Every time they change the bank notes, I have to spend months explaining to customers that they can't use that one any more (but go to the bank....). Usually foreign tourists, but sometimes UK residents who have had that £20 tucked in the back of their wallet for ages "because no-one uses cash any more, do they?"
We changed to decimal currency a mere 53 years ago, which took out the opportunity to pay with pennies carrying a worn silhouette of George IV.
I was born after the changeover to decimal, but because the old shilling became 5p (and the 2 shilling coin was the same as a 10p), spent my childhood able to pay with coins showing a young Elizabeth II, and the last couple of Georges ( V and VI I think?), as well as a middle-aged Elizabeth II. In theory we might have used an Edward VIII one, but I doubt there were enough in circulation...
Did amuse me last year when the news outlets were busy reassuring people that it was fine to have coins circulating with different monarchs on!
I'm going to be controversial and CTH both the BBC and ITV 6pm news bulletins for devoting far too long to the news about the King - not because it wasn't newsworthy (even to a republican such as me), but because they had nothing to add to the official announcement so merely conjectured and repeated themselves, pushing other important stuff to the margins or off air.
I'm going to be controversial and CTH both the BBC and ITV 6pm news bulletins for devoting far too long to the news about the King - not because it wasn't newsworthy (even to a republican such as me), but because they had nothing to add to the official announcement so merely conjectured and repeated themselves, pushing other important stuff to the margins or off air.
Agreed.
All News has now been Cancelled or Postponed...
No doubt the King himself will want to keep his loyal subjects informed, but, until he does so, let him be left to come to terms with his illness. He will certainly want to spend time with his family.
Yep. I believe I caught the news on here and the one bulletin we heard yesterday can be summed up with the word "blether".
A great deal of air was taken up to say very, very little. I'm sure we all need to have chemotherapy explained as if we are six year-olds, for starters.
The problem as I see it (apart from the excessive deference which our media show to royalty) is that we have lost the distinction between News (= hard facts) and Current Affairs (= comment, analysis and discussion).
Yes. The whole gist of it was "it's a rotten luck" and "what do you think will happen" and "I don't know but it's rotten luck, isn't it", "yes it is, over to a new live interviewee, what do you think?" "oh, I think it's rotten luck too".
Once they got on to "Harry is flying over" I gave up and switched off. There's a whole other avenue with side turnings they can gallop down there and I have no interest in that at all. I want to know how the rest of the world is getting on.
I am glad that others find the obsession of the media with the royal family distasteful. As I said to my wife, I've never met Charles, I do not know any of his friends or family, and he has no idea what it is like to queue for hospital treatment or worry about household bills. In a word - DILLYGAF.
O fie! Fie for shame, all of you! You should be down on your bended Faces, with Tears streaming down your Knees, pleading with God Almighty to spare and heal His Anointed One, solemnly crowned as our Liege Lord and King. Surely you all swore the Loyal Oath on that momentous occasion?
(IRONY - but no doubt we all wish him a speedy recovery).
I was too fascinated by Penny Mordaunt doing the Arthurian bit with Excalibur.
It was quite an interesting coronation. The presentation of the Sword of State, Trousers of Truth and all the rest of it. Whereas the new King of Denmark just got told in his room, "Right, you're king, off you go, all yours" and that was that, no ceremony. Or so I understand.
His mother is the latest Yurpian monarch to abdicate, and I hear that the Swedes are pressing King Carl XVI Gustaf (who is 77) to do the same. I wonder if Charles might follow suit - not necessarily now, but at some future date?
Still, there is a precedent for appointing a Regent in the case of an incapacitated King...or maybe we should just have a president (see what I did there?).
Breaking News - unbate your breath, O Loyal Subjicks - Prince Harry has arrived!!
The Guardian (quoting the Daily Wail):
Prince Harry has landed in the UK to be with King Charles after the monarch’s cancer diagnosis, the Daily Mail reported.
He is understood to have touched down on a British Airways flight to Heathrow, with his wife, Meghan, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, reportedly having stayed at home in California.
