Anyone who knows me at all well will most likely know I’m vehemently anti-royalist. I’m with Tom Paine, who said ‘Monarchy is the Popery of government.’ That said, I’m watching the coronation.
As I’m typing this South African singer Pretty Yende has just finished singing ‘Sacred Fire’, by Sarah Class. What an apt surname for a such a day! Read more about Sarah here.
As a musician and music teacher, the fact that music has such a prominent and important role in this and all such similar ceremonies is a double edged sword. It shows how central music is to culture at large.
But in broader terms the UK’s musical culture is in a pretty bad place, as a result of Brexit, under-investnent in music education (esp’ in state schools), and the abject reign of crass commercialism on all fronts.
As a lover of history, and martial history, I have to confess I do love all the military pomp and splendour. But my historically aware and critical eyes also see the way it is used to maintain an oppressive status quo.
Anyway, back to an observation on the military parade: the ‘Blues & Royals’ owe their very powerful look to Napoleonic France. They adopted their cuirasses and shiny helms thanks to their role in defeating Boney’s heavy horse at Waterloo. This was itself a triumph of the ‘Ancien Regime’, fighting against French Republicanism (despite Nap’s attempts to convert to Imperial ‘legitimacy’). The Royalty and aristocracy of Europe (Oligarchies, in truth) didn’t want French Revolutionary ideals being exported.
The two horse drummers are, as ever, really impressive. Usually, at any rate. One of them wound up doing a rather awkward looking sideways shuffle, just as the cameras were on them. No mention was made of this gaffe. Indeed, Claire Balding was fulsome in her praise of these beasts and their riders.
And the music has switched to the Abbey’s organ, and a rather ridiculous Blackpool Pier sounding musical selection! What the heck was that? Rather bizarre and comical, for a coronation.
Now it’s gone into a rather gonzo reworking of Waltzing Matilda! Apparently Chucky chose a lot (maybe all?) of the music. Bonkers. Well, a bit of research reveals that the organ weirdness was the work of one Iain Farrington, and was called ‘Voices of the World’.
Balding has just acknowledged that Apollo, one of the drum horses, is giving his rider – who also has to drum, as well as guide his steed – a rather hard time!
Just snapped the above, on’t iPhone. It’s a rather dismal day. Overcast and raining lightly. On such a gloomy note, it might be time to turn to one of the less appealing facets of this show.
Thirty-six facial recognition cameras, made in China (and banned in government buildings, on security grounds!) are being deployed to help the forces of oppression deal with anyone who might dare to show their disapproval. Our slide towards a fascist police state continues.
You can read more about this here. But I think that link is very pro usage (poss’ it’s the company providing them?), so take their gloss on it with a bag or two of salt!
So, from salt, to sand. What’s that all about? Some are saying it’s to keep the horses from slipping. Others are saying it’s because of the appalling state of the UK’s roads; filling in potholes and making it all look slightly less shabby.
If it’s the former, then surely it should be uniform along all the route? and it very clearly isn’t. So it does rather suggest it might be the latter. Either way, it kind of draws attention to the fact something is a bit odd.
Out cometh the flumpets… parp!!!
So, a bit of a lacuna here, as I was busy wrapping presents for Teresa and Chester’s forth-coming birthdays. In the meantime we’ve moved from the procession from Buck House to Westminster Abbey, to the ceremony itself.
Jeez, High Anglican is so very obviously Catholicism-lite. They even have the papal style hats! The transparent evolution of religion that’s plainly on view here – despite being swaddled in mummery – makes a mockery of the idea there’s any inherent truth in religion.
And the bizarre professions of allegiance to Protestantism jar somewhat; a relic of the ECW, a failed attempt to be rid of monarchy.
The most offensive parts of this, with deep and horrific irony, tragically, are the hypocritical genuflections towards helping the meek and needy, and serving. Oh how the ruling elite do salve their consciences.
No amount of charity work by the ‘great and the good’ can ever make a rotten system that condemns so many to bleakly hopeless poverty-stricken lives better, let alone acceptable.
But wait, who’s footing the bull?
I’m going to leave that corrective typo (bull instead of bill) in place, as it’s a Freudian slip worthy of the occasion. John Q Public, of course. The same ‘commons’ of whom over 14 million currently live below the official poverty line. The same commons the rapine Tories are robbing blind every single day.
‘Zadok The Priest’ makes its inevitable entrance. The ironies here won’t be getting any mention: written by a German composer, only able to live and work in Britain thanks to a specially enacted law, about which the odious Rees-Mogg made risibly ignorant pro-Brexit remarks (revealing himself to be extremely dumb, despite his hugely expensive Etonian education), this Germanic expression enabled by ‘free’ European movement has now become a staple of modern Tory England, the acme of regressive backwards looking ignorance.
The smorgasbord of ‘inclusivity’ at such events is in stark contrast to the elitism actually practised by the wealthy. We now have a Byzantine choir, and earlier we had a very modern take on African choral singing.
I remember being struck by all of this when Harry and Meghan were married, shortly thereafter their relation with the rest of the royal family descending into a tabloid-baiting circus of awkwardness. Harry is here, but Meghan is home in California. How very inclusive.
And how’s this for tolerant inclusivity:
*Predictive text actually rendered ‘long lost’ as ‘king list’… oddly apt!
Anyway, as the Archbishop of Cranberry drones on, peaceful anti-monarchy protesters are being arrested. Their crime? Wanting a fairer society.
Lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Better yet, hang ‘em from traitor’s gate, and put their heads on spikes. That’s what real royalty would do. And did, back in the ‘good old days’.
See our doughy, er, doughty boys and gals in blue endorsing more Royal inclusivity in Toryland here.
For a gruesome reminder of what real Royal power used to look like, have a butchers at what is purported to be Oliver Cromwell’s decapitated noggin.
Cromwell died in 1658. His corpse (or perhaps someone else’s?) was dug up by the minions of Charles II, to be hung and decapitated, along with a certain John Bradshaw and one Henry Ireton.
Cromwell’s head (or whoever’s it was) remained on a twenty foot spike until 1684, when it was blown off in a gale. It then passed through various hands, before winding up at Cromwell’s alma mater, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
Read more about the peregrinations and authenticity of ‘Cromwell’s head’ here.
Somewhat ironically our Virgin set-top box decided it had had enough, and switched itself off. Even Clare Balding admitted that, after the lengthy investiture of crowning, etc, the change to a parade was ‘a bit of relief’.
And on it goes…
The military segment rumbles on, now in the garden of Buckingham Palace. Poor old military man and commentator Greville welled up in tears contemplating and admiring it. The troops did look dapper, and did their bit with proper parade ground precision.
I understand the powerful appeal of all the pomp and ceremony. But what century are we living in? As historian David Olusoga just noted, there’s a contradiction here, between our everyday lives and culture, and this sort of shenanigans. Indeed, as Olusoga also said, it accentuates the contrast.
Hmmm… well, that’s nearing five solid hours of BBC bootlicki… er, I mean coverage. And I’m all coronation-ed out. Utterly exhausted. Can one imagine what it must’ve been like for someone in a bearskin busby carrying a sodden flag? At least they’re young and fighting fit. I’m older and more knackered… Phew! And it isn’t over yet.
I’m bailing now. Getting out while I can. Pimms and some strawberries and cream probably added to my tiredness. What a rigmarole!