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The Queen dies, aged 96. The future of the monarchy

I felt quite sad last night watching some of the special programmes which were on tv. Here was a young girl born into the royal family (she didn’t ask to be) who said goodbye to her dad before flying away only to come back to never see him again and to be queen at such a young age.

Times were different then, and it was not like Harry now who could just walk away from duties. She undertook the role with grace and professionalism. She made the vow to serve the country until the day she dies - and she did exactly that.

It’s a free world yes, and people can say what they want, but I do find it sad that just for one day, people can’t look at this woman and realise it’s someone’s mother, grandmother and actually just shut up and keep their synde comments to themselves just for a day.

That isn’t aimed at anyone on here by the way but more at some at the comments I’m seeing on social media. The world at the moment seems to have lost respect and humanity and it’s sad that the woman who was brought up on these values has now also passed.

Going forwards….

I’m not a huge fan of Charles at all. I don’t think people will relate to him the way people related to the Queen.

It’s a shame the crown can’t skip him and go straight to William. I think people can associate with him much more, especially the younger generations.
 
It's sad, but I do question those who seemingly have seen her as their own nan for however long and acting like the world is ending because a 96 year old state figure has passed.

I didn't particularly like the newsreader who said that the cost of living crisis pales in insignificance to this for example. A lot of seemingly forced mourning (some of the Twitter posts from companies have been unintentionally funny, which I guess is something somewhat needed in sad times) is probably what is causing Matt N to feel bad about being somewhat apathetic to it.

Much like most famous people who die old, it's sad for the family, but they lived a full long life. I found the death of say, Chester Bennington far more sadder comparatively.
 
Being in a busy place (Butlins) when it was announced there were quite a few people visibly upset, a surprisingly large amount I thought. More so the elderly.

It's perfectly normal not to feel anything much when someone you don't know dies though. When you've seen as many dead bodies as I have you can't help but become a little numb to it, doesn't mean I don't care though.

You might have some underlying issues if you are actually pleased though!
 
The BBC have an article on Royal rebranding which explains some of the things that will change.

Currency - this will be a gradual process. Before decimalisation it was common to see multiple monarchs on your notes and coins, so as and when the Royal Mint produce them with King Charles III we can still expect to see Queen Elizabeth II currency for years to come. Something I didn't know is that the direction the monach faces changes each time. Elizabeth is facing right so when we get currency with Charles he'll be facing left instead.

It'll probably look something like this commemorative coin from his 70th birthday:
1662719313339.png

Stamps - Royal Mail will stop producing them with the Queen on now and start producing ones with the King. The existing stamps will remain valid.

Post Boxes - we don't tend to get many new postboxes, but new ones will carry the cypher CIIIR (Charles III Rex) instead of EIIR (Elizabeth II Regina).

Royal Warrants - products that are by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen will become void and have to be withdrawn within two years. Presumably they will be reissued by the King.

Passports - all passports will remain valid but new ones will be updated on the inside of the cover from "Her Majesty" to "His Majesty".

Police - the royal cypher in the helmets (EIIR) will need to be changed.

National Anthem
- after Charles is officially proclaimed King in a formal ceremony, a public announcement will be made from the balcony at St James's Palace, including the call: "God Save the King". The national anthem will then be played with those words sung for the first time since 1952.
 
I felt quite sad last night watching some of the special programmes which were on tv. Here was a young girl born into the royal family (she didn’t ask to be) who said goodbye to her dad before flying away only to come back to never see him again and to be queen at such a young age.

Times were different then, and it was not like Harry now who could just walk away from duties. She undertook the role with grace and professionalism. She made the vow to serve the country until the day she dies - and she did exactly that.

It’s a free world yes, and people can say what they want, but I do find it sad that just for one day, people can’t look at this woman and realise it’s someone’s mother, grandmother and actually just shut up and keep their synde comments to themselves just for a day.

That isn’t aimed at anyone on here by the way but more at some at the comments I’m seeing on social media. The world at the moment seems to have lost respect and humanity and it’s sad that the woman who was brought up on these values has now also passed.

Going forwards….

I’m not a huge fan of Charles at all. I don’t think people will relate to him the way people related to the Queen.

It’s a shame the crown can’t skip him and go straight to William. I think people can associate with him much more, especially the younger generations.
King Edward VIII had a choice, and walked away from the job, years before the Queen came to the throne.
I have had issue with constant rolling "news" coverage without alternatives.
Very large numbers of people want to get on with their lives, without constant rotating tributes and repeats of what we already know.
 
Let’s squeeze in some sensible thinking regarding this whole queen is dead..

"Have some respect" is not as ironically respectful as some think. I can do this and I think most people actually can too:

1) Know and gravely dislike the violent horrid colonial past the royal family have a legacy in, the bailing out of a pedophilic son, the proven interference in our democratic legislative process, the commonwealth (headed by the queen) having dozens of extremely repressive anti LGBTQ+ laws, including death, the involvement of church with State which should be seperate, the institutional racism, and so on.

AND

2) Acknowledge the consistency of the queen, her far more likeable nature than any of our other political masters, her humour and keen sense of duty for many years, and that the future king will not be the same.