No doubt there are to be hourly bulletins until such time as the King is better...meanwhile, we are still at war in the Middle East, because, actually, that hasn't been cancelled...
Still, there is a precedent for appointing a Regent in the case of an incapacitated King...or maybe we should just have a president (see what I did there?).
Every time someone says that I feel devoutly grateful that we didn't get President Johnson and First Lady Carrie.
Still, there is a precedent for appointing a Regent in the case of an incapacitated King...or maybe we should just have a president (see what I did there?).
Every time someone says that I feel devoutly grateful that we didn't get President Johnson and First Lady Carrie.
Fair point, though Buck House would look nice painted pink and green on the outside...
It's traditionally understood that British governments in distress and in need of distraction rely on small wars or Royal events. It is perhaps a measure of the utter cluster-bùrach that is the current government that both is barely sufficient.
... appointing a Regent in the case of an incapacitated King ...
Due to some sort of synaptic blip, I read that as decapitated King, and found myself thinking of our present King's unfortunate namesake ...
O dear. No, that connection (or perhaps disconnection) hadn't occurred to me...
At least The Illness Of King Charles™ is not the main item of Noos today, as he's been upstaged by the crassness of our beloved Prime Minister's jibe about trans people (at PMQs - when Brianna Ghey's mother was present!).
Just read a quite shocking account of a murder trial currently going on in Oxford. Apparently the murderer was quite keen on female serial killers. She warmed up with some horrific animal cruelty first (too awful to be shown in full to the jury) and filmed herself doing it. I can't comprehend the mindset of someone who could do that to a helpless animal. I felt absolutely sick for that poor cat.
And then she went out and is currently accused of having strangled and drowned a man she met and took to the University Parks.
I really hope the verdict is she should never be released.
If you've got to have a monarch you may as well at least put on a show about it.
I'm inclined to agree, and it is something we're rather good at! 😃
Hmm. Maybe, but all that quasi-religious/mystical stuff was a bit vomit-inducing IMHO...apart from Penny M and the Magic Sword, of course - that was just awesome...
My brother had some pungent remarks to make, but TIACW, so I won't repeat them.
I confess I watched it for the music, and because a former Head Chorister of David's was in the choir (and I've met the choirmaster a few times - nice bloke).
If I'd had to be involved, I would much rather be doing what the former Head Chorister did than what Ms Mordaunt did. I doubt very much if I'd agree with her politics, but her arm muscles must be, as you said, awesome.
I was napping during lunch, and my boss came and woke me up saying someone needed to be relieved at the desk. I assumed I had overslept, but no, I actually had four minutes left in my lunch before it was over. I relieved the person anyway, though in fact she wasn't waiting. I am annoyed. Four minutes may not sound like a lot to lose, but it's the principle. She had no right to do that when I hadn't done anything wrong.
Time to renew my short-term driving licence, because epilepsy, but it means filling in yet another batch of forms - 14 pages in all - giving exactly the same information as last time...
They said I could do it online this year, but after three attempts, and being told that I was *unable to use this service*, despite epilepsy being one of the conditions for which it can be used, I gave up, and laboriously filled in the paperwork.
Alas! Although the same questions are being asked, the format and layout are slightly different, so photo-copies aren't an option...
(I see that the postal town of the DVLA is now printed on the envelope as ABERTAWE, not SWANSEA - first time I've noticed them using the Welsh name!)
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
Not everyone is in favour.
Rhyfedd iawn, pobl sy'n byw mewn gwlad ond dydyn nhw ddim eisiau defnyddio ei enwau neu'i iaith.
(Translation as per Ship rules: very strange, people who live in a country but don't want to use its names or its language)
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
Not everyone is in favour.
Is that perhaps at least partly due to not knowing how to pronounce the names correctly?
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
Not everyone is in favour.
Is that perhaps at least partly due to not knowing how to pronounce the names correctly?
It's not that hard. Welsh is spelt phonetically. You can learn how names will be pronounced based on their spelling in a few minutes.
