I too, spent Monday morning glued to the television watching the grand spectacle of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Such devotion and admiration to their devoted monarch of seventy years was delivered with much precision and grandeur. I was overwhelmed with emotion to see it.
It reminded me of watching the funeral procession of JFK when I was only a young child . It was in black and white on our television so it wasn't so much a grand spectacle as it was emotionally draining. What a tragedy.
During the Queen's funeral, sitting, watching with my wife, she turned to me and said, "That's the kind of funeral that I want." I immediately responded, "Of course, honey, you deserve no other kind." and I chuckled. I added, "You're assuming that I will outlive you, so I'll pass this request to your siblings, just in case."
When reporting this to her closest sister, she just smirked and said, "Sure, naturally"
I love this. It's not hard to guess what the Queen thought of the Fool. Her facial expressions gave us some not-so-subtle clues, as did those of Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe and other respectable and decent world leaders. Every once in a while the Queen did let a "political" opinion slip. I use quotation marks because, well, is a choice between democracy and QAnon-fueled fascist kleptocracy a question of politics in any real sense? When a former home secretary's dog barked at Putin, the Queen remarked "Dogs have interesting instincts, don't they?" Putin's reign unfortunately outlasted hers, but he was not invited to her funeral. The Queen also let it be known when she thought Margaret Thatcher wasn't doing enough to oppose apartheid in South Africa, or to help the poor for that matter. So it wasn't hard to interpret the look on her face when royal protocol had given her no choice but to pose for pictures with our former liar-in-chief. The Queen may not have been able to get out of that unfortunate royal duty, but I'm sure that showing up to greet Twitler while wearing a brooch given to her by Barack Obama took some of the sting out of it.
The Queen met Mr. Trump and though his love of pageantry was clear and he lusted after a carriage and platoon of horsemen for himself, we shall never know what she thought of the fool, only that she was polite.
A great column, especially coming from an old English major. I studied Classics, myself, ancient Greek and Latin, and loved it, but also learned over the years to admire the radical changes my Applied Math major room mate was involved with. You didn't mention what I believe is America's greatest gift to the world: jazz. A particularly joyous music, it typifies the blending of different traditions that has made America great.
I was reminded of Diana's funeral during which dignified young pallbearers stoically strained under the weight of her casket, stepping methodically into and out of Westminster Abbey. The elaborate, ceremonial process somehow respects a set of cultural values, however imperfectly applied, OR maybe those guys just loved the princess.
It is interesting that Charles addressed his nation using the word "love," with whatever degree its substance. Conceivably this quality could help explain UK's longstanding national health care system (Matthew 4:24) and absence of automatic weapons proliferation and mass murder (Matthew 6:52). Just sayin'.
Far be it from me, a lowly Colonial (Australian) to defend the Old Country, but a Brit is generally credited with the invention of the Internet, a Brit and an American in tandem discovered the structure of DNA ...one could go on. Not to deprive the USA of the glory for having bestowed on the world the boon of student loans, the Fast and Furious movies and Hamburger Helper. Incidentally, while little did indeed interfere with the solemnity of the queen's coffin's lying in state in Westminster Hall, a man was arrested for trying to play the mouth organ in its presence (quite right too; badly played, it sounds awful) while one of the Horse Guards reaffirmed a venerable tradition of soldiers on sentry duty in London by fainting.
The Brits have long tried to teach us ragamuffins and the rest of the world some civility, Even when they do parliament, half of the parties will mumble a growl, but they introduce their remarks with civility such as, "the Right Honourable Prime Minister" , even when he isn't. Not so here, where in our Congress we have no respect, nor wish to do civil politics.
It takes the funeral of a British Queen to remind us all what proper manners and protocol are. In my church funerals, when I was an altar boy, we incensed the casket and, in Latin, sent the deceased on the way to their grave with our prayers, all delivered by well-dressed family and friends who knew the decedent and, regardless, wished them salvation.
Today, here, you no longer go to a wedding with formal wear. Holes in jeans are now de rigueur nigh everywhere. We are grateful here there are fewer such grimy and poor taste incidents. Here, fewer marry and proclaim their love for each other in sickness and health and so on.. "Shacking up" is what we used to call it, but today there's rarely such a commitment.
The Brits could stick up their noses at our behaviors, but we would just smirk. There was a lesson on Monday in London town, but that's as far as it went.
I couldn't watch - the street I started life in held a coronation party when I was a year old - got pix if anyone's interested - but have only checked out bbc webpage photos. I honour in my own way and havn't needed to see all the outpouring of grief especially from the Family. I feel for them more than anyone.
