FYI..a good read..
Remember Wm F Buckley's novel,whe the American spy has an affair witht he soon to be British queen?
Good post.
Dr. D is correct about the monarchy. It appears to be going the way of all flesh...and so it should.
Cheerio old top!
Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, and Quasimodo were all talking one day.
Sleeping Beauty said, "I believe myself to be the most beautiful girl in the world."
Tom Thumb said, "I must be the smallest person in the world."
Quasimodo said, "I absolutely have to be the ugliest person in the world."
They decided to go to the Guinness Book of World Records to have their claims verified.
Sleeping Beauty went first and came out looking deliriously happy. "It's official, I AM the most beautiful girl in the world."
Tom Thumb went next and emerged triumphant, "I am officially the smallest person in the world."
Sometime later, a confused-looking Quasimodo came out and said, "Who is Camilla Parker Bowles?"
The British monarchy only survived into the 20th century as the embodiment of British public school values.
It seems to me that the British system was based on a romanticization of the kind of collective child-rearing the Spartans practiced, where boys were taken from their families and raised in barracks to turn them into hardened warriors... and emotional cripples. The upside of all that emotional deprivation and steely emotional control is to convince you that you are a stronger, superior being to the soft people around you who have feelings. The downside is it makes you insufferably arrogant.
And what if you really aren't superior ? When the Spartans were smashed by the Thebans at Leuctra, when they saw that their system really didn't make them stronger, when they learned that free men can outfight militarists didn't they question the price in human suffering their system asked of them ? What is all that stiff upper lip emotional deprivation worth to be king of a minor power ? What was all that sacrifice and loneliness for since you're not really superior ?
Charles strikes me as a man who feels cheated out of a childhood, out of a normal life, out of the simple freedom to marry the woman he loves, and for what ?
The Royals are extraordinary people who have dedicated their entire lives to charity and public service. The Left has been trying to abolish it for decades and with it...English history and tradition.
For a conservative publication to print something so vile about this incredible family is disgusting.
With Charles marrying Camilla - I can see the Brits revolting about Charles being King. I get the impression a lot of Brits still blame Charles for Diana's death.
I can't help but wonder if Charles will be passed over and William will become King. Would the Brits be happier if they saw William taking the throne as somehow justice for Diana ..??
And Her Majesty responds, 'Howdy, Duty!"
One hopes that QE II outlives Charles.
A reminder for everyone: Theodore Dalrymple is British himself.
The Prince’s own son, Harry, is further proof that the Royal Family is not immune to generational change or wider cultural influences. Pictures of Prince Harry, with his vulgar snarling expression, and reports of his less than amusing exploits, prove that he is fundamentally no different from so many of his British compatriots: drunken, arrogant, violent, and charmless.
Britain, please us another Sir Cecil Rhodes, Benjamin Disraeli, Hudson Taylor, or Rudyard Kipling! The current OASIS, david Beckham metrosexual generation is yet another manifestion of Britain's cultural and moral decline.
I thought the author would include Charles's self pitying remarks (paraphrased, since I can't recall his exact words), of a few years ago that he was sick and tired of having to explain himself to the public. The implication: He's royalty, above explaining his behavior to those who foot his bills, and they're the 'vulgar masses', lower than the dirt on his boots. Camilla's crazy to have stuck with Charles all these years. He has nothing to recommend him. Nothing. Well, they say water seeks its own level, or do I mean lowest level?