence in ukraine, simply stretches my already over-extended credulity - and indeed i yet derive comfort from the sweet salutary thought that, having taken refuge in a secluded balmoral-summerhouse, our erstwhile monarch, is, as we all mourn her, merrily swigging away at a bottle of vintage scotch, whilst chanting down the telephone-line to a somewhat bemused president putin, those immortal words: "you're goin' home in a fuck-in' ambulance".
now, as regards the state of the nation's dress, i'm afraid i must diverge from your acrylic assessment, mrs ishmael, for to my - admittedly uncultivated - eyes, the moirologists mobbing the abbey in their lugubrious lifelong quest to file past the royal catapult, seem surprisingly tidy in their sartorial appearance, and so much so, in fact, that i sense all these coronally-inclined congregants to be merely awe-struck american tourists, the black jogging-bottom brigade preferring, in true british fashion, to sit this solemn occasion out from the safety of the living-room sofa - attired in appropriately sombre loungewear and duly surrounded, one presumes, by an obligatory cluster of commemorative lager-can-cairns, by a de rigueur deep-pile carpet of ceremonially discarded pizza-packaging, and by a hungry home-guard of respectfully snuffling staffies and bull-dogs.
finally, please spare a thought, if you might, for the unrecognized gallants of britain's military intelligence service - who, having queued for 14 hours in order to complete the undercover-course of their duty, then find they must return to "go" in order to repeat this mother of morose marathons.
So, messrs verge, utrapox and bungalow bill, you are all inclined to the empty coffin theory. As with so much else, we must take it on trust, because we will never know - and, it seems, we're not going to be told the cause of death. That dark blue hand extended to Truss was rather a give away, though, implying the recent insertion and removal of a venflon, blood thinners and a heart condition. The medics kept her on her feet right up to the end, though, in order to usher in Truss' New World Order.
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