The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

[rufuskins]

As no one else has posted on this subject and on the premis that this is not on any "iffy" list, let me be the first to offer congratulations to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee.

From a personal point of view I am very impressed with someone who can do the same job for 60 years, and if I can be as active when I'm 86 I will be very pleased. It is also of interest that I will never see another Diamond Jubilee in my lifetime.

I enjoyed the very British Thames event - British in terms of the weather - and it was nice to see the "Princess Elizabeth" was involved at the start.

I trust that any response to this thread will not descend into an argument on the pros and cons of a constitutional monarchy.

Alec

[jbilton]

Hi

Yes I've really enjoyed the long bank holiday .... worked Saturday, Sunday and working today.
I did get Monday off ..... but only because its my day off.
Having met the Queen very quickly once, while guarding at Windsor, she seems a nice person.
Although I am against the Monarchy as an institution.
60 years is amazing , especially as it looked after about 10 years she might have been 'out on her ear', saved I believe by
the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
My wife was looking up how much its all cost..... not bad on a grand scale .... but the 0.05% extra on the double dip recession
is worrying.
Although as I say, can't be my fault, as I've taken Mervyn Kings advice and worked it.

Cheers
Jon

[eyore]

snip

Hi
My wife was looking up how much its all cost..... not bad on a grand scale .... but the 0.05% extra on the double dip recession
is worrying.

Cheers
Jon

Looked at in your terms, no one would ever advertise anything.

Don't just look at the cost but also consider the return on investment. The Queen is estimated to generate £1/2bn p.a. in tourist revenue, a fair return on our money I think, and do you really think a President would cost us nothing?

[jbilton]

snip

Hi
My wife was looking up how much its all cost..... not bad on a grand scale .... but the 0.05% extra on the double dip recession
is worrying.

Cheers
Jon

Looked at in your terms, no one would ever advertise anything.

Don't just look at the cost but also consider the return on investment. The Queen is estimated to generate £1/2bn p.a. in tourist revenue, a fair return on our money I think, and do you really think a President would cost us nothing?

I don't think its got anything to do with advertising ?
I would guess that Paris is as popular a European destination as London.
Unfortunately as schools and hospitals close, we have to look at costs.

[eyore]

I don't think its got anything to do with advertising ?
I would guess that Paris is as popular a European destination as London.
Unfortunately as schools and hospitals close, we have to look at costs.

I didn't say that the Queen generated all tourist revenue (estimated at £9bn p.a. for London), but that a significant proportion was royalty related and was a reasonable return on investment. I say again, just looking at costs is not sound economics, where do you think the money comes from if we don't invest, it don't grow on trees?

Do you think the visitors to Paris were queuing to see Sarkosy, I don't think so?

[gswindale]

Well I guess she deserves recognition for doing a job that she may not have wanted for 60 years.

Whilst I do appreciate the extra day off, it has in fact cost me an extra day's holiday due to attending a Sunday wedding last weekend that had been arranged prior to the shifting of the bank holiday.

Surely we should have had the jubilee holiday celebrations back in Feb as that was when she got the gig?

[TheAmateurBasher]

Even in times of great financial uncertainty, I personally regard this as a great way of keeping up the nation's morale and giving us a reason to be cheerful.

Congratulations to HM The Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. Long to reign over us...

[jbilton]

Surely we should have had the jubilee holiday celebrations back in Feb as that was when she got the gig?

Hi

Yes I couldn't really understand the date set ..... 6 Feb 1952 or the 2 June 1953 .... either way its not the 3 June 2012.
Maybe its one of the Corgis birthdays.


Cheers
Jon

[yerkes]

Surely we should have had the jubilee holiday celebrations back in Feb as that was when she got the gig?

Yes I couldn't really understand the date set ..... 6 Feb 1952 or the 2 June 1953 .... either way its not the 3 June 2012.
Maybe its one of the Corgis birthdays.
Jon

That's puzzled me too. I suspect there may be a lot of miffed people in June 2013, wondering why the government isn't giving them another party

[oldrocker]

Surely we should have had the jubilee holiday celebrations back in Feb as that was when she got the gig?

Perhaps she doesn't want to celebrate her Daddy dying !

Enjoyed the fly past btw.

[jbilton]

Enjoyed the fly past btw.

