https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6vtKWWHxts
pl
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90 is a good age to reach and she still seems fairly sharp. We sometimes like to joke up here that the Queen’s longevity is due to preservation via Gin and Tonics, so I guess I’ll toast her the next time I have one myself.
God Save the Queen!
Here’s the words of the national anthem. Political Correctness prevents verses after the first being much noticed nowadays, but I like the second verse..
O lord God arise,
Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their knavish tricks,
Confuse their politics,
On you our hopes we fix,
God save the Queen!
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/n/nationalanthemlyrics/britiannationalanthemlyrics.html
The sixth may also come back into fashion:
Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!
The Queen of Canada, our Captain General!
All,
For the first time in my life, my wife and I are in Vienna. Today, we visited the Hofburg, the palace of the Hapsburgs, and also the Kapuzinergruft, where so many members of the imperial family are interred.
It is also the title of a novel by Joseph Roth, the sequel to his classic fable of the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Radetzky March. The great lament for the Empire was written by a – very drunk – Galician Jewish journalist.
For generations, monarchical government preserved a reasonable modicum of civilisation in large areas of Eastern Europe. But then, ‘democratic’ principles – accompanied, as they almost always are, by nationalism – brought about, as they so often do, catastrophic revolutions.
Tidewater to Turcopolier and All,
“Land of Hope and Glory. Last Night of the proms. 09.” YouTube.
Sorry I can’t hit my usual quota. Got all weepy.
MM: That was certainly true of her mother, who enjoyed a G & T until the very end.
I will always treasure the memory of the day she rode by me ten feet away in her carriage when she looked directly at me and gave me her smile. She is a great personage of supreme presence and dignity.
Just to remember there are also patriots to that other tradition of England – Blake’s Albion.
Here’s Amyl Nitrate/Jordan doing her own unconventional Rule Brittannia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFRg5pLD9EI
And johnny Rotten doing God Save the Queen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrAPOZxgzU
At least one of them directed by that genius and patriot Derek Jarman whose film Jubilee included a scene between Elizabeth II’s ancestor Good Queen Bess and her conjuror, cartographer, and Chief Scientist, John Dee, whose ecstatic visions of a future British Empire were widely different from what actually came about.
More material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6VIWTVxtMU
With advanced age, she has to use a car.
If you have time- visit the Kunsthistorische Museum (Art History Museum) – outstanding art exhibits, plus ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece. And the Heergeschichtes Museum (Army History Museum) is worth a look. Military history of Austria from the 1500s (Reformation Wars) til WWI.
And Happy 90th to Her Majesty.
I recommend Kaffe Alt Wien for an inexpensive yet delicious schnitzel. Then one can wander a few yards up Bäckerstraße to Weinergel, a bar where Swedish officers drank when they arrived during the Thirty Years War.
David Habakkuk,
I read somewhere a very thumbnail sketch of Emperor Franz Joseph and the Hapsburg Empire. It said that when young he had a vision of all the peoples and also all the individual persons having the same modicum of advancing civil rights as eachother all over the Empire.
But then the Hungarians rebelled and even though defeated, they were able to demand that he appease them and placate them with some kind of Elevated Special Status within the Empire . . . which then became the Empire of Austria-Hungary. Naturally, over the decades that followed, every other Nationality Group within the now-Austro-Hungarian Empire also wanted its own Equally Elevated Special Status. If only the young Franz Joseph had not given in to the wishes of the Hungarian mini-semi-SubImperialists, he might have guided his realm through a paced and careful democratization and liberalization under a Constitutional Emperorship or even eventually a Union of Bourgeois National Liberal Republics.
I wonder if Babak Makkinejad might see an analogy between what might have been for the Hapsburg Empire if Franz Joseph had hung tough for his youthful vision . . . . and what the Great King achieved for a time in Ancient Persia.
Don’t forget to visit the magnificent Schönbrunn Palace
Gonna pass on that toast.
My forebears marched with Cromwell and one died in a British prison camp.
I know, too long ago, but we still are appalled by the idea of royalty.
Even MONARCHY once a reform in governance. Happy Birthday to all those 90 and over, here and there.
Although my Irish ancestors would disapprove, I greatly admire Queen Elizabeth. She exemplifies how a life of service should be lived. Here’s hoping that her children and grandchildren live up to her example.
Tidewater to Turcopolier and All,
“Jerusalem and God save the Queen–Last night of the Proms 2012.” YouTube.
I can’t help it. I grew up in Richmond. (James Branch Cabell’s “Richmond in Virginia.”) King Charles’s “Old Dominion”, which by then had “The Old Dominion Barn Dance” my late brother used to listen to late at night cause somehow he had the radio. One song I kinda liked was by Mac Wiseman, “Remember the Red River Valley.” Until two days ago, I thought it was “Max” Wiseman. I knew a guy named O’Dell, who at an early stage in his criminal career, back in the fifties, had been on Road Camp 21, which is up in Spotsylvania County. The gun gang boss was a famous old guy in the DOC called Captain Wolfrey. The Captain wore two watches, it was thought because he couldn’t tell time. He would show the watches to someone on the crew and find out if one was a little off of the hour… The hour being…He once saw smoke coming out of the “teepee” that was used as a Porta-john. Someone taking a cigarette break. He blew the top of the “teepee” off with a very long barrell shotgun. He used to sing a song called “Can I sleep in your barn tonight, Mister?” I just found out a couple of days ago that that song was sung (live) by Mac Wiseman on the Barn Dance to the exact same tune as “The Red River Valley.” It’s like a Scottish border ballad (tragic) but is said to be Irish. Wiseman had a very fine Irish tenor voice, too.
