Even amongst those Who Should Know Better,  the received wisdom is that The Queen Never Puts a Foot Wrong.

Maybe its Lizzie’s shoes. ( this article explains that some poor fat  peasant actually breaks in the queen’s shoes and  – I shit you not – ‘The Queen does not perspire’ )

Or maybe….just maybe…this is She’s OUR PERFECT QUEEN all  part of the utterly risible establishment guff ? Part of the way the forelock tuggers constantly & relentlessly usher away  an inconvenient pattern of royal contempt for ordinary folk.

Say what you like about royal reporters, Nicholas Witchell is a BLOODY GEM

Lets look at  oul’ Betty Windsor and her “faultless” Queening.

She Doesn’t Interfere In Politics : She’s completely neutral. In  a Lives In a huge mansion / surrounded by sycophants / loves hunting / staggering wealth given to her for nothing / embodies rigid hierarchy and sentimentalises class  inequality- kind of way. “Our”  neutral national figurehead is a green welly-ed range rover driving hunting shooting fishing type married to a xenophobic bully and daughter of ‘Alf Garnet in a Tiara‘ who is paraded about in diamonds and a golden carriage.

OK you can argue that’s just cultural politics. One doesn’t actually interfere in the political process does One ?  I mean….apart from the BBC’s revelation (followed by snivelling  apologetic retraction) about her lobbying the Home Secretary to arrest Abu Hanza ? And apart from the Scottish referendum ? And the sacking of the Australian prime minister ?

These are just the instances we know about. What does she moan about to bowing & curtsying  Prime Ministers in her weekly audience ?  ( think about that for a minute) Do you think that you’d make small talk about the corgis ? Lets face it. She can, and has, and will interfere in politics in ways we’ll never know about.

She’s Brilliant at Being Queen: Well, compared to  who? If your job is to wave and smile

Never puts a foot – or arm -wrong.

for 40 minutes twice a week…she seems a bit….sulky looking to me.  Cold. Distant. Stiff. I don’t need my Head of State to be weeping and embracing like an X Factor Finalist, but it’s kind of weird that the only display of genuine emotion was when her taxpayer funded yacht was taken away.

All Elizabeth Windsor really has to do is not offend people for 40 minutes during her dull visits. During one of the many BBC tug-your-forelock-fests, the queen’s ‘legendary’  ( © all papers all the time, no evidence ) sense of humour was recalled as she referred to ambassador’s from another country as ‘a gorilla’ ( no racism there then ).  Clap. Clap. Clap. And lets face it, those sulky dull Christmas Messages are hardly a masterclass in charismatic communication.

Even on a practical side, she’s terrible at being Managing the Monarchy – that’s why you, and I, and everyone else is about to cough up  £369m to repair the palaces that she has let fall into neglect ( the Sovereign Grant is supposed to pay towards maintenance of palaces, not £8m helicopters for your idle grandchildren ).

She even had the cheek to try to take money from funds meant for the poor.

I have no problems with Elizabeth Windsor being elected queen, if that’s what the people want. But please don’t get your union jack knickers in a twist telling me she’s a brilliant queen. You’ve no idea if she’s a brilliant queen.

Davina might be better at waving, smiling and breeding than Regina. But we have no choice. Nothing to compare Mrs Windsor to.

So there you go.

Her Christmas Message will always be the same.

The message is always…. posh people are in control.  From the palaces you pay for, they’ll tell you that the army are great and that they’ve had a tough year.

This is tradition plebs,so don’t question it.

Merry Christmas !

Little Maam

“She’s lovely” & “she seems really normal” are the two absurd responses from Forelock Tuggers Who’ve Met the Queen.

Of course, if the BBC stuck a mic under some plebs nose  and they scratched their head and announced “She seemed a bit cold and aloof and I didn’t enjoy feeling like a little person” then they’ll never make the daily 6 o’clock fawnfest. That’s the way vox-pops work – it’s about confirming a red courduroy establishment view and the less you know the about the subject the more weight is given to your response. It’s fundamentally patronising to viewer and person being interviewed (ergo it’s perfect for Royal Coverage)

Anyway, there it is.  A sacred totem of royal coverage.

The Queen, is lovely.

There’ll be the occasional critic of Charles, and even William these days, but the Queen is UNCRITICISABLE.

