bikebouy – Member
Once God had been proven to be a myth

Don’t get me started.

Out of those top ten world tourist destinations 294 million visitors went to countries with no royal family.

It’s the former colonials that are attracted by the royals – their former royals. Nobody could care less about those foreign royal families.

Bunch of inbred germans and greeks anyway. Apart from Wills who has no royal blood at all

TandemJeremy – Member
Bunch of inbred germans and greeks anyway.

Somebody will accuse you of racism in a minute, probably TJ.

Oh! 🙄

It’s a comparison I’m comfortable with to be honest.

At the moment – I’m reassured by the fact that these select band of benefit scroungers are forced to work for their money!

On any particular day I can go and find out what the queen is doing for her benefit money, and where – visiting a sports centre or charity, meeting foreign dignitaries, opening parliament, wearing a big hat, stuff like that – all recorded, all published, she’s expected to be doing something for her money.

I look forward to the day when the rest of the benefit scrounging community are as answerable to the general taxpayer for their day to day activity – you want benefits, fine, then you have to turn up and do something useful for the community every day like the queen does – maybe picking up some litter or scrubbing off some graffiti, rather than sitting on your arse watching Trisha in your pyjama’s and expecting to get free money for doing **** all 🙂

Nowt racist about that – its a fact they are inbred and the Queens side of the Family is Saxe Coburg Gotha while Prince Phillip is a mix of danish and greek.

The fact that you seemed very dismissive based on ethnicity could be construed as racist though.

TJ’s also being capitalist. It should be Greek, German etc as well….

Typical for a faux-scot, though. 😉

Flashy – I am an anti capitalist – you should know that

Small point made on the radio this morning:

An estimated ONE BILLION people worldwide will tune in to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday.

A chance to show of Britain at its best (or our “Beijing moment” as the bloke put it).

Surely even the most ardent Republican must admit that:

A) that’s a lot of good, positive exposure on the world stage for a little island like Britain.

B) if instead it was the wedding of President Cameron’s daughter – no one would give a chuff.

tandemjeremy – member
flashy – I am an anti capitalist – you should know that

ftfy 🙂

most ardent Republican must admit that:

A) that’s a lot of good, positive exposure on the world stage for a little island like Britain.
Rather have the world cup to be honest and that figure seems like BS to me. That said I dont think you can argue they NEVER do any good or never do anything Bad. The issue is just whether you want them or not

B) if instead it was the wedding of President Cameron’s daughter – no one would give a chuff.

Easy there last vote i saw for a president to replace the Queen Princess Anne won and Richard Branson was second did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Rather have the world cup to be honest

Yeah good luck with that. At least we can rely on a steady supply of royals to get married 🙂

Cod knows, these fish-related puns are terrible. Giving me a bad haddock, it is. Is there an op-perch-tuna-ty to stop?

PEDANT: Porpoises, dolphins and cetaceans are mammalian, not piscine.

What about cephlapods? No to discrimination against cephlapods

An estimated ONE BILLION people worldwide will tune in to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday.

Any figures for how many people watch the Premier League each year? Perhaps we should have Scudamore as head of state instead by that logic!

Any figures for how many people watch the Premier League each year? Perhaps we should have Scudamore as head of state instead by that logic!

Erm… I’m not sure that Premier League footballers exactly paint a positive image of Britain… and I suspect the target audiences are slightly different too!

Bunch of inbred germans and greeks anyway. Apart from Wills who has no royal blood at all

How so? It’s Harry that looks suspiciously like Major James Hewitt…

Erm… I’m not sure that Premier League footballers exactly paint a positive image of Britain

Oh right, so Prince Phillip, Harry, Charles, Andrew, Diana, The ginger bird et all do?

Hmm, I could plumb the depths with a gag about keeping it reel? Nah, that’d never float!

surazal you are right – my mistake – I meant Harry 😳

Off for weekend type stuff so Turrah… may all your rides be satisfying 😀

He just didn’t fancy the Catholic Church’s rules so created a Church of England instead…

…I think.

(I may have needed to wiki or google that one )

Thing is, Old Henry was a Catholic til the day he died, he approved of pretty much ALL of Catholic Dogma, just didn’t like the bit about Papal Authority over the Crown.

Henry didn’t creat the Church OF England, he made himself head of the Church IN England – big difference at the time. In fact, his title of Defender of the Faith was a Papal award for his impassioned defence of the Church and his demolishing of Lutheran thought, hardly the act of a man determined to remake Gods Church on Earth….
😛

Henry didn’t creat the Church OF England, he made himself head of the Church IN England – big difference at the time. In fact, his title of Defender of the Faith was a Papal award for his impassioned defence of the Church and his demolishing of Lutheran thought, hardly the act of a man determined to remake Gods Church on Earth….

But without him we’d be torturing donkeys and lobbing goats off churches.

But without him we’d be torturing donkeys and lobbing goats off churches.

Well no, ‘cos the 1701 Act of Settlement cut Catholics out of the inheritance loop and effectively ensured that any future Monarchs would be A) Protestant misery guts & B) descendents of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a descendent of James VI & I – a nice Protestant boy for all of his little foibles about effete young men! (See, not just the Catholics with a thing for young boys…)

Thanks to the antics of the Stuarts* and their complete inability to either understand which way the wind was blowing and/or empathise with their subjects we were lumbered with a bunch of humourless German sourpusses….

