Just in is an email from my friend, emeritus shakespearean at Reading Univ...not
about poetry but confirming Patrick's feelings in Raynes Park...
Dear Max,
The one thing to be said for a royal wedding in London is that it gave us a bank
holiday, not that being retired makes much of that. We went to look at
plants at the RHS ground in Wisley, which at least gave us a day away from the
endless press and tv fuss. Reinforces my prejudice about needing a republic.
And the fact that neither Blair or Brown were invited to the show, when Major
and even Thatcher were, shows how far from impartial politically the UK
establishment currently is.
I find it faintly reassuring that my usual prejudice agin the govt now has the
old guard back in place to throw more of my bile on.
They are doing truly dire things all over -- our daughterinlaw, who was brought
up a chronic Torygraph reader, is now so far to the left she's almost out of
sight, all because of what the new govt is trying to do to her NHS, which she
still works for, but which has said she'll have to go private sometime, somehow,
like much of the rest of the service.
She's one of the 3% of NHS staff on the management side, and management has been
told to bear the brunt of the 30% cuts they are enforcing on everyone. I could
grumble on, as you can imagine.
etc
Quoting Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>:
> Yeah I would have loved the Spitfire, Max.
>
> And after the long performance last night, we came home & caught just a bit
> on the news: they do know how to do the pageantry thing, no doubt.
>
> When so many commentators tell you it's so wonderful you almost begin to
> believe it....
>
> Doug
> On 2011-04-29, at 2:23 PM, Max Richards wrote:
>
> > The royal wedding in pictures; Plus:
> > Was Kate's dress a winner?
> > That's the first email I found
> > checking my inbox before bed.
> >
> > Moi, I'd dozed off watching 'live'
> > the late evening telecast of
> > the poshest pageantry
> > in living memory.
> >
> > Simon Schama 'historian'
> > was one commentator,
> > sitting it seemed in a glass box
> > to one side of Buck Palace.
> >
> > Soft spot for Schama I have.
> > Hard put he was to shift us
> > from the engulfing shallowness,
> > and the vox pop interludes...
> >
> > Oh the choirboys were scrumptious,
> > wouldn't have missed them,
> > and not all pallid anglos
> > lifting up their hearts in song -
> >
> > (Blake over by St Paul's.
> > Parry's Blake's Jerusalem,
> > now, wasn't that spine-tingling?
> > Even if its radicalism
> >
> > is done over by the establishment.
> > Hovering over Hyde Park at times
> > we saw the hoi polloi
> > whistling as their 'commoner'
> >
> > Kate became Princess Catherine,
> > pizza bars and fun fair beckoning.
> > Then the cam showed us inside
> > an old Lancaster cockpit!
> >
> > And a Spitfire flew beside it
> > above the millions and the royals.
> > Patrick, Doug, you surely
> > would have thrilled to that.
> > But the horses were what mostly
> > I wanted to see, bestrode
> > by antique uniforms.
> > Quoting Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>:
> >
> >> I guess you have to be there
> >>
> >> (me: I was at a poetry reading last night& went to bed...)
> >>
> >> Doug
> >> On 2011-04-29, at 2:47 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> >>
> >>> For me, Patrick, it's doubly worse: he's an Aston Villa supporter (growl)
> >>>
> >>> (grew up next door to St Andrews and the Stan Cullis Blues me)
> >>>
> >>> :)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 29 April 2011 09:25, Patrick McManus
> >> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> BBC NEWS HEADLINES
> >>>> (found poem 29 -4-11)
> >>>>
> >>>> The royal wedding
> >>>> Guests arrive at Westminster Abbey
> >>>> Prince William meets well-wishers
> >>>> The route from Westminster Abbey
> >>>> Preparations for the royal wedding
> >>>> Cheers for Kate at Abbey rehearsal
> >>>> Middletons arrive at London hotel
> >>>> 'Sick to death of royal wedding!'
> >>>> 'Royals are benefit scroungers'
> >>>>
> >>>> pmcmanus
> >>>> q822
> >>>>
> >>>> all the whimpering
> >>>> all the simpering
> >>>> it must be a
> >>>> royal wedding
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> >>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> >>> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> >>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> >>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> >>> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> >>> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
> >>>
> >>
> >> Douglas Barbour
> >> [log in to unmask]
> >>
> >> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >>
> >> Latest books:
> >> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> >> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> >> Wednesdays'
> >> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-
> > press_10.html
> >>
> >> Just a late night pilgrim
> >> Looking for redemption in the underground.
> >> Lord, won't you help a late night pilgrim
> >> When the morning comes around.
> >>
> >> Tift Merritt
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
> >
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-
press_10.html
>
> Just a late night pilgrim
> Looking for redemption in the underground.
> Lord, won't you help a late night pilgrim
> When the morning comes around.
>
> Tift Merritt
>
------------------------------------------------------------
This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
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