*clears throat*

Firstly, lets have some sympathy for ol’ Elizabeth. As Johann Hari wisely argues, Monarchy Damages Everyone the Windsor Family. She was walled up in a palace from the

don’t buy The Sun. Written by the posh, to fool the thick, into hating the poor.

moment she was born.  Her uncle – the man who would be King – taught her how to salute the admired Mr Hitler whilst her father was reduced to stammering wreck  when he had to become King ( The Kings Speech is a well made film, but it is fiction ).

Being in the monarchy meant that Lizzy had no pals, didn’t go to school, and was not allowed to behave like a normal kid. She hung out with horses and corgis.  She was inspecting  military regiments by the time she was 16 (  I was slow dancing to Frankie Goes to Hollywood Power of Love with Sally McChristie in my Wranglers when I was 16 . And that was nerve wracking ).

But maybe that’s enough sympathy. This bizarre life warped her.

The Monarchy can’t have it both ways – you criticise the institution and people say “stop it… the queen is lovely’. You criticise the individual members of the Windsor clan and apologists say “it’s not fair to attack them”.

So lets look at some of the queen’s history for evidence of loveliness…

Consider this: When Charles was just 5 years old, the queen went on a royal tour for…6 MONTHS. Then, when she returned, she spent 4 days dealing with paperwork and then a day at the races before she saw poor oul’ Chuck – and then….SHE SHOOK HIS HAND. No wonder Charles is a dithering shuffling basket case.

For more evidence of prince charles’s ‘mummy’  see this Johann Hari article from Independent points out –

“Anthony Jay, who scripted the documentary Elizabeth R, explains: “She’s one of those people who is deeply unemotional. For people who are emotionally detached in that way, institutions become more important than families. The Queen’s children were handed over to nannies, and a kind of emotional cauterisation took place. Something was sealed off very early. For her, that is a strength. If she were emotionally involved, she couldn’t do her job.”

*weeps*

Despite the cinematic revisionist history, the queen didn’t appear to be upset by the death of Diana, and in fact rigidly stuck to cold protocol until the Blairite government poked her ( Camilla like ) with it’s touchy feely  stick and told her to get her royal arse emoting. Dead daughter-in-law ?  Cold non reaction ( until told ). For royal yacht britannia – public weeping.

The press often celebrate her casual unpleasantness – with that wry-end-of-the-bulletin-newsreader-smirk…

For example, Royal protection officers  who’s  job description  -lets not forget –  is to throw their body onto a grenade if anyone were to attack the queen, made her “furious” by…er… nibbling some of the taxpayer funded nuts left out in bowls in Buckingham palace.

Then there are news stories such as this – the queen being so impatient she couldn’t wait for some toddlers to move aside for her jaguar – had  this been about any other aristocrat or celebrity, the tabloids would be lining up experts from the AA to condemn her driving. Instead the Mirror still managed to spin it as Brilliant Royals.

Then there’s the fact that she makes her family curtsy, bow and grovel to her and each other, as she strictly enforces etiquette and protocol. Most people give their granny a hug or at least make a nice cup of tea. The queen makes her family bow to her.

And just..generally. She never looks happy, she looks grumpy, bored, disinterested in the life of gilded privilege and opportunity she was born into. At least an elected head of state would be there of their own volition.

So anyway, every time someone opines The Queen Is Lovely. Stand up and shout  NO SHES HORRIBLE and slam the door as you leave the room. This will help the Republican cause enormously.

FINAL SCORE

Seemed Like A Lovely Old Woman 0

Seems Like a Damaged Old Snob 5

[ whiney voice: every day, almost every paper publishes some sycophantic drivel about the Windsor family. Please tweet & facebook this article as a pathetic act of republican defiance]

Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1899

You can’t hate a baby.

It’s just not fair. But what happens between a wee Windsor girl born …..and them growing into an arrogant Prince Andrew-esque monster that strides the globe offending every poor soul he encounters ?

Well, from the moment the kid emerges from the Magic Head Of State Producing Vagina…. the poor wee mite’s fate is sealed. Welcome to the Non Stop Golden Snobby Feudal Freakshow !