My Grandmother, Irene, we all called her Grandma K, was born in 1899 and raised in London. Her father, my grandfather, was a hairdresser for the aristocrats of time. He would bring home leftover food from the kitchens of these well-to-do hob-nobbers, palace dwellers and those who would look down their noses. But, though he was through and through German to the bone, he had great respect for them did his job well for which he was greatly rewarded. My grandmothers family then never went hungry and often would open their windows and host open air concerts for the neighborhood, with my great grandmother, grand father playing piano and violin. My grandmother spoke kindly of the King George V and Princes Mary of Teck. She had fond memories she would share when her father would talk of his day among those elites. In later years she spoke fondly of Queen Elizabeth, right up to her death at 100 years old. Grandma K was as proper an Englishwoman as you could get and retained her British accent to South Africa, Santa Barbara and her finally resting place in New Jersey. She never spoke a foul word in her life but would, in her English way, toss an insult or two at something or someone she detested. Grandma K was an artist, a writer and a musician, which is where I suppose I may have received some of my talent and when she passed I felt the loss. There was no pageantry, no lines of guards in uniforms festooned with ribbons and medals, no trumpets or somber crowds. She died alone in a bed at an assisted living facility out of reach from where I was at the time. Grandma K should have had all the pageantry that the Queen got and though I never met the Queen, I did know my Grandma K and I will miss them both. The world seems a little more empty now, we should all be sad and I fear that "Tradition" will fade with the memory of her.
To Grandma K and the Queen, cheers. I imagine they are having tea and crumpets together and laughing at us ungrateful colonials. As they should.
"I wanted to be eccentric and got my wish" reminds me of Henry David Thoreau's "march to the beat of a different drummer." Good company. P.S. I enjoyed the repetitive sounds of the soldiers feet and horses striking the road. It was mesmerizing.
Garrison, it seems that you are recovering from your recent surgery and able to watch funerals and world events. I hope that all is going well.
My overall impression from watching the Queen's funeral is one of community. The impression that most people in the United Kingdom thought/think well of the Queen and royal family and turned out to participate whether they watched the hearse drive down through Scotland or the funeral and lying in state activities which took place in London and Windsor.
One reason that I have always thought well of Queen Elizabeth is that she did not ask to be Queen. She was chosen by heredity. But when the job came to her, she took it on and by most account did a great job. Being a monarch is a specialized occupation. There are not a lot of other monarchs around who one could ask about how to do it. So the monarch learns on the job or learns from parents or others in the family.
Speaking of aristocracy. The person who was in charge of the Queen's funeral did not ask for that job either. The Duke of Norfolk (which is an hereditary title) also has the hereditary job of Earl Marshall. The Earl Marshall is in charge of coronations, royal funerals, and related ceremonies. But whoever is the Duke of Norfolk is the one who gets that job.
In Britain when people speak of republicans they often mean people who want to abolish the monarchy. In my experience, British republicans are nice intelligent well-meaning ernest people who are always unhappy with things the way that they are. They want to get rid of the monarchy but would they be happy with an elected President. Probably not.
The British republicans think that a worthy person would be elected to be Head of State in place of the monarch. But would that happen? In this country we went to the polls and elected a con man and serial grifter to be our President.
Best wishes to one and all. Things will get better but they might get worse before they get better.
Ever the whiner, the fool could not help but go on about how he would have warranted a better seat than Biden at the funeral. There are some things - a lot of things actually - that are not about him. Maybe he will improve under the regimentation of prison. One can hope.
Yes, while we in the USA weren’t learning national discipline, our techno-nerds were indeed busy inventing the laptop, the iPhone, AI, drones (some of which were killers), helping develop the internet, and maybe improving solar energy systems and contributing to vaccine development (with much help from China and other nations). Being the Luddite I am, I’m not sure the nerds deserve unalloyed kudos for all these changes to our lives, some of which have had or will have questionable benefits.
Meanwhile, some of our other nerds were giving the world the technological abominations of Facebook and Twitter, of course. And yes, culturally speaking, we contributed the blues, rock and roll, hip-hop and rap—all of which you can have with my blessings if I can keep Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Puccini and Verdi, among others who plied their trade in Europe.