Everything is slowly coming together…
I told my aunt, after I first made a trip to Britain years ago, that at Dover I had taken a knee and placed my palm flat on the tarmac. (Eurostar means you miss something about Britain. A whole lot of aggression went out Dover!) She looked at me and exclaimed: “Of course!!!”
Been watching the Fleet Air Arm/Pompey Field Gun Competition, 1986. Actually a couple of them, once again. “Pompey! The Last Gun Race…” and the Queen, Herself, both, I guess, helped to save the competition. Government was going to cancel it. I remember the first time I saw a black and white film of this, probably held at Wembley, and shot quite well, and in part up close as are some of the scenes in “The Last Gun Race.” I had turned on the TV at random. The thing had already started. I couldn’t figure out what was going on!
Also “5 Trooping the Colour–Guards March Past in Slow and Quick Time.” YouTube. “Changing of the Guard, August 10, 2013, Scots Guards, RAF Regiment, Band of the Coldstream Guards” is very charming bit of cinema verite, soldiers going on with the preparatory business of a public performance that is near at hand, Alice and many others murmuring all around you.
Does anyone know why the Royal Navy calls Portsmouth “Pompey”?
I wish HRH a very happy birthday and , I would add, “Ma’am, thank you!”
A list of various “Pompey” explanations is here. Take your pick.
Here’s a possible answer. It may actually refer to the Roman.
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2010,00.html
I have never been to Vienna, only to Budapest in Hungary, which is also beautiful. All the people who have been to Vienna, say it’s an astonishing old city with beautiful old buildings and parks, so I wish you a pleasant stay.
On the other hand, your statement that the k und k ”monarchical government preserved a reasonable modicum of civilisation in large areas of Eastern Europe. But then, ‘democratic’ principles – accompanied, as they almost always are, by nationalism – brought about, as they so often do, catastrophic revolutions” is not true.
Although, the Austria-Hungarian Monarchy was in some level a state with implemented rule of law (Rechtsstaat), reflecting e.g. in the fact that Gavrilo Princip was not sentenced to death because he was younger than 18y (but there were pressures on the local Orthodox priest from Gavrilos village to forge the date of birth in birth registers at that time administered by the church, which he refused, and paid for it with his life), it was also a dungeon of different people (Тюрьма народов) (ironically this term was later used by the communists and Croats for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which replaced great parts of AH).
Just as the American War of independence was from the British view some kind of mutiny from their colony to which they brought civilization and kept it civilized, from the perspective of the American it was a strive for freedom (in arms if necessary).
P.S. Here’s a link to a documentary in Spanish on you-tube (”A un solo disparo”) partly depicting the situation in Bosnia, and through it whole Austria-Hungary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGoymXBUeVM
Degringolade,
I am with you. My kin never cared for the Ottoman Sultans either. They rebelled (and were decimated and exiled)several times.
In honor of this anniversaty I heartily recommend “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” to all. It is always worth a re-read.
Ishmael Zechariah
Tidewater: I took a tour of Portsmouth’s harbor two months ago. Just like San Diego, passing all those great ships is very moving.
Vienna no doubt is the best place to eat a Schnitzel, if I may change the spelling here ;). Loads of traditional coffee houses in Vienna.
But concerning Schnitzel the best address at my last time there, wasn’t one of the traditional places but an advise of a friend from Belgium that at that point in time worked there. It makes sense to ask local people in this context. in other words.
Off topic (to a degree)
http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/04/after-prince-death-airborne-admits-maroon-berets-actually-raspberry/
Prince? I guess that ties to royalty in a sense.
Anyway: Colonel, TTG, our secret is out
More basically, and strictly this could easily trigger a longer response. But from the top of my head it reminds me of two things, one of which I give you as link:
The German Question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Question
And not much beneath it, a publication that for one reason or another, limits of time–553 pages, including the additional need to follow hints and look up sources–got pushed down on my to-read-list:
German title: Davidstern und Doppeladler. Zionism und jüdischer Nationalismus in Österreich 1882-1918. Translation: The Star of David and the Double Eagle, Zionism and Jewish Nationalism in Austria 1882-1918. To not lead you on the wrong internet path, concerning double eagle, ‘the double-headed eagle’.
******
Besides, I would advice you concerning Babak to simply ignore his central theses. Seems I reached some type of inner peace since I simply accepted that there may be some pieces of the puzzle beneath, beyond his larger theory, although strictly it always was only a thesis, beneath it.
I recommend Kunst Haus Wien – Hundertwasser was a fascinating artist and character – Austria’s Gaudi, and more! And make sure you try some Sachertorte! Happy Birthday to Her Majesty indeed – probably the greatest monarch Britain has had.
Could Obama fix his vehicle if it broke down?
http://thecynicaltendency.blogspot.ru/2016/04/question-of-day.html