THE QUEEN AT 91

 

The Queen and her Corgis

These last years have been quite eventful for Queen Elizabeth. In September 2015, QE II sailed on, outlasting Queen Victoria reign of 63 years, 26 days. Last year, she celebrated birthday 90. This past February, she celebrated her Sapphire Jubilee: 65 years on the throne. This coming November, she and Prince Phillip will celebrate 70 years of marriage. How many get to have a Platinum Anniversary?

According to Wikipedia, she now stands in 48th place among the longest reigning monarchs of the world. Those reigning longer: all men. The longest reigning, I see, was Sobhuza of Swaziland, who reigned for almost 83 years. He must have been exhausted!

Egad!

This year, Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, was ninety-one. I always remember her birthday. Always. Why? Because it is also my sister’s birthday: April 21. When I discovered that fact, I was delighted, especially since from an early age, oh, about ten or eleven, I thought the Queen was our Queen. After all, what’s a country without a President and a Queen? I thought that was the way it worked: one male for the business stuff, one female for the ceremony stuff. Remember, I was only ten or so.

If you were a Queen, and your birthday was in April, and that was a rainy month in your England, wouldn’t you want to really celebrate in month with a “higher probability of fine weather?” England’s monarchs have been doing this since the middle of the 1700’s. Come a fine Saturday in June, June 10 this year, the Queen will first inspect her troops. She once did this, wearing full military uniform, from horseback. Now she rides in a carriage, and you can be sure her handbag is close by.* She will join the parade down The Mall on home to Buckingham Palace, there will be the Trooping of the Colour near St. James Park, and it will all end with a flyover by the Royal Air Force.  (Excuse me, they call it a “fly-past”)

Were's her handbag?

I am an Anglophile, and an Elizabethophile. (Or should that just be an Elizabethan?) I love all the colour and pomp and ceremony. Not everyone does. There are those who say the monarchy is obsolete and the cost to the nation is too great. While these sentiments are ever-present, they swell back into the forefront of the news any time there is a grand event, like the birthday celebrations, or a wedding, or a coronation. In actuality, the royal family foot a lot of their own bills, and the public, to the tune of less than $1 per person per year, foot the bills for things security, international entertaining, and a laundry list of other things. Many think the tourism jobs and dollars brought in far offset the cost of the monarchy. Many anti-monarchists would like to have a republic with an elected head, a Supreme Court, and a written constitution, none of which they now have. They feel that the Queen should have the distinction of being Great Britain’s last monarch. But around 80% of the British population approve of the monarchy, and we can’t foresee that it will be abolished in the near future.

Meanwhile, sail on QE II.

Ah, there it is. Mia has it.

*Like the question “What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt?” the other burning question from the British Isles is “What does the Queen carry in her handbag?” She usually carries a comb, mirror and lipstick, a £5 or £10 note for any collection plate that might come her way, her eye glasses, and maybe some mints. Like many women, she may carry personal trinkets given to her by family members. Though we don’t know if it is in there at all times, the Queen does have a mobile phone to keep in touch with her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She carries no passport or personal identification – she doesn’t own them or need them. So, less than you might think, because her ladies-in-waiting do carry things like clean gloves and a sewing kit and safety pins for emergencies, but more than just a penny to spend in the loo.

THE QUEEN AT NINETY

 

Four generations

Today, Her Majesty, Elizabeth II, is ninety. I always remember her birthday. Always. Why? Because it is also my sister’s birthday. When I discovered that fact, I was delighted, especially since from an early age, oh, about ten or eleven, I thought the Queen was our Queen.  After all, what’s a country without a President and a Queen? I thought that was the way it worked: one male for the business stuff, one female for the ceremony stuff.  Remember, I was only ten or so.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I am an Anglophile, and an Elizabethophile. (Or should that just be an Elizabethan?)

with her corgis and dorgis (yes, I had to google 'dorgies')

The BBC and the New York Times, my morning regulars, contributed the lovely pictures accompanying my blog today,

I just love this picture.  Here she is with the youngest two of her grandchildren, and her five great-grandchildren.  And I absolutely smile from ear to ear at that little Mia holding great-granny's handbag. Evidently the world was charmed too - it's all over the internet.
What is so rare as a picture of the Queen without her handbag?