*TJ, you related to them at all? 😛

it costs the taxpayer something like 35 million a year to keep the queen….
35 million of the taxpayers money….
regardless of what the royal family generate tourist wise, why on earth should WE everyday working people fund that?!?!?!?!?

We don’t, you halfwit. The ‘taxpayer’ has never ‘funded’ the monarchy, since Charles II, (I think it was, a Charles anyway). He was a profligate fool, who after going bankrupt, agreed to the Exchequer taking all of the proceeds from Royal holdings, received a fixed amount every year to run the entire royal household. Up until very recently, the Exchequer received around £35million/year from all of the royal holdings, and paid back somewhere around £2.5-3.5million, a pretty good exchange for the taxpayer, I would have thought. Now though, in return for scrapping the civil list the royals keep all the proceeds, but pay tax like everyone else. And before the hard of thinking come back with the ‘take their property away and give it to the people’, most of the large single properties, like Buck House, are held in trust for the nation by the Queen, and other properties are largely tied to estates which have large numbers of tenant farmers, or other businesses.. Council owned estates are already talking about kicking farmers off of farms to ‘save money’, like Somerset, so what would happen to all of these properties? They’d go to the ultra rich, the Arab oil billionaires and Russian oligarches, who’d make pretty damn sure any moneys made from said estates would quickly go out of the country. Presidencies cost countries vast amounts of money, and do any of you really want a Blair as President? How about Sarckozy, or Berluscony, or Bush, or Nixon?
Anyway, I’ve had a hot, busy day, I’m off to have a shower and chill with some good music, rather than argue with illiterate muppets like oscillating head or whatever his name is.

I’m not a royalist.. in fact if they strung ’em up from lamp posts outside my house.. as long as the music was good I would party in the street with the next man all year..

but even I can see the economic benefits..

I like them. The ones I’ve met anyway. Nice people who work hard and seem to care about people – which are good things.

A chance to show of Britain at its best (or our “Beijing moment” as the bloke put it).

but to me it shows off the worst side of Britain

you have never seen the X factor have you

Bored now. I think it’s time for…..

…BHANGRA DANCING PUPPET!!!! 😀

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHIDcvDLjdQ[/video]

Quite frankly.

What, that two people who love each other can choose to get married, and that a huge portion of the public can celebrate that fact, and the entire state machinery of pomp and circumstance can be thrown behind two young lovers act of commitment to each other.

You really think that’s the worst side of Britain?

Not the crime, child abuse, drugs, rape, abuse, racism, fear hatred and anger that spills across our streets on an all too often basis, the problems of society that all the will in the world seems unable to tackle – in comparison with all that really dark, horrible bad shit that goes on, you really think that two people choosing to commit to a loving relationship in a public arena is the worst side of Britain?

you need to get a sense of perspective A_A! 😯

You really think that’s the worst side of Britain?

Yes.

If they had a giant Scalextric track everyone could have a go on, now that I would support…

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Who is more likely to sell of the nations forests, the government or the royals. As mountain bikers and lovers of the countryside I think the royals are much more likely to want to save the forests than the government. I reckon they are on our side and its good to have someone at least try to keep the government in check. If you ask me they should speak their minds more, like Charlie, fair doos for having a view and how long has he been banging on about the environment? Might have a point….

Not the crime, child abuse, drugs, rape, abuse, racism, fear hatred and anger that spills across our streets on an all too often basis, the problems of society that all the will in the world seems unable to tackle – in comparison with all that really dark, horrible bad shit that goes on, you really think that two people choosing to commit to a loving relationship in a public arena is the worst side of Britain?

no I think people being born to priviledge is the worst side of Britian and we will never solve the problems of society when our country is still based upon a system where simply your name and family history confer on you poverty or untold wealth.

Germans? Where did your ancestors live in the mid 1700s? I’ve no idea about mine.

The Queen’s powers are largely formalities; she has a great many powers on the condition that she never uses them. But she does act as an ultimate constitutional safeguard against dictatorship, preserving democracy? She could ultimately prevent a British Hitler or Stalin. I think our system is a nice compromise between democracy representing the will of the people, but with its inherent short termism, populism and lack of rigour tempered by the Lords or, in the worst case, the Monarchy.

And they let me go riding in Swinley Forest for just £2!

And as to resentment about being born to wealth and privelege, that applies to the children of anyone rich. I prefer the royals to Paris Hilton. At least they work for the country.

a system where simply your name and family history confer on you poverty or untold wealth.

You think it is different in any other country in the world?

airtragic – Member

But she does act as an ultimate constitutional safeguard against dictatorship, preserving democracy? She could ultimately prevent a British Hitler or Stalin.

Not possible at all. Hitler was democratically elected, stalin after a republican revolt where the royals were killed.

so in neither case would she have any say .

Hitler wasn’t elected on an overt “Let’s kill lots of Jews mandate” though, was he? And the fact he was elected surely underlines my point about a constitutional monarchy acting as a brake on the worst excesses of democracy. Both they had to get rid of their respective monarchies to crack on with the atrocities that followed. It’s not that hard to envisage the British monarchy curbing the actions of a democratically elected far-right government. It’s the ultimate safeguard.

If they were democratically elected then there would be absolutely no way the royals could or would get involved