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
Not everyone is in favour.
Is that perhaps at least partly due to not knowing how to pronounce the names correctly?
It's not that hard. Welsh is spelt phonetically. You can learn how names will be pronounced based on their spelling in a few minutes.
We've become very hot on using Welsh names lately: Eryri rather than Snowdonia, Bannau Brycheiniog instead of Brecon Beacons, the Senedd rather than the Assembly ...
Not everyone is in favour.
Is that perhaps at least partly due to not knowing how to pronounce the names correctly?
It's not that hard. Welsh is spelt phonetically. You can learn how names will be pronounced based on their spelling in a few minutes.
O quite - but some people can't be bothered even to do that...it used to be the case that Englishmen in Furrin Parts often treated that country's language as an incomprehensible joke (some still do, I expect...).
Except for the pesky "y" which seems to vary in pronunciation according to where and how it's placed (and between northern and southern Welsh).
There are rules for its pronunciation. It's a schwa except in final syllables where it's the same as U. The N/S difference in it is more accent than anything; no-one will flinch in Bangor if you pronounced Dydd with a Southern Y.
Most people aren't going to bother spending a few minutes working it out when they're trying to get a train or taxi and can just say "Swansea" or "Cardiff" instead.
Most people aren't going to bother spending a few minutes working it out when they're trying to get a train or taxi and can just say "Swansea" or "Cardiff" instead.
Once you're familiar with it, saying Abertawe or Caerdydd is as simple as the English versions.
But this isn't quite about that. It's about people in Wales objecting to Welsh names of places in Wales being considered the primary names for those places.
I can't speak for Wales, but most people in Ireland have grown up with the anglicized versions of place names and of course it would be possible to regard yourself as living in Baile Atha Cliath or Corcaigh instead of Dublin or Cork, but it's so well entrenched that it would take a while to get used to it. And there is no real need to change, anyway.
I can't speak for Wales, but most people in Ireland have grown up with the anglicized versions of place names and of course it would be possible to regard yourself as living in Baile Atha Cliath or Corcaigh instead of Dublin or Cork, but it's so well entrenched that it would take a while to get used to it. And there is no real need to change, anyway.
I think anglicisation, where the name has been fudged a bit over time, is rather different from where unrelated or translated English names have been applied and displaced the original name. So here I don't have any qualms about using the Gaelic-derived English place names when speaking in English but I'm a bit more cautious about the likes of Fort William which is pretty much a symbol of the subjugation of the Highlands. Like most folk I'll call it "the fort" in English or An Gearasdan [the garrison] in Gaelic.
I think anglicisation, where the name has been fudged a bit over time, is rather different from where unrelated or translated English names have been applied and displaced the original name. So here I don't have any qualms about using the Gaelic-derived English place names when speaking in English but I'm a bit more cautious about the likes of Fort William which is pretty much a symbol of the subjugation of the Highlands. Like most folk I'll call it "the fort" in English or An Gearasdan [the garrison] in Gaelic.
There is that. There are of course also place names in Ireland that have no Irish equivalent.
Today I'm going to feature inconsiderate parkers. That's 5 going on 6 weeks we've had an elderly neighbour's son's large car parked over the boundary of their shared driveway, making it difficult (but not impossible) for neighbours B to access their garage, and for neighbours C on the other side at right angles, because the car sticks out. It also means that elderly neighbour A's visitors and carers are obliged to use other people's parking spaces, and that I often get mine blocked off. This has even led to a shouting match between neighbours and visitors, who didn't take it kindly and were wondering whether to pursue it. Son doesn't live locally and says he's unwell. "I'll definitely come up and move it soon."
And meanwhile we wait. I pop out as necessary and request people to move as necessary and store this up for when he finally arrives and I can tell him in person exactly how much hassle this has caused. I shouldn't have to park in the road because someone is using my space because they can't get into their own.
Parking is sometimes a problem here in Arkland, especially on days like today when we received far more water at high tide - about 15 minutes ago - than we should (thank you TPTB for not only closing the Thames Barrier, but also for opening sluices further upstream to let floodwater down into Our Bit). This results in level areas usually occupied by vehicles being flooded to a depth of a metre or more...