 Happy Birthday Your Majesty, and many more. Oh, and Zen Hugs too!

QUEEN, NO TRUMP!

Yesterday, my cousin sent along this meme with the tongue-in-cheek subject line of "What a classy guy":

Donald Trump goes after Carly Fiorina’s LOOKS in 

a new Rolling Stone profile  “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? … I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not [supposed to] say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

I emailed this back: 

Yeah, class? – school’s out, right: no class! No class, the man is an ass. (a poem!) Yes, an ass, but maybe more like a one-trick pony. He knows real estate and that’s about it. He has the money and the PR to put himself forward, but if this country was ever stupid enough to elect him he’s be tripping up all over the place. LOLOLOL – I think of the Queen, at the forefront of my thoughts because of her recent milestone, and I just try to imagine a state visit between the two. I’m sure she’d have to excuse herself to go to the ladies room to either laugh out loud or throw up.

And I am unanimous in this!

QE II HAS SAILED ON! SHE DID IT!

I've been waiting and counting the days, and today, at 63 years and 217 days, Queen Elizabeth II has outlasted her predecessor Victoria. Someone, somewhere, calculated each reign in years, days, hours, even minutes, and sometime today QE II sails onto the top of the list.

According to Wikipedia, she now stands in 48th place among the longest reigning monarchs of the world. Those reigning longer: all men. The longest reigning, I see, was Sobhuza of Swaziland, who reigned for almost 83 years. He must have been exhausted!

I do like Queen Elizabeth. I love the name Elizabeth, so much so that when I could choose a name for my Confirmation I chose that one. Maybe that's why I like her so much. I've blogged about her before - here, and here, and here, among others.

She's a grand gal. You read about all the Prime Ministers and celebrities she's known, authors and entertainers, and it is just amazing. She's 89 years old, and she's lived through a lot of history, many wars, and a lot of changes to our lives, not to mention her own - it was always Keep Calm and Cary On.

God Save the Queen

PURSELESS

Do you notice anything unusual about this scene? I’ve kept this photo in my archives for two years. I love this picture! Why? Because the Queen isn’t hanging on to one of her blankety-blank purses, pocketbooks, hand bags, whatever you call them.  Oh, I know what she carries in there – you can read about it here – but couldn’t a handy lady-in-waiting carry all that for her?

I'm just being a bit of a curmudgeon today.

BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE

April is the poet’s month. It provides them with inspiration: everything from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Chaucer’s shoures soote, his sweet showers. (In college I took a course on Chaucer. We even had to take a language lab in it to be able to pronounce the Middle English properly. That course was a pip. But I digress!)

April is also the month when lots of good people were born: my husband, my sister, the Queen who will be 88, and William Shakespeare. We celebrate his 450^th birthday next Wednesday, the 23^rd. Time to brush up your Shakespeare, as Cole Porter said in Kiss Me Kate.*

Shakespeare: poet and playwright, contributor of many new words and idioms to our language, and bane of the existence of high school students.  I’m not going to go on and on about the lists of his plays, poems and sonnets, there are lists of those universally available, or the everyday language we owe to him – and we would hardly be able to express ourselves these days without him. I am going to moan about reading his plays in high school. Aaaaarg!

I’m hoping that high school students these days are introduced to Shakespeare live: stage plays, movies, TV, on line. Back in the late 50’s, reading his plays was, for me, a chore. To this day I have a hard time reading a play, so hard that I don’t read them at all.  What gets to me? It’s the names of the characters that get me – see this from MIT’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a great source for the written word.

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK    ACT I

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

BERNARDO

Who's there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO

Long live the king!

FRANCISCO

Bernardo?

BERNARDO

He.

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO

'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

Those BERNARDOs and FRANCUSCOs stop me, and I get involved in who is saying what. My eye just can’t breeze past the names. If I were watching the play I’d have a visual of Bernardo and Francisco. Bernardo or Francisco would not name their name and then speak their line. Am I making myself clear? Of course it would be chaos for the actors learning a play if their character’s names were not given. Whose line is it anyway? (?)  Anyway.