That said, I too was glued to the BBC watching the funeral and the various well-choreographed slow marches—the latter with great admiration for the stamina of the elderly Charles and Anne, who never flinched or let the slightest hint of pain or weariness cross their faces even though my natural empathy for other old farts told me they were hurting. They seemed to be enacting royal dignity and strength of character for the masses or perhaps practicing for the many times in which they will have to be seen to be believed.
As for perfection, there actually was one moment of imperfection that made me laugh out loud. That was when one of the old religious doofuses, maybe a Bishop or something, dropped what was probably his cheat sheet that he needed to get him through his assigned bible verse. The white square fluttered slowly to the reddish carpet and lay there conspicuously for many minutes as mute testimony to remind us that even the British aren’t completely perfect. I don’t know when somebody got the courage to pick it up since I probably dozed off for that particular moment.
This Garrison is one for the history books. "Either you can count or you can't". In that simple seven word sentence you have spoken an entire bible of what is wrong with Mr. Donald Trump. He obviously can't count and that clears up today's ongoing mess for me.
It is safe to say that the good people of Lake Wobegon voted for Donald Trump and continue to support him. Constant espousing leftist bias, such as calling Trump a fool, is divisive and demeans an otherwise good page.
Garrison, we overlapped for 2 years, '60-'62, at The U of Minn., you in SLA, an English major, and me in IT. However, I was not an engineer, but a chemist (there were a few hundred of us non-engineers, chemists, geologists, architects). But us chemists also got things done in the real world, synthesizing all sorts of useful and valuable things, including pharmaceuticals. I got my start in research in those 2 years, synthesizing new organic compounds, hopefully with biological activity. About a dozen of us were conducting graduate level research as undergraduates, for pay, under an NIH grant. In my 11 years of lab research, the goal was to prepare bioactive compounds.
Yes, even us non-engineers wore plastic pocket protectors for our phalanx of pencils and pens, but put our smaller 7 scale slide rules in our briefcases. The engineers, with their more massive multiscale slide rules, wore them in a scabbard on their belt, ready for combat with whatever the profs threw at them.
Good to hear you've reconciled your animosity to engineers but don't feel you haven't contributed to society. Humanities grads, and especially English majors, especially you have enriched society for
generations.
Incidentally, over the objections of many of us IT grads, IT has now been renamed CSE. Boo, hiss. I'll always be an IT grad.
I too, spent Monday morning glued to the television watching the grand spectacle of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Such devotion and admiration to their devoted monarch of seventy years was delivered with much precision and grandeur. I was overwhelmed with emotion to see it.
It reminded me of watching the funeral procession of JFK when I was only a young child . It was in black and white on our television so it wasn't so much a grand spectacle as it was emotionally draining. What a tragedy.
During the Queen's funeral, sitting, watching with my wife, she turned to me and said, "That's the kind of funeral that I want." I immediately responded, "Of course, honey, you deserve no other kind." and I chuckled. I added, "You're assuming that I will outlive you, so I'll pass this request to your siblings, just in case."
When reporting this to her closest sister, she just smirked and said, "Sure, naturally"
I love this. It's not hard to guess what the Queen thought of the Fool. Her facial expressions gave us some not-so-subtle clues, as did those of Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe and other respectable and decent world leaders. Every once in a while the Queen did let a "political" opinion slip. I use quotation marks because, well, is a choice between democracy and QAnon-fueled fascist kleptocracy a question of politics in any real sense? When a former home secretary's dog barked at Putin, the Queen remarked "Dogs have interesting instincts, don't they?" Putin's reign unfortunately outlasted hers, but he was not invited to her funeral. The Queen also let it be known when she thought Margaret Thatcher wasn't doing enough to oppose apartheid in South Africa, or to help the poor for that matter. So it wasn't hard to interpret the look on her face when royal protocol had given her no choice but to pose for pictures with our former liar-in-chief. The Queen may not have been able to get out of that unfortunate royal duty, but I'm sure that showing up to greet Twitler while wearing a brooch given to her by Barack Obama took some of the sting out of it.
The Queen met Mr. Trump and though his love of pageantry was clear and he lusted after a carriage and platoon of horsemen for himself, we shall never know what she thought of the fool, only that she was polite.
A great column, especially coming from an old English major. I studied Classics, myself, ancient Greek and Latin, and loved it, but also learned over the years to admire the radical changes my Applied Math major room mate was involved with. You didn't mention what I believe is America's greatest gift to the world: jazz. A particularly joyous music, it typifies the blending of different traditions that has made America great.