AAAAND

3) Make jokes. Unelected monarchs may equate unquestioned blind respect back in the day but no, she and her family are not deserving of being beyond scrutiny and are not regular people: they are beyond our knowledge, in a role that is hugely unnatural and isn't your mate's Nan down the road “insignificantly” dying in fuel poverty that you're joking about. We don't know them as humans, they don't know us nor care. They're imposed on us. It isn't personal if we joke, even if some are just tacky, or something to berate. This is a unique situation.

Therefore:

“If you hate the royals.. / if you love the royals remove yourself from my timeline” is such an insipid unthinking gut reaction reflection of the era we are in where echo chambers and bubbles provide such warm hate and absolute intolerance at anyone and everyone not falling in-line and thinking exactly as you think. A bizarre social media totalitarianism that’s somehow acceptable behaviour. No nuance, no breaking binaries, no joy, no living with different everyday opinions. The internet has increasingly armed cavemen with Kalashnikovs and most are caught between cruel factions being dragged into their wings.
 
King Edward VIII had a choice, and walked away from the job, years before the Queen came to the throne.
I have had issue with constant rolling "news" coverage without alternatives.
Very large numbers of people want to get on with their lives, without constant rotating tributes and repeats of what we already know.
Get a Netflix sub or some DVDs in or something man. There'll be nowt else for the next couple of weeks.

Currency - this will be a gradual process. Before decimalisation it was common to see multiple monarchs on your notes and coins, so as and when the Royal Mint produce them with King Charles III we can still expect to see Queen Elizabeth II currency for years to come. Something I didn't know is that the direction the monach faces changes each time. Elizabeth is facing right so when we get currency with Charles he'll be facing left instead.
One of the reasons for moving to Polymer was so that the designs and the individual notes themselves can remain in circulation far longer wasn't it? I expect we'll be seeing the Queen's face on physical currency until physical currency is no longer a thing.
 
“If you hate the royals.. / if you love the royals remove yourself from my timeline” is such an insipid unthinking gut reaction reflection of the era we are in where echo chambers and bubbles provide such warm hate and absolute intolerance at anyone and everyone not falling in-line and thinking exactly as you think. A bizarre social media totalitarianism that’s somehow acceptable behaviour. No nuance, no breaking binaries, no joy, no living with different everyday opinions. The internet has increasingly armed cavemen with Kalashnikovs and most are caught between cruel factions being dragged into their wings.
I don't begrudge people feeling sad about the Queen's death, but the 'if you hate the royals' posts aren't respectful at all. They're taking someone's death and using it to whip up a culture war for purposes that are better known to themselves. When I die, I hope people grieve in a way that isn't passive aggressive.
 
As much as I am sad because of her death, I must admit I've struggled with the changes to my schedule. I've missed watching my favourite TV shows (I'm a big satirical comedy fan), I'll have to find something else to do tomorrow afternoon now the football is cancelled (this might be controversial but I think cancelling the football weekend was unnecessary). It's also nearly impossible to escape the news whatever you do.
 
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There are a load of Heritage Open Days starting this weekend so you may find something interesting in your area if you have a look on the website (https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/). Some of the places only open for this event so sometimes you can get into places that are rarely open to the public. I also follow the footy but instead today I will be going to Guys Cliffe House near Warwick and tomorrow Keele Hall in Staffordshire. The open days run for about a week and a half or something. Worth doing a search of your local region :)
 
Already done my checks mate...BPB are not on the list for Blackpool this year sadly.
Always good fun, done a couple of the Beach ones over the years.
 
I cannot say I am sad at the passing of the Queen. I am not happy at it either. Just no emotion I guess. Ironically I am in Cornwall at the time of the announcement and there are some notable anti monarch towns around here. To say celebrations are going on would be an understatement..

Now I am not that extreme, no where near. But I cannot respect an institution or whatever you call it that would openly "sympathise" with austerity on live TV, while sitting there with multi million pound pieces of jewelry on. I mean come on.

Then we have the whole Dianna issue, we do not know what happened for sure. But the circumstances surrounding her death certainly do not point away from the Royal family having an involvement. I would argue that Dianna did more, for real people like me and you than what the Queen has done in measurable benefits in a much longer period.

Nothing at the moment but over time Charles will be on the notes, Coins and stamps instead.

Charles, aka Charlie has already been on most of our notes. For a long long time has he not. If you catch my drift. BBC reported on that not long ago actually.

I love how the BBC are saying this regarding the ascension of Charles...

"In another break with tradition, King Charles III has decided that for the first time the Accession Council will be televised."

Almost trying to make the new King sound hip and what not, completely failing to mention that the reason why it was probably not televised in 1952 is because the vast majorty of people outside the very rich, did not have television sets.
 
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Almost trying to make the new King sound hip and what not, completely failing to mention that the reason why it was probably not televised in 1952 is because the vast majorty of people outside the very rich, did not have television sets.
The same was true in 1954, no?

There were also newsreels and things like that which would have allowed common subjects to witness the proceedings (albeit not live), going back to King George if not Edward.
 
Sunday 18th would make more sense from a disruption standpoint, but I bet they go for the Monday.
I'm praying it won't be the 19th, as I'm supposed to be at Drayton with my sister and her friend so our parents can go somewhere else for their wedding anniversary that day.
 
Monday 19th seems obvious. Won't be Sunday as the bank holiday would have to roll over to a substitute day anyway, which would likely be Monday.
 
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