royal wedding celebration

During her Christmas Day broadcast, Her Majesty the Queen - a woman of great wisdom - said, "Each year that passes seems to have its own character. Some leave us with a feeling of satisfaction, others are best forgotten. 2009 was a difficult year for many..."

Looking back at 2009, which began with such high hopes (as does every year) the Queen really captured the spirit of the age! A year, here in England, of seeing more and more coffins draped with Union Flags being brought home from Afghanistan; a year of meaningless words spouted by world leaders; a year of M.P.s' expenses coming to light; a year of shops like Borders and Woolworth's closing - empty shopping Malls and people losing their jobs; a year of more nonsense spouted about the climate change, when Nature responds by sending more snow than we have had in decades!!; a years of more child abuse scandals in Ireland being brought out.

But all is not lost! As Her Majesty said, "Each year that passes seems to have its own character..." and it seems like this one was a year of uncovering the lies that have been allowed to remain hidden and have been festering in the manner of, to quote Shakespeare, "something is rotten in the state of...." how things have been. If one wishes to re-decorate a house, it's not advisable to paint over cracks, it is better to strip the whole room and expose the rottenness as only then can it be remedied. A boil sometimes needs to be lanced in order to heal. This year seems to have been a year for lancing boils and for people to be able to say, "Things have gone on in a dark way for long enough; now is the time to expose the shadow side in order to heal it."

The most wonderful story of the year, for me, is Susan Boyle's. What a whirlwind of success for someone thoroughly without guile! After the 'plastic age', where every actor looks the same as the next, it feels as though Nature is regurgitating the nonsense we have swallowed for so long. It feels like a pivotal time of changing direction. As more and more people move to growing their own vegetables again, and finding alternative ways of earning a living than by fitting into someone else's idea of how we must live, as people turn from the idea of advertising designs for how everyone must look in order to be successful, maybe it really is a sign that 2009 will be looked back on as the year of exposure of falsehood, of lancing the boils and of making a small turning point on the road to recovering who we really are and how we might live in harmony, being who we are here to be.

(picture taken from The Telegraph website. If you object, I'll remove it :-) )

Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Marie of Roumania, wrote of her grandmother's almost childish excitement about the theatre troupes or circuses that came to Windsor, and how it was lovely to see that thrill and hear her laughter. When the present Queen smiled yesterday at the red, white and blue flowing from the Red Arrows, there was something of the same effect.

The military aspect apart, the perfection of the Trooping of the Colour inspires such a sense of history and respect for the values of Her Majesty. We have gone through a lot of wishy-washy stages in this country in an attempt to remain up to date and it is good that we have discarded ancient prejudices or the ideas of Empire, but, at the same time when we seem to have 'thrown out the baby with the bath water', it is truly wonderful to see the pride that the young men, who marched with such perfectly choreographed steps, feel in marching before the Queen and all she represents. After all the scandals and shame of our Parliament, and the constant and continuing bickering between different political parties, to watchthe Trooping of the Colour, with all the history it evokes and the seemingly timeless way the tradition continues year after year, was like hearing what Robert Louis Stevenson so brilliantly described as a quiet mind marching at its own private pace like 'a clock in a thunderstorm'.
In the crowd a few politician snuffled to and fro, but the real reflection of this nation came in the persons of the Queen and Prince Philip - who at 88 years old stood tall in his busbym, saluting at the National Anthem - Princes William and Harry, who saluted and behaved impeccably, and the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Kent, riding behind the Queen's carriage, and still more in the young men who upheld the tradition of centuries.

It is truly tragic that all these ceremonials are based on old military ideas. We all long for a time when there is no call for soldiers or any sense of the need to kill other people. But I pray, with all my heart, that when humanity no longer requires people to be at war, this brilliant pageantry, and the respect behind it, will continue. The respect for the Queen isn't about militarism or empires or anything of the sort. It's about the real values of altruism and individual freedom and all the noble ideas for which our monarchy stands.

