Current Watching

[Lang Spoon]

But unless Charles III really fucks up, I’d say the bastards will leech on forever.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah. The terrible boxy classical shit hole that is Buck House could still have all the cheesy pageantry like Prague Castle does, but exist as a museum/art gallery/President’s Official Big Gaff.

Hockey rink!!

[Hot Pepsi]

But unless Charles III really fucks up, I’d say the bastards will leech on forever.

At the very least, they could get rid of all the titles that don’t do anything - the dukes, lords, knights, and earls and all those peripheral titles, coats of arms, flags, regalia and shit. This isn’t the 13th century anymore, which everyone should be happy about.

If you have to have a monarch, just have a monarch. Everyone else in their family can just be Mr. or Ms. or Dr. Or whatever and get a job.

And enough of this “your royal highness” and “your grace” shit.

I’ve been reading Republic’s website. I’m convinced. The monarchy is a shitty system. An elected HOS with legitimate power would be better.

I like Germany’s two-votes system. That would work well for the US where we have fairly strong States and wouldn’t be able to get rid of those. But I guess it would be really confusing to a lot of people. Same with France’s set-up. But it seems like a better balance.

Britain would also probably be better off with a Federal system with more power devolved, not only to constituent nations, but to and shires or counties and hamlets and whatnot.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Can't be having that. Heck, what would Masterpiece Theater do?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Queen by lottery is the way to go. Buy a ticket and you and your family can have a full year with all the perks and privileges the Windsor/Saxe Coburgs have enjoyed for a couple centuries.

[pebblethefish]

We can't get rid of the royals. Sure, you think we can simply win a referendum, and they'll be gone. But you've not counted on the two year withdroyal period, where the two sides argue over custody of the corgis and the phasing out of the civil list. Meanwhile supporters of the two sides will give the other increasingly irritating nicknames (Wrongachists! Republiwanks! (Sorry, can't think of anything as irritating as Bremoaner)), and those of us who don't really care will be reduced to sobbing at our TVs, just praying that they'd talk about anything else.

[Gerontophile]

Yeah. The terrible boxy classical shit hole that is Buck House could still have all the cheesy pageantry like Prague Castle does, but exist as a museum/art gallery/President’s Official Big Gaff.

Hide and Seek World Championship venue.

[Levin]

Well the current Swedish royal family was founded by the son of a lawyer and was an enlisted soldier, you can't expect them to keep up the same level of snobbishness.

After looking up the Hanoverians the other day to work out who that guy HP was talking about was I'm still stuck on how alien it is to my modern sensibility that these people were princes of Britain and held dukedoms in Germany and the UK at the same time. There was also the note that despite being cut out of the UKs system from 1917 the British King still got the army to move their stuff at the end of the second world war so it wouldn't be captured by the Soviets.

[Hot Pepsi]

Can't be having that. Heck, what would Masterpiece Theater do?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Queen by lottery is the way to go. Buy a ticket and you and your family can have a full year with all the perks and privileges the Windsor/Saxe Coburgs have enjoyed for a couple centuries.

They’ve got plenty of shows about small towns in beautiful places where a murder rocks the local’s sense of security, and the investigation threatens to reveal dark secrets, but the honest detective, who has dark secrets of his/her own, will not stop until justice is done.

That’s a fine idea.

[Benjm]

Superb - The Medusa Touch is on London Live right now! I've got it on DVD but that's never the same as watching something as it is broadcast. Telekinesis and wine for the evening it is then.

"I am the man with the power to cause catastrophe..."

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Tried that five hundred years ago. It was ugly enough and didn't last long.

Yes well, how about we try it without replacing the monarchy with something other than a religious fundamentalist fascist dictator?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Well, that would be nice. But fascist dictators tend to be what you get, like it or not.

[San Bernardhinault]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Queen by lottery is the way to go. Buy a ticket and you and your family can have a full year with all the perks and privileges the Windsor/Saxe Coburgs have enjoyed for a couple centuries.

Ha! I thought I was the only person who believed this was an ideal solution. Now there are two of us, it's the start of a movement.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well, that would be nice. But fascist dictators tend to be what you get, like it or not.

Oddly enough, we're ticking up on a hundred years of Windsor free republicanism, and we haven't lapsed into fascism. "The royal Family are a bulwark to fascism" isn't a valid political argument, it's an order to stockpile weapons because this is a boil the UK needs to lance.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, I don’t buy the “bulwark against fascism.”

As it is, it’s really the Queen’s lack of power, ironically, that’s the problem. An elected president with some powers would be a useful check on parliament and vice versa. That would be a much better bulwark against fascism, especially given that the UK almost had a Nazi-sympathizing king.

I’ve really gone off the show since the episode about Ghana. That really distorted history in a unfair way. The Queen dancing with Nkrumah is not what kept Ghana from embracing communism, insofar as they didn’t. But they did to a certain extent. It was just never that simple and I feel like the show made the Ghanians look like stupid children who just wanted somebody white to pay attention to them.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Oddly enough, we're ticking up on a hundred years of Windsor free republicanism, and we haven't lapsed into fascism. "The royal Family are a bulwark to fascism" isn't a valid political argument, it's an order to stockpile weapons because this is a boil the UK needs to lance.

I wasn't thinking specifically of the UK. I meant that monarchies in general are frequently replaced by dictators. Ireland is something of an exception.

[Lang Spoon]

Just finished American Gods. Was very entertaining. Feel slightly bereft now.

[Hot Pepsi]

I wasn't thinking specifically of the UK. I meant that monarchies in general are frequently replaced by dictators. Ireland is something of an exception.

Well, there are a lot more historical examples and experience with democracy to learn from than there were 500 years ago. And if the constitution gets rid of the official privileges for the COE, a lot of the problems that ruined everything the last time would be avoided.

[Hot Pepsi]

The school Charles and Philip went to in Scotland sounds a lot better than Eton, to be honest - work, service, fitness, etc. Charles was a bit of a pantywaist.

Of course, all expensive private schools should be abolished.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Well, there are a lot more historical examples and experience with democracy to learn from than there were 500 years ago. And if the constitution gets rid of the official privileges for the COE, a lot of the problems that ruined everything the last time would be avoided.

I wasn't think about 500 years ago either. A fat wedge of countries in Europe over the past couple of hundred years became dictatorships after the monarchy collapsed or was removed. Portugal, Spain, Germany, Greece, to name a few. And other monarchs became beards for dictators, Italy, Hungary Romania etc.* It doesn't have to happen of course, but it does much of the time and I'm not sanguine enough to suppose it couldn't again.

* If Edward VIII hadn't abdicated it's not inconceivable that would have been Britain's fate.

[ad hoc]

Hang on, Spain doesn't work in that example

[ad hoc]

Germany is a bit of a stretch too given that they only had a monarchy for about 30 years

[ad hoc]

So if we move Spain into your beards category the conclusion is that having a monarch in the 20th century was at least as likely to usher in dictatorship as getting rid of one. Arguably more likely

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s why the head of State and governments should be elected seperately.

[Satchmo Distel]

Douglas Henshall is outstanding in 'Shetland.'

[Lang Spoon]

The school Charles and Philip went to in Scotland sounds a lot better than Eton, to be honest - work, service, fitness, etc. Charles was a bit of a pantywaist.

Of course, all expensive private schools should be abolished.

Cold showers and hour long runs through bleak freezing Northern Scotland every fucking day? Gordonstoun seems exactly the sort of body and stoicism fetishizing military prep school place that would produce an elite fascist nutjob if you ask me. So of course Prince Phil loved his time there.