I was reminded of Diana's funeral during which dignified young pallbearers stoically strained under the weight of her casket, stepping methodically into and out of Westminster Abbey. The elaborate, ceremonial process somehow respects a set of cultural values, however imperfectly applied, OR maybe those guys just loved the princess.
It is interesting that Charles addressed his nation using the word "love," with whatever degree its substance. Conceivably this quality could help explain UK's longstanding national health care system (Matthew 4:24) and absence of automatic weapons proliferation and mass murder (Matthew 6:52). Just sayin'.
Far be it from me, a lowly Colonial (Australian) to defend the Old Country, but a Brit is generally credited with the invention of the Internet, a Brit and an American in tandem discovered the structure of DNA ...one could go on. Not to deprive the USA of the glory for having bestowed on the world the boon of student loans, the Fast and Furious movies and Hamburger Helper. Incidentally, while little did indeed interfere with the solemnity of the queen's coffin's lying in state in Westminster Hall, a man was arrested for trying to play the mouth organ in its presence (quite right too; badly played, it sounds awful) while one of the Horse Guards reaffirmed a venerable tradition of soldiers on sentry duty in London by fainting.
The Brits have long tried to teach us ragamuffins and the rest of the world some civility, Even when they do parliament, half of the parties will mumble a growl, but they introduce their remarks with civility such as, "the Right Honourable Prime Minister" , even when he isn't. Not so here, where in our Congress we have no respect, nor wish to do civil politics.
It takes the funeral of a British Queen to remind us all what proper manners and protocol are. In my church funerals, when I was an altar boy, we incensed the casket and, in Latin, sent the deceased on the way to their grave with our prayers, all delivered by well-dressed family and friends who knew the decedent and, regardless, wished them salvation.
Today, here, you no longer go to a wedding with formal wear. Holes in jeans are now de rigueur nigh everywhere. We are grateful here there are fewer such grimy and poor taste incidents. Here, fewer marry and proclaim their love for each other in sickness and health and so on.. "Shacking up" is what we used to call it, but today there's rarely such a commitment.
The Brits could stick up their noses at our behaviors, but we would just smirk. There was a lesson on Monday in London town, but that's as far as it went.
I couldn't watch - the street I started life in held a coronation party when I was a year old - got pix if anyone's interested - but have only checked out bbc webpage photos. I honour in my own way and havn't needed to see all the outpouring of grief especially from the Family. I feel for them more than anyone.
Hello Mr. K,
My Grandmother, Irene, we all called her Grandma K, was born in 1899 and raised in London. Her father, my grandfather, was a hairdresser for the aristocrats of time. He would bring home leftover food from the kitchens of these well-to-do hob-nobbers, palace dwellers and those who would look down their noses. But, though he was through and through German to the bone, he had great respect for them did his job well for which he was greatly rewarded. My grandmothers family then never went hungry and often would open their windows and host open air concerts for the neighborhood, with my great grandmother, grand father playing piano and violin. My grandmother spoke kindly of the King George V and Princes Mary of Teck. She had fond memories she would share when her father would talk of his day among those elites. In later years she spoke fondly of Queen Elizabeth, right up to her death at 100 years old. Grandma K was as proper an Englishwoman as you could get and retained her British accent to South Africa, Santa Barbara and her finally resting place in New Jersey. She never spoke a foul word in her life but would, in her English way, toss an insult or two at something or someone she detested. Grandma K was an artist, a writer and a musician, which is where I suppose I may have received some of my talent and when she passed I felt the loss. There was no pageantry, no lines of guards in uniforms festooned with ribbons and medals, no trumpets or somber crowds. She died alone in a bed at an assisted living facility out of reach from where I was at the time. Grandma K should have had all the pageantry that the Queen got and though I never met the Queen, I did know my Grandma K and I will miss them both. The world seems a little more empty now, we should all be sad and I fear that "Tradition" will fade with the memory of her.
To Grandma K and the Queen, cheers. I imagine they are having tea and crumpets together and laughing at us ungrateful colonials. As they should.
"I wanted to be eccentric and got my wish" reminds me of Henry David Thoreau's "march to the beat of a different drummer." Good company. P.S. I enjoyed the repetitive sounds of the soldiers feet and horses striking the road. It was mesmerizing.
Garrison, it seems that you are recovering from your recent surgery and able to watch funerals and world events. I hope that all is going well.
My overall impression from watching the Queen's funeral is one of community. The impression that most people in the United Kingdom thought/think well of the Queen and royal family and turned out to participate whether they watched the hearse drive down through Scotland or the funeral and lying in state activities which took place in London and Windsor.
