A Letter to Lachlan
from Tim
ON THE ROYAL WEDDING
The wedding has been slated for St Peters, Westminster so as to avoid the comparisons with Diana that might have arisen from St Paul’s. Yet the engagement ring is Diana’s. It has not even been re-cut. Other English Royals have done something similar. They have been given a stone by HM The Queen and had it put into a modern setting. It serves in a way to make the point that one is not the slightest bit rich.
The New Minster at Winchester might have been much better. The problem with the Abbey is that it is an abbey. The number that will get an actual view of the ceremony is quite small. There are 1,000 guests with invitations who are “friends of the bride & groom”. Maybe 950 of those will be asked how they enjoyed the event and will have to explain that yes they were there but they did just see them up and down the aisle but watched a TV replay later in the day.
Together the Old Minster & the New Minster at Winchester have had an association with the groom’s family for 1,400 years.
Over the past few years an endless stream of articles in print has made the point that Denmark is Europe’s oldest royal family.
That is not correct at all.
Holland as a monarchy strictly dates from 1815. Belgium dates from 1830 & Norway from 1905. There are only two European monarchies of real nations that go back with any real continuity before Napoleonic times.
Denmark’s King Knut seized the English throne for a time from 1016 to 1035. Well prior to that the House of Wessex had through gradual conquest become the supervening royal house of what we know today as England. Alfred the Great was styled King of Wessex & All England in his reign from 871 to 899.
William the Conqueror’s successors had royal sobriquets like William Rufus, Henry Beauclerk, Richard Coeur de Lion, John Lackland, & Edward Longshanks.
The idea of numbering Kings named William or Edward or Henry as I, II & III etc is an invention in Plantagenet times. The Wessex monarchs tended anyway to have similar but not identical names such as Aethelbert & Aethelred and Eadred & Eadwig.
Numbering Kings with the same name thus only mattered from 1066 on anyway.
It was also a way of saying that like 17 ½ Kings of France named Louis we have created a dynasty. We trust that we shall remain forever.
KRISTINA KIRCHNER KENEALLY
Just as the US Secretary of State can be styled in the prevalent manner as Hillary Rodham Clinton the current premier of New South Wales has the initials KKK thanks to having met a nice young Australian at World Youth Day in Poland.
Quite recently a member of her ministry was captured on TV leaving a gay sex on premises venue in Kensington in the premier’s electorate. Officially it is Ken’s of Kensington but when it started it was Ken’s Karate Klub. That is how they got a DA past the local council. To its customers it still remains KKK.
The founder of the venue in his recent biography states that once a teenage boy arrived at the venue in full karate kit having been dropped off by his mum !!!
Now Kristina is from the grand old state of Ohio that dominated the ranks of GOP presidents from 1865 until 1914.
Back in that part of the world there is or was another KKK was there not? It had its second resurgence thanks solely to the D W Griffiths 1915 movie/film Birth of a Nation.
So that is three dimensions of KKK for which we must give thanks ultimately to Kristina.
BRETT LEE’S THIRD COMING
Fast bowling puts great strain on a cricketer’s back. If doctors were consulted about a re-design of the rules rugby scrums would be abolished and cricket’s fast bowlers would be restricted in terms of how many deliveries they are allowed to deliver (whether in play or in the nets) over various periods such as a day or a week.
Brett has been deleted from the playing side through injury many times in his career but he was fit as a fiddle in 2010/11and it soon emerged that he was back for good this time in a big way and not for the first time.
He did an interview with one of the commentator’s at ground level after a particularly strong performance and he responded that it was the third coming of his career.
Had this been a regular open press call there would have then been many hands in the air ready to enquire as to which of his comings felt the best the first or the third or maybe to ask as to when exactly the second one occurred.
Thank you to my friend Tim for his contribution with this article.