The failure to invite Her Majesty the Queen to the D-Day Commemoration is beyond belief: an insult to the only Head of State who was actually involved in the war; an insult to the veterans and their families, to those who died liberating France, and to the whole of Canada and Britain. Of all those who are participating in the events, Her Majesty is surely the one person who most wants to be there and who has the closest connection to those veterans who will be there.
What is the cause of this appalling behaviour on the part of Mr. Sarkozy? Is he so forgetful of the part Britain played in liberating his country, or does he feel a sense of inferiority and humiliation at having to be liberated? Or is he afraid that the presence of so greatly a respected figure would overshadow the adulation being heaped on Mr. Obama? Perhaps Mr. Obama himself has the same fear.
Whatever the reason, this is such a terrible insult to someone who for over 50 years has stood for the real values for which those soldiers died. Sadly the present shameful government of Britain has quite forgotten those values and prefers to run England like a police state while they cover up their own misdemeanours with ridiculous excuses and an utter failure to grasp why people are do angered by them. Small wonder that, with their minds on ways of trying to restore some faith in their own faithless behaviour and cling to power, the Prime Minister and his cabinet quite forgot that the British people have far more respect for their Queen than they have for her parliament, and we would at least have expected them to press for an invitation.
The whole thing is an insult and all those involved in its planning can enjoy being in the spotlight, basking in the reflected glory, while the Queen, with her usual quiet dignity is consigned to watching it on TV. Shame on you, Mr. Sarkozy!

In a week of ugly politics and the last gasps of a failing government in which the British parliament has been compelled - quite rightly! - to wash its dirty linen in public, the most repulsive image, to my mind, is that of John Prescott's impression of Gordon Brown. Regardless of physical appearance - after all, John Prescott is anything but an oil painting himself! a case of the pot calling the kettle black! - that image that was all over the newspapers shows the way in which we have allowed ourselves to be dragged into the quagmire. The yob, binge-drinking culture that is so often presented as the picture of Britain today, is epitomised in that image. If a country is led by foul-mouthed, grasping, porn-watching or lap-top-throwing thugs, who can't even agree among themselves, how can we expect anything better from the young people of this beautiful place? As several M.P.s declared themselves ashamed of their political party, those responsible for this ought to be more ashamed of the image they are presenting to the world. Do they have any idea of the traditions of this country? Do they, while they stick their fingers into every pie, interfering in education, in medicine, in grasping every penny through tax; while they steal (really) from other people's money (inheritance tax, death duty, stamp duty, VAT on everything) have any idea of the brilliance of so many young people here today? Young people who seek role models and leaders who are upright, who don't abuse their position, who have something about them which so few members of this Cabinet - or perhaps Parliament as a whole - seems to grasp at all. No, of course, they have no idea. They are far too busy trying to remain in power.

Happily, out of the quagmire, there emerged a voice which instantly resonated with the entire nation! Joanna Lumley's quiet voice and perfect diction spoke right to the heart of the matter. With little more than a glance, she quieted those ego-centric voices and took them to the cleaners because she was speaking for someone other than herself. No wonder the vast majority of people with whom I have spoken, admiring both her style and her real 'class', and still more her commitment to a worthy cause, wish she could be Prime Minister!

Now, another image - the picture on this post. Comparing the quiet dignity of Her Majesty, the Queen, to the ugly, ugly image of a thug doing an impression of a megalomaniac...Whom do we want to represent England? What are we about? Well, I think the shady goings-on in Westminster shows the depths of 'something is rotten in the state...' but the reality is way, way beyond their petty understanding. Out pops a Joanna Lamely - and, more importantly, behind her the Gurkhas who nobly committed themselves to our Queen not a government or a grasping political idea, but to all the Queen represents; or Her Majesty, herself, who has served this country for over 50 years...Those who think they have power only see it implode on themselves. Those who have their own quiet dignity are the real face of this country. They represent the beauty, the dignity, the lives of those who don't appear in newspapers but who uphold the real values of this nation. They are young and old. They are of all different skin colours and many spiritual paths. They - we - are nothing like the thug-culture of our parliament, presented so succinctly by that gross impression of Gordon Brown, made by his friend John Prescott.

Crikey!! No wonder, with so many snouts in the trough, they brought in swine flu!!

Happy Birthday, Ma'am!

It was wonderful to see the 41-gun salutes to so devoted a Queen and I hope these were seen by those who would happily merge these little islands into Soviet-like state of nonentities!

God Bless the Queen on her 83rd birthday, with many thanks for the example she has always set of being true to herself, to her beliefs and to her country!