One reason that I have always thought well of Queen Elizabeth is that she did not ask to be Queen. She was chosen by heredity. But when the job came to her, she took it on and by most account did a great job. Being a monarch is a specialized occupation. There are not a lot of other monarchs around who one could ask about how to do it. So the monarch learns on the job or learns from parents or others in the family.
Speaking of aristocracy. The person who was in charge of the Queen's funeral did not ask for that job either. The Duke of Norfolk (which is an hereditary title) also has the hereditary job of Earl Marshall. The Earl Marshall is in charge of coronations, royal funerals, and related ceremonies. But whoever is the Duke of Norfolk is the one who gets that job.
In Britain when people speak of republicans they often mean people who want to abolish the monarchy. In my experience, British republicans are nice intelligent well-meaning ernest people who are always unhappy with things the way that they are. They want to get rid of the monarchy but would they be happy with an elected President. Probably not.
The British republicans think that a worthy person would be elected to be Head of State in place of the monarch. But would that happen? In this country we went to the polls and elected a con man and serial grifter to be our President.
Best wishes to one and all. Things will get better but they might get worse before they get better.
Ever the whiner, the fool could not help but go on about how he would have warranted a better seat than Biden at the funeral. There are some things - a lot of things actually - that are not about him. Maybe he will improve under the regimentation of prison. One can hope.
Yes, while we in the USA weren’t learning national discipline, our techno-nerds were indeed busy inventing the laptop, the iPhone, AI, drones (some of which were killers), helping develop the internet, and maybe improving solar energy systems and contributing to vaccine development (with much help from China and other nations). Being the Luddite I am, I’m not sure the nerds deserve unalloyed kudos for all these changes to our lives, some of which have had or will have questionable benefits.
Meanwhile, some of our other nerds were giving the world the technological abominations of Facebook and Twitter, of course. And yes, culturally speaking, we contributed the blues, rock and roll, hip-hop and rap—all of which you can have with my blessings if I can keep Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Puccini and Verdi, among others who plied their trade in Europe.
That said, I too was glued to the BBC watching the funeral and the various well-choreographed slow marches—the latter with great admiration for the stamina of the elderly Charles and Anne, who never flinched or let the slightest hint of pain or weariness cross their faces even though my natural empathy for other old farts told me they were hurting. They seemed to be enacting royal dignity and strength of character for the masses or perhaps practicing for the many times in which they will have to be seen to be believed.
As for perfection, there actually was one moment of imperfection that made me laugh out loud. That was when one of the old religious doofuses, maybe a Bishop or something, dropped what was probably his cheat sheet that he needed to get him through his assigned bible verse. The white square fluttered slowly to the reddish carpet and lay there conspicuously for many minutes as mute testimony to remind us that even the British aren’t completely perfect. I don’t know when somebody got the courage to pick it up since I probably dozed off for that particular moment.
This Garrison is one for the history books. "Either you can count or you can't". In that simple seven word sentence you have spoken an entire bible of what is wrong with Mr. Donald Trump. He obviously can't count and that clears up today's ongoing mess for me.
It is safe to say that the good people of Lake Wobegon voted for Donald Trump and continue to support him. Constant espousing leftist bias, such as calling Trump a fool, is divisive and demeans an otherwise good page.
Garrison, we overlapped for 2 years, '60-'62, at The U of Minn., you in SLA, an English major, and me in IT. However, I was not an engineer, but a chemist (there were a few hundred of us non-engineers, chemists, geologists, architects). But us chemists also got things done in the real world, synthesizing all sorts of useful and valuable things, including pharmaceuticals. I got my start in research in those 2 years, synthesizing new organic compounds, hopefully with biological activity. About a dozen of us were conducting graduate level research as undergraduates, for pay, under an NIH grant. In my 11 years of lab research, the goal was to prepare bioactive compounds.
Yes, even us non-engineers wore plastic pocket protectors for our phalanx of pencils and pens, but put our smaller 7 scale slide rules in our briefcases. The engineers, with their more massive multiscale slide rules, wore them in a scabbard on their belt, ready for combat with whatever the profs threw at them.
Good to hear you've reconciled your animosity to engineers but don't feel you haven't contributed to society. Humanities grads, and especially English majors, especially you have enriched society for
generations.
Incidentally, over the objections of many of us IT grads, IT has now been renamed CSE. Boo, hiss. I'll always be an IT grad.
-- Bob Buntrock B.Chem UMN '62
Orono, ME