Hi all,
another busy week, with little time to write anything.. more work on the website.. still no content as such, but that's changing once I've honed my typing skills for a few minutes here.. and cheers to Ciber and Renegade for their help so far.. :)
In the news this week, it appears that our heir to the throne is getting hitched. Congratulations to the both of you.. and assuming of course that you haven't lost the link to my blog in the meantime, I look forward to the invite.
Most of my contact with the media (outside of the 'net) tends to be listening to verbal radio stations such as R4, R5 and Talk Sport.. except for the sport. Radio Five have had a multitude of rabid monarchists, vapid republicans and zealous religionists of various flavours all having their say on what the rest of us think about this marriage. The more vocal republicans are a particularly hilarious bunch of people who I'd rather not have standing near me in a quiet bar. They would like to see the Royal Family summarily executed in a French Revolution style.
They see as the major problem, the fact that we pay for them, and as such they are our property to do with as we see fit. We do pay for them.. they cost us roughly £40 million, or less than 80p each.. in a year; two thirds of which are for the upkeep of buildings such as Windor Castle, Balmoral and of course Buck House, which would be paid anyway, monarchy or not. The price of one decent newspaper or two redtops.
The returns that the treasury receives from the Crown Estates etc. come to around £170 million a year. Net gain.. £130 million, or around £2.10 per person. If I were a gambling man, and I'm not, I would think that a pretty much guaranteed return of 3-1 on a given investment is money well spent. To put it into some sort of perspective, for the same money that we pay to the Royal Family in a year (ignoring the fact that they pay it all back again threefold) we get Europe for around four days, and that's net contribution.. we don't see it again.
So, I have the choice of putting my meagre individual contribution towards an outdated, out moded, out of touch corrupt and inept bunch of inbred twats, or.. tadum tish.. the Royal Family. I'd have the Royals any day.
And just as a side issue, certain members of the Church of England have voiced concerns about changing the rules to allow divorcees to marry. This, if I remember correctly, is the exact reason this subset of Christianity was invented in the first place, when old 'enery fell out of favour with the papacy for much the same thing.. :)
Apart from which, of course, is the consideration of an alternative to the Royals? It's been done to death elsewhere, but the phrase "President Blair" still sends a shiver down my spine. If we have an elected President he will have a political agenda to follow, irrespective of the ruling democratic power of the day. I agree that we should have a democratically elected body politic to decide how best to
squand.. distribute our taxes for the benefit of all, but why should the head of state need to be a political position? Surely we have at the moment, one of the most widely respected heads of state in the world. Completely
apolitical, of a financial worth so great that even the biggest of multinationals aren't going to be able to buy favour with Her, and of a character that is unimpeachable. Nor, in five years time will all those qualities be used to prostitute herself and her soul to the public, in order to reign for another session.
Compare that with the fine work being done in Westminster at the moment. They couldn't give a toss about their public.. any of them. They just want to be voted in as the ruling party next time. Nothing else is on their mind. Certainly, as the much hinted at election comes nearer we get an increasingly ugly policy battle going on, with all the party leaders promising a positive utopia.. if only you'll give them a chance. Well realistically anyway, two of the parties, as I can't see old Chucky Lush being Prime Minister anytime soon, can you?
You only have to look at the US to see what can happen with elected heads of state. I'm sure Blair would love to be president, and have all that power at his hands, and to an almost complete extent he does. The Queen still has to give Royal Assent to new laws of the land, but that's pretty much academic, as I know of no instance where there has been a refusal to do so.. even with the crap that Blair comes up with.
We have in this country The House of Commons, and the House of Lords. Bills voted on by the democratically elected Commons, have to be agreed also in the Upper House, which if you ever watch parliamentary TV, is always referred to in hushed tones by the members of parliament as "The other place". Of course if Blair and his oiks want to force through a peice of pet legislation, and if the Lords reject the bill, he uses a facility known as an Act of Parliament to acheive his goal. This a useful thing if emergency legislation had to be agreed on, in the case of war or other disaster that may befall this country.. Blair prefers to use it as a handy little way of appeasing potential voters, such as the ban on hunting with dogs. I will add that although I agree with that bill, that's not what the act was meant for. It was also used to lower the age of consent for homosexual males from 18 to 16. It does strikes me as odd though, that neither of these was a national disaster, unless you like watching animals being ripped limb from limb by other animals, or have a penchant for young boys.
Erm, I got a little side-tracked there. My main point for mentioning the wedding, is that it's going to be on Friday April the 8th. That happens to be the day of celebration heralding in my 38th year of existence on this rock. Although I've never been particularly fussed about birthdays etc. I've always maintained the tradition of taking the day off, and have never worked on my birthday, since leaving school. This year a colleague has taken that week off, and it looks as though I may have to break with tradition.
With the Royal Wedding coinciding nicely, and with Blair looking for as many cynical votes as possible, I think it would be nice to make it a public holiday in joint celebration of me becoming a little bit older, and err, some wedding or other.
Write to your local MP asking that the day be made a holiday.. if not for your future King, then for me.
That's it really,
Cheers
Liam