People quite naturally try to make sure that their vehicles are out of reach of the encroaching waters, and everything is OK today, from what I can see. The water is now on its way to Belgium...
At first glance, it appears that the Fingermobile (some 100 yards away from the Ark) is completely hemmed in by other cars and vans, but I know that this is not so, and that people have considerately left me room, should I wish to go out later (I don't, but the thought is appreciated. I have kind neighbours, and most everyone knows that I am a Pore Old Man, as fast and as agile as an Aged Snail 🐌).
Having once owned a house with a driveway which was constantly being blocked, I sympathise. Our neighbour was a police officer, so a word from him (if he happened to be around!) usually moved them on... 👮♂️
Comments
I was born after the changeover to decimal, but because the old shilling became 5p (and the 2 shilling coin was the same as a 10p), spent my childhood able to pay with coins showing a young Elizabeth II, and the last couple of Georges ( V and VI I think?), as well as a middle-aged Elizabeth II. In theory we might have used an Edward VIII one, but I doubt there were enough in circulation...
Did amuse me last year when the news outlets were busy reassuring people that it was fine to have coins circulating with different monarchs on!
Agreed.
All News has now been Cancelled or Postponed...
No doubt the King himself will want to keep his loyal subjects informed, but, until he does so, let him be left to come to terms with his illness. He will certainly want to spend time with his family.
A great deal of air was taken up to say very, very little. I'm sure we all need to have chemotherapy explained as if we are six year-olds, for starters.
Once they got on to "Harry is flying over" I gave up and switched off. There's a whole other avenue with side turnings they can gallop down there and I have no interest in that at all. I want to know how the rest of the world is getting on.
(IRONY - but no doubt we all wish him a speedy recovery).
It was quite an interesting coronation. The presentation of the Sword of State, Trousers of Truth and all the rest of it. Whereas the new King of Denmark just got told in his room, "Right, you're king, off you go, all yours" and that was that, no ceremony. Or so I understand.
Yes, Penny M stole the show...
There was somewhat less mediaeval flummery ceremony to swear in the new King of Denmark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKhVKZzkwiA
His mother is the latest Yurpian monarch to abdicate, and I hear that the Swedes are pressing King Carl XVI Gustaf (who is 77) to do the same. I wonder if Charles might follow suit - not necessarily now, but at some future date?
Still, there is a precedent for appointing a Regent in the case of an incapacitated King...or maybe we should just have a president (see what I did there?).
The Guardian (quoting the Daily Wail):
Prince Harry has landed in the UK to be with King Charles after the monarch’s cancer diagnosis, the Daily Mail reported.
He is understood to have touched down on a British Airways flight to Heathrow, with his wife, Meghan, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, reportedly having stayed at home in California.
No doubt there are to be hourly bulletins until such time as the King is better...meanwhile, we are still at war in the Middle East, because, actually, that hasn't been cancelled...
Every time someone says that I feel devoutly grateful that we didn't get President Johnson and First Lady Carrie.
Fair point, though Buck House would look nice painted pink and green on the outside...
O dear. No, that connection (or perhaps disconnection) hadn't occurred to me...
At least The Illness Of King Charles™ is not the main item of Noos today, as he's been upstaged by the crassness of our beloved Prime Minister's jibe about trans people (at PMQs - when Brianna Ghey's mother was present!).
However, that's probably for Another Place ...
bad piglet
And then she went out and is currently accused of having strangled and drowned a man she met and took to the University Parks.
I really hope the verdict is she should never be released.
Hmm. Maybe, but all that quasi-religious/mystical stuff was a bit vomit-inducing IMHO...apart from Penny M and the Magic Sword, of course - that was just awesome...
My brother had some pungent remarks to make, but TIACW, so I won't repeat them.
If I'd had to be involved, I would much rather be doing what the former Head Chorister did than what Ms Mordaunt did. I doubt very much if I'd agree with her politics, but her arm muscles must be, as you said, awesome.