Hi
Missed that .... was working ..... although there is a benefit delivering to 'Dogdyke' at 4pm














Amazing amount of spectators .... quite a loud cheer from them as 'she' came in.
I'm told the Lancaster has been having engine problems all week .... and the poor weather didn't help.... the 'Last' Spitfire was miss firing terribly.

Cheers
Jon

[lenfish]

I'm told the Lancaster has been having engine problems all week .... .... the 'Last' Spitfire was miss firing terribly.Jon

Sounds a bit like the Duke of Edinburgh, although he's a bit older! Hope he has a speedy recovery. Always liked him, totally politically incorrect!

Regards.

Len

[briyeo1950]

Well I have done my job for 45 years without any of the rewards that her Majesty has received for doing hers. So that aspect doesn't impress me a great deal even though my job could be seen as less important.

But as a patriot that enjoys all the history and pageantry, I will have to take the Royal family in the package.

I love the X Factor mentality of some, who think the can have King William instead of King Charles III, lets take it to a phone vote.

I noticed the Queen seemed to remark to Charles about the sound of all those Merlin’s and Griffon’s, I wonder what she said?
I enjoyed seeing Princess Elizabeth whistling like mad on the bridge over the Thames, what a great idea that was.

[CaptainBazza]

Wow, an airfield surrounded by tall towers!?

Thanks for the photos, very enjoyable.

Cheers Bazza

[lateagain]

Well like Jon I'm not a great Royalist.

I'm not a republican either and I therefore fall into a rather wooly "Well I suppose we need a national figurehead" category. Being interested in history the History of the "British" (I use the term loosely) Royal family has been to say the least chequered?! However MOST of the current bunch don't seem too bad and indeed as figureheads of charitable institutions they perform a vital role? Tourism is another benefit of course and they seem to be held in great affection by many who live in friendly nations who don't have a royal family.

As for costs? Well I know this won't get much support but I do feel we need to return to the eras before the political parties started slashing income tax to win votes. How so many of you were fooled by this slight of hand amazes me! You're still being taxed to the hilt ....but in more devisive and devious means. What's so great about income tax? It was based on what you earned. The more you earned the more you paid. By reducing income tax and collecting tax indirectly the rich get off lightly and the poor get clobbered more. How's this relevant? Well if folk paid "according to their means" we could raise tax by small margins and protect the services and jobs (and therefore create MORE employment in suport of those services) and address Jon's (he's not alone) concerns about why we're spending money on various one off "projects" whilst services and job losses continue to mount?

Having addressed the economics ....I have to say that I thought it was pretty good as a celebration. Shame the weather was such a washout (Our street party, first in 30 years, went ahead but was significantly spoilt by the increasing rain) and I thoroughly enjoyed the River Pageant and (I didn't expect to!) the Concert.

As they say "keep an open mind" ....and so if you said to me "GREAT Cliffs on tele" I might have said something uncharitable BUT ...BUT ...He was great? A real "trooper"? How can you fail to enjoy anyone who puts so much energy and enthusiam into their performance. In fact the only fly in ointnment was when Rolf was so rudely cut short! Stewards enquiry on that one!!!!

Coming to the X factor mentality about succession brings me to the Absolutely embarrasingly AWFUL coverage of the river pageant by the BBC. I for one am absolutely SICK to the teeth of "The cult of the Presenter" In this "personality/so called celebrity" obsessed media someone has decided that we plebs are incapable of watching ANYTHING, without some grinning idiot of a presenter being superimposed over (or even completely replacing) the actual event that we are trying to watch. Further more they seem to have decided that the river pageant, a huge achievment of organisation and effort by those participating, was TOO boring for the BBC. So we kept cutting away to any amount of irrelevance. To add injury to insult these asides nearly awlays involved asking the poor sap they'd picked to talk to a question of sucn inanity that the best repartee artist on the planet would have found it difficult to come back with anything interesting. Add to that the fact that obviously 90% of the presenters hadn't done their homework and.....

I ended up watching SKY NEWS which actually showed the pageant. They had commentary. They didn't feel it necessary to talk ALL of the time (as if we were listening to the radio) and they didn't have to be blocking the view to do that. Of course we still had to suffer the idiotic tickertape, a bad idea copied from US newschannels?, and there were occasional asides to a group of newsreaders but by and large they actually showed what was happening on the river. Job done?

Now! Who stole the Summer?

...and DON'T mention the olympics

Geoff