 

How 'bout The Tempest?

The plays we had to read in high school were Julius Caesar and Macbeth - not the most interesting to high school students.  Why didn’t they choose A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Taming of the Shrew?  Perhaps something really powerful like King Lear. How ‘bout The Tempest?  How ‘bout any of the many Shakespeare plays I’ve seen since then? I remember a seeing Henry V, with the opposing sides, the French and the English, done up in silver and blue, wearing football helmets decorated with wicker baskets. Now that would interest the students: Henry V done as a football game. Yes, I do hope they make Shakespeare a visual these days.

*See that?! Kiss Me Kate: The Taming of the Shrew made interesting and painless.  Odds bodkins!

ANOTHER PICTURE FOR THE CURMUDGEON FILES

 

As many of you are aware, I am a great fan of Queen Elizabeth II.  (I'm counting down the days for her to beat Queen Victoria at the reigning game.)  Many of you are also aware that I am a curmudgeon and I delight in collecting pictures of curmudgeonly people or people sporting curmudgeonly looks. Well, I've found another picture for my collection, thanks to my discovery of Janelle McCulloch's A Library of Design.  This gal has a great blog and a great sense of humor.  I don't know who takes credit for snapping this particular picture, but I am indebted to them and to Janelle.   I think the picture adds a certain je ne sait quoi to my collection.

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND ORGANIZED RELIGION

Recently, a dear friend and I were writing back and forth about our ideas on religion. Because we’re having this ongoing discussion long-distance, from Ontario to South Carolina, we tend to elaborate on our thoughts, really flesh them out. It struck me that with a bit of tweaking there was good blog fodder in much of my reply to one of her thoughts, to wit:

I loved your description that religion “takes spirituality and instantly begins to institutionalize it.” Exactly!  Until only recent decades, very few people on this earth have been able to enjoy their own spirituality without some institution coming down on them for ‘heresy’, or trying to teach them the error of their ways.  Just think of all those zealous but frustrated missionaries who have labored in the fields of the ‘pagans’. Very few groups practicing any one religion have been able to get away unscathed by persecution and prosecution (think of the unfortunate Galileo who was ahead of his time.) The stories of the Inquisition, among others, make me cringe.

I’ve always been puzzled by the Catholic Church’s excommunication. I suppose that in the days where everyone pretty much stayed where they were, it would be a bit difficult if you were shunned by all and no one could or would talk to you, and because it was a big deal to have all the sacraments it was a big deal not to be able to have them. Technically, I am excommunicate. I suppose someone there is waiting for me to repent – they’ve probably got my name, rank, and serial number, right?  -  but they’ll have a looooong wait.  Repentance implies wrongdoing and a conscience that nags at you to rejoin the fold.  I guess that in my youth no one could inculcate me properly in the ways and wants of the Roman Catholic Church.  Quite the opposite: they alienated me in several ways, one being the change from Latin to bastard English. (More on this at a later date!) 

I still do love all the pomp and circumstance.  Give me a high mass, even a sung funeral mass, in Latin and I’d be delighted. I loved all the incense and singing. I know most of the mass because I quizzed my brother when he was a new altar boy, and I know the songs because I was in the choir. And do you know that they now have altar girls? (You might not, as I didn't, if you haven't been to a Catholic church for a while.) “Servers” they’re called, just like waitresses are no longer waitresses but servers. (Thought: do they live to serve, or serve to live?) When I was in maybe sixth grade I’d have loved to have been an altar girl. Two of my Granddaughters are servers, and boy (girl?) how times have changed.

Recently, the older one was asked to serve at one of the two upcoming ceremonies where the Cardinal would be officiating. Her role there was to hold the book for him.  Well, poor child, the Cardinal had bad breath that would fell an ox, and, on top of that, in speaking he continually spit all over her and the book. Now that was a trial: suffer it out and offer it up! Do you think she got her reward for bravery and forbearance by being allowed to carry the cross in the next ceremony? Certainly not! She held the book so well – you’d think it was a practiced skill – she was asked to do it again!

Now that I think of it, maybe I’m glad I couldn’t be an altar girl all those years ago.