Time to renew my short-term driving licence, because epilepsy, but it means filling in yet another batch of forms - 14 pages in all - giving exactly the same information as last time...
They said I could do it online this year, but after three attempts, and being told that I was *unable to use this service*, despite epilepsy being one of the conditions for which it can be used, I gave up, and laboriously filled in the paperwork.
Alas! Although the same questions are being asked, the format and layout are slightly different, so photo-copies aren't an option...
(I see that the postal town of the DVLA is now printed on the envelope as ABERTAWE, not SWANSEA - first time I've noticed them using the Welsh name!)
Not everyone is in favour.
Rhyfedd iawn, pobl sy'n byw mewn gwlad ond dydyn nhw ddim eisiau defnyddio ei enwau neu'i iaith.
(Translation as per Ship rules: very strange, people who live in a country but don't want to use its names or its language)
Yeah, but in the context of Wales it includes people who were born there.
Is that perhaps at least partly due to not knowing how to pronounce the names correctly?
It's not that hard. Welsh is spelt phonetically. You can learn how names will be pronounced based on their spelling in a few minutes.
Speaking as a sais neg, yep.
O quite - but some people can't be bothered even to do that...it used to be the case that Englishmen in Furrin Parts often treated that country's language as an incomprehensible joke (some still do, I expect...).
There are rules for its pronunciation. It's a schwa except in final syllables where it's the same as U. The N/S difference in it is more accent than anything; no-one will flinch in Bangor if you pronounced Dydd with a Southern Y.
Once you're familiar with it, saying Abertawe or Caerdydd is as simple as the English versions.
But this isn't quite about that. It's about people in Wales objecting to Welsh names of places in Wales being considered the primary names for those places.
I dah knoar ah dunneye?
I think anglicisation, where the name has been fudged a bit over time, is rather different from where unrelated or translated English names have been applied and displaced the original name. So here I don't have any qualms about using the Gaelic-derived English place names when speaking in English but I'm a bit more cautious about the likes of Fort William which is pretty much a symbol of the subjugation of the Highlands. Like most folk I'll call it "the fort" in English or An Gearasdan [the garrison] in Gaelic.
Its English name is "Nameless Cwm".
For the avoidance of doubt, that is not a translation of Cwm Cneifion, which means the valley of the fleeces.
The arrogance involved in ignoring the Welsh name and declaring it "nameless" is breathtaking.
There is that. There are of course also place names in Ireland that have no Irish equivalent.
Today I'm going to feature inconsiderate parkers. That's 5 going on 6 weeks we've had an elderly neighbour's son's large car parked over the boundary of their shared driveway, making it difficult (but not impossible) for neighbours B to access their garage, and for neighbours C on the other side at right angles, because the car sticks out. It also means that elderly neighbour A's visitors and carers are obliged to use other people's parking spaces, and that I often get mine blocked off. This has even led to a shouting match between neighbours and visitors, who didn't take it kindly and were wondering whether to pursue it. Son doesn't live locally and says he's unwell. "I'll definitely come up and move it soon."
And meanwhile we wait. I pop out as necessary and request people to move as necessary and store this up for when he finally arrives and I can tell him in person exactly how much hassle this has caused. I shouldn't have to park in the road because someone is using my space because they can't get into their own.
People quite naturally try to make sure that their vehicles are out of reach of the encroaching waters, and everything is OK today, from what I can see. The water is now on its way to Belgium...
At first glance, it appears that the Fingermobile (some 100 yards away from the Ark) is completely hemmed in by other cars and vans, but I know that this is not so, and that people have considerately left me room, should I wish to go out later (I don't, but the thought is appreciated. I have kind neighbours, and most everyone knows that I am a Pore Old Man, as fast and as agile as an Aged Snail 🐌).
Having once owned a house with a driveway which was constantly being blocked, I sympathise. Our neighbour was a police officer, so a word from him (if he happened to be around!) usually moved them on... 👮♂️