Queen Elizabeth looks rather grim, and she is not wearing black.
From the News Blog at the Guardian - random quotes:
So far we haven't seen much of the pope's celebrated private secretary Georg Gänswein otherwise known as Gorgeous Georg. But a picture has emerged of Georg helping the pope with unruly cassock blowing in the wind.
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So after the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, got mistaken for the head of the Church of Scotland at the Edinburgh welcoming party, where was the man in question the Rt Rev Christie?
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Site crew at the location for the Pope's visit in Birmingham are spraying the grass a brighter shade of green. This is at the taxpayers' expense.
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There's no red carpet (it's too windy) but there are two rows of pipers dressed in kilts and lots of grinning clergy. The 83-year-old pope walks carefully down the airline steps and is greeted by the 89-year-old Duke. The pope's white cape briefly blows into his face. The pope didn't kiss the tarmac.
The quotes go backward in time sequence, with the earliest quotes last.
And Dave Brown in The Independent.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the clergy are grinning at the kilted pipers in a high wind?
ReplyDeleteVery English of Dave Brown.
ReplyDeleteAnd the kilts in the high wind! You're in good form, Lapin.
The Independent called them "Gorgeous George and Vat Pack". Ha!
ReplyDeleteamyj
My WV is truci...is that Italian?
They could exchange outfits and no one would even notice.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the Queen wear black? As far as she is concerned, she is Benny's equal. He's head of a church and so is she. He's a head of state and so is she.
ReplyDeleteShe does not look particularly happy to see him. Didn't she give Dubya a similar look?
Folks will make sport of the high and mighty to take them down a peg or two.
ReplyDeleteThe queen was thoroughly sick of Bush before he ever arrived. He wanted a bunker-like structure for himself erected inside Buckingham Palace - or something like that - and she refused. Then Bush injured a palace policeman by running into him on his bicycle.
The queen's hat stays in place, even in a high wind. The pope should take lessons.
The Queen of England is a much better Queen than Benedict, though certainly less flamboyant!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Wade. She also looks a lot closer to bawling "Off with your head!" than he does.
ReplyDeleteShe's a proper queen, all right.
ReplyDeletegood for her for not wearing black. that is a nasty little custom that American Presidents continue to follow.
ReplyDeleteIf the Queen can't tell the pope what to wear, then why should the pope have the right to tell the Queen what to wear?
ReplyDeleteGrandmère Mimi, I'll admit Benedict is also a proper Queen, right proper. But not as dignified...
ReplyDeleteMore a message to FiF-UK & Rowan than to the bishop of Rome, I suspect.
ReplyDeleteIt's good, though not surprising, to see that Her Majesty took the same position someone did a couple of days ago: She's the bloody Queen, she can wear what she wants.
ReplyDeleteAs I keep forgetting to tell my English (and Canadian) friends: with all our faults, we love your Queen. (Your House of Peers, however: the Major General and his police contingent can have them.)
BTW I was in London just before Bush's first big visit. Grosvenor Square, a handsome place with an impressive embassy on one end, was largely converted to a big bunker, with street corners patrolled by uniformed people carrying compact but unpleasant-looking weapons. Unlike the priesthood, they were of both genders.
The west end of the square is still a bunker. The wrong neighbors can sure depress your property values, and surely the Londoners will be glad to see them move to their planned new bunker, more handsomely fortified, on the river some miles east.
We won't see the likes of Queen Elizabeth II on the British throne again.
ReplyDeleteWhen The Queen visits The Pope in the Vatican, Her Majesty wears black; in her own country, when The Pope comes to visit, she doesn't. The Queen is looking solemn (not stern) because this is the exact moment the British National Anthem started at the official welcome at Holyrood, which is why The Pope is reaching up to remove his zuchetto (hat) - nothing to do with the wind of this occasion!
ReplyDelete