Immediately, the media tells us how brilliant this baby is. They tell us to bow down and be grateful. They tell us this baby is VERY IMPORTANT, and there’s rolling coverage despite the fact that 61% of people polled have said they are Not Interested.  Mostly, it’s only loonies and feebles who are excited. When a frothing Kay Burley asked people outside the hospital for a reaction ( when George was born), one of them suggested he’d heard it was ‘a black boy’ ( ha ! Even The Magic Head Of State Producing Vagina’s not THAT magic ).

What’s overtly implied, is that royal babies are more important than Your Baby. Am I overstating it ? Maybe a bit – obviously the press and PR push the Awww….We Love The New Baby angle –  but stop blubbing into your Nicholas Witchell Memorial Royal Hankie and examine the  “logic” of monarchy.

No matter how hard your kids work, no matter how smart and clever they are, no matter how much talent and charm they have, your kids will never be as important as this girl.  Your kids will not be considered to be head of state. Because  our head of state  is based solely on the rather obnoxious idea of Bloodlines. The pathetic idea is that the Windsor family are intrinsically superior. The queen – a keen snob-  has even decreed Kate she must curtsy to other princesses when blando Will isn’t about.

No wonder Republic had the admirable Born Equal campaign. I mean, come on…over the decades  the horse munching, repeatedly racist, snobby, nazi loving, tampon impersonating, tiger shooting Windsor clan have been consistently dysfunctional.

Once you accept the argument that they’re clearly not anything special, then the whole dumb facade that we should grovel to these florid cheeked lazy yahs falls apart.

So if this new baby is brought up in the Windsor tradition, it’ll be fawned over, given it’s every need, have nannies, servants, have its primary school teachers bowing down, be followed by bodyguards at every step, be pursued by bovine monarchists, become a target for terrorists, have his first girlfriend / boyfriend  speculated about, be supplied with copies of Razzle by the butler, be denied a private life ( and if you’re going to insist on a bloodline monarchy then you can’t complain when people take an interest in who you’re firing into…). The thing is monarchy fucks you up. It’s not the kids fault. As I’ve argued before, the best bit of parenting that William Windsor and Kate Thingy could do is to move to a remote ranch in California and let the wee ones grow up ‘normal’.

Cue a posh dinner table in the Napa Valley in 2030… A 15 year old skategirl …looks at her baldy fat father… “So like…ummm….when we were royal the public just like…ummm…thought we were better than them…? That must So suck….”

It’s not the sprog’s fault. Yet.

In a fevered world of drowning polar bears and fat zillionaires crushing the fragile skulls of tear stained orphans – why EVEN bother to get steamed up about the antics of a dullard family called The Windsors ?

Is contemptuous indifference not the best reaction ?

Alas, ignoring them is not an option…

Because no matter how dull, how irrelevant, how bland the activity, how lame the joke, how risible the premise – their activities are plastered approvingly across our newspapers and trumpeted through our TV screens  – there’s no escape – and perhaps more disconcertingly, the coverage implies that Everything These Rich Clowns Do Is Important And Ordinary People Should Pay Attention To.

So turn the page ? Switch over.

Nope. Get annoyed. The relentlessly sycophantic coverage is an affront – it presumes we are all either bovine  peasants who’ve staggered out of the Haywain and like to stare slack jawed awe at Pretty Princesses, or worse that we are Hyacinth Buckets who who embrace the entire hierarchical, feudal notion of modern class structure and our place in it ( looking upwards,  paying our taxes to the 1%, not asking questions ).

The wretched  corn beef faced royals can’t be avoided – they need publicity to maintain the feudal freakshow. And as long as people don’t complain, the BBC, The Mail, the entire foreign press categorize everyone in the UK as sycophantic Windsor bum crawler.

Social media offers a chance to challenge those perceptions, to provoke, to ridicule.

So be visible. Offend your sister Who-Quite-Likes-Kate. Argue. Tweet. Roll your eyes in the office.  Say you think the queen looks like a sour faced ol’ trout.

And in this blog, Revolting Subjects will argue as to why the royal family are symptomatic – in fact, emblematic –  of some of the bigger problems in the world.

For the queen, dukes, princes and princess, The Bed is the unrelenting fawning soft coverage that the supine media churns out on a daily basis.

This blog, aims to be the pea. But it may take me a while, as I have a real day job that I didn’t inherit.