I once went to a Russian Orthodox wedding and was just mesmerized by the ceremony – many things done three times in honor of the Trinity. One of the nicest weddings I’d ever been to by the way. The Reception was twofold: champagne and hot hors d’oeuvres, then coffee and wedding cake and petit fours – all of this on the lawn of a lovely restaurant overlooking the harbor.

I love big university or college ceremonies where all the Profs wear their gowns and hoods that signify their school and/or field of study, and have all manner of mortarboards, tams and other hats. I was to one once where the Profs from Spain had black hats with light blue fringe all around the edge.  I'd never seen the like before.

And then there’s all the ceremony attendant on any occasion in Great Britain – I love all the tradition and color, all embroidered and tasseled in gold, all red velvet and ermine trim. Have you been watching Queen and Country on PBS? If you are a ceremony junkie like me you will really enjoy this series. I can’t wait to see the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in London. I’m sure they’ll come up with something smashing.  And the Queen will be there, so I’ll be doubly delighted.

IT'S JUBILEE WEEKEND...

...don't you wish she was our Queen too? 

Check out my essay from March 20th, and have a wonderful Jubilee Weekend of your own.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

Speaking of anthems, as I was in my last blog, it’s a shame we can’t use America – better known as My Country, ‘Tis of Thee (and wouldn’t you know, God is in the lyrics there too, and some folks just might object. Nuts!) The British are already using the tune – not ‘officially’ mind you, but it might as well be. 

Just as most folks do these days, I googled God Save the Queen just to see what was what. Whew! There’s a lot of info out there, more than I needed to know, including these lyrics from the second stanza:

Lord, our God, arise,

Scatter her enemies,

And make them fall.

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks,

On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save us all.

 I hate to sound irreverent, but that one could be the anthem of any of our Presidential hopefuls these days: “Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks.” Oh, those tricky knaves! 

All of the above aside, the real focus of my essay is Queen Elizabeth II, now celebrating sixty years on the throne.  To paraphrase Kermit-the-Frog: It ain’t easy being queen.  Although she used it for the year 1992, I’m sure she’s had many another “annus horribilis”. Still she soldiers on. 

I had an uncle who, during World War II, was stationed in England, and sent me many books from there. My favorite was one about a princess who found a little dragon and could keep him only if he didn’t use his fire. Well, one day these robbers came into her room and the dragon used his fire to chase them away and then he knew he couldn’t stay, and then… well, I do digress, and you can guess the rest of the story.  But with that book and many others I got accustomed to kings and queens and princesses.  They were part of life. I was still 10 years old when Elizabeth’s coronation took place, so naturally I sent her a letter.  She was the Queen. I know my Mom sent the letter, but I’ve always wondered where it wound up. At 10 I was still sorting out a few things like why I lived near Jamaica, New York, but there was also a far-away island called Jamaica, and didn’t everyone have a President and a Queen?  Finding out about Jamaica started a life-long love of geography, but it took me a while to get the President/Queen realities straightened out in my mind. You’d guess of course that England was the first country I visited when I could travel by myself.  I am an Anglophile and a Reginaphile too. (Is there such a word? Well I am it.)

 

I found the picture above, taken this week’s visit to the Cathedral at Leicester, in The Telegraph.  The Queen looks overwhelmed by all the flowers.  Perhaps if she’d ditch the hand bag she could have dealt with another one or two posies.  And – the ubiquitous question – just what is she carrying in that purse – the weight of the world? From some of the other pictures it looked like almost everyone had a bouquet for her.  What do they do with all of them afterwards?   

I’ve always perked up and listened to any mention of the Queen and her family.  They’ve all had their ups and downs, but it looks like these current years will be anni mirabili – happy years for the Queen. She certainly looks happy when she’s out and about with the Duchess of Cambridge – better known to us as Kate. Elizabeth II – QEII - has set sail on her Diamond Jubilee tour of the country. The countdown’s starting: she’s only got about three and a half years to go to surpass Queen Victoria’s sixty-three plus years in the same job.  I’m sure she’ll make it. 

I do love all her hats. She always looks
like she just stepped out of a bandbox.