As an Irishman, while our two countries might not have always gotten along well, she always came across as a good person who took her role seriously and executed as well as anyone could. RIP.
Queen Elizabeth II has died
721–730 of 1001 posts
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#722My Canadian money is about to get weird.
It's probably worthless now. Give it to me, I'll dispose of it responsibly :D
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#723> From commoners to heads of state, the queen has been known to smooth over embarrassing situations with a gentle quip or two. According to Blaikie, at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, a woman was chatting with the queen when her cell phone embarrassingly started ringing. “You’d better answer that,” the queen told her. “It might be someone important.”
> Then there was the notorious incident that occurred during Charles and Madame de Gaulle’s state visit to Buckingham Palace. “Somebody asked Madame de Gaulle what she was most looking forward to in her retirement, which was imminent,” Blaikie writes. “Not speaking English much at all, she replied, ‘A penis.’ Consternation reigned for some time but it was the queen herself who came to the rescue. ‘Ah, happiness,’ she said.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/08/behind-queen-elizab...
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#724I gotta admit that it is a bit weird to see british royalty being so heavily privileged that they even get special moderation treatment here on HN to protect them (?) from any negativity, or rather stop negativity about them. I'm not keen on the idea of using this submission to flame the Queen, I obviously agree with the general rule of avoiding flamebait, what I mean is that other HN submissions on the deaths of peo…
As a general rule, you don't criticize people who've just died. That's just common courtesy.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#725As a Brit I'm not a huge fan of the royal family on principle, but Queen Elizabeth has been such an excellent head of state for us you really can't fault her. People like to make out her life was easy and that it's not fair that she inherited such a privileged position, but I think the exact opposite. Her life seemed like living hell to me. Every day for the last 70 years she's had to serve this largely ungrateful co…
It's a life of 'Duty' not a life of 'Arbitrary Wealth'.
It's not exactly poverty, but the 'classist' arguments, to the extent they are rooted in 'wealth distribution' are ridiculous and naive with respect to Constitutional Monarchies.
The 'Head of State' gets a nice home, oh well, it's a drop in the bucket.
That's fundamentally different than some fat oligarch.
BTW Charles will be a fine King. He's nerdy and awkward and everyone loved the beloved Dianna because she was pretty and breezy, which is fine, but I don't believe that 'Instagrammable' qualities are those that fill the role.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#726I was born in the UK, in 1963. Because of my step-father's love of first-wave UK punk, the first thing I did on hearing this news was to play the Sex Pistol's "God Save the Queen". It is remarkable how much the Queen's standing has improved during the time since that song (1977). My (UK) family are (as far as I know) staunch republicans, but the last couple of decades have seen all of us soften our disgust with the m…
> We might still want the whole concept destroyed I am not well versed about republic vs. monarchy apart from my limited experience, which might be more than many people, but not as valuable as someone that have studied that and can pitch in. Coming from BR, have lived in AU, NZ, and UK, and traveled a lot, I would take monarchy over a republic any day, extrapolating on that, and just looking at the current state of…
The UK is in a shocking state of decline, so not sure what metrics you are using there?
Widespread unemployment, hunger, life expectancies in decline, 1,000 people are dying a month from the botched "response" to covid. Hundreds of thousands in early graves due to same covid response, and before that already over a hundred thousand in early graves as a result of austerity. The political system seems to have completely collapsed and be unable to respond to crises or meet even the most basic survival needs of its population.
I wouldn't lay this on the feet of the monarchy, cos the elected officials seem to be the main cause of it.
But which republics are you looking at? Because I live in one, and I can't imagine moving back to the UK any time soon. Again, I don't think that's because it's a republic, it just happens to have a basically functioning political an economic system that hasn't (yet) failed.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#727It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all…
I feel the same. I think it’s because it really represents the end of an era. The 20th and early 21st century ushered in unprecedented improvements to quality of life in Britain but it has felt of late that that has peaked and the country is facing a serious decline: Brexit, the increasingly visible effects of climate change, the aftermath of covid, the possible break up of the union, rising costs of living, recessio…
It seems as if you judge the past too positively. The 70s and 80s were also perceived as pretty dark at the time and anything but stable. The sentiment at the time was quite similar to the way you describe the present. You had stagnation in the 70s similar to what is happening today and a general view that the welfare system was losing its viability. The Cold War also became more serious again in the 80s and the geopolitical threats were comparable to today's.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#728Long live the king.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#729First of all, let’s give a round of applause to Charles. Few thought he would be king. Many assumed Liz was holding on just to spite him. You did it, Chucky!
Second, now is a good time to figure out if Reptoids can hold their shape when dead. I’ve never seen a definitive answer in the literature.
Re: Queen Elizabeth II has died
#730I gotta admit that it is a bit weird to see british royalty being so heavily privileged that they even get special moderation treatment here on HN to protect them (?) from any negativity, or rather stop negativity about them. I'm not keen on the idea of using this submission to flame the Queen, I obviously agree with the general rule of avoiding flamebait, what I mean is that other HN submissions on the deaths of peo…
You say "special moderation treatment", as if it is something sinister. Have you considered that it may just be the fact that she was so broadly loved, that this happens naturally?