Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Monday 12 January 2009

Much Ado About Nothing

prince_harry_0221

Lieutenant Harry of Wales Wins Poll by Massive Margin:
"Leave Dude Alone" (An Officer and a Gentleman): 73%

"Racist Douchebag" (An Officer but not a Gentleman): 27%


POLL SAMPLE: More than 40,000
Note that the poll is written in the rough idiom of the times, so for our Gentlemen Scribes who do not understand today's vernacular, I took the liberty of translating it.

This non-story is nicely put to bed here, here and here.

4 comments:

Keir said...

Polls be damned. The weight of Newspaper op-ed pieces and hyperlinks drown out the view of the people.

Stauffenberg said...

"Don't even ignore it", my recommenadtion would have been. But reactions here and elsewhere show that people outside the grievance industry can put things into perspective.

When it comes to such terms, the tone and context matters - nickname culture is part of schools, the forces, many other walks of life - and media indignation about it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

I remember a fellow pupil of Kurdish extraction who was known to all and referreed to himself ironically as a "Mountain Turk" (a derogatory phrase used by generations of Turkish governments denying that any such ethnic group as Kurds ever existed and that Kurds were just watered-down Turkish hillbillies not capable of grasping where they belonged). When doing military service, a fellow soldier in my platoon was of Polish background with an impressive enough Slavic name and in no time was known as "Germany". No-one ever complained.

Keir said...

I don't excuse the term used, and I abhor the appalling judgement on the part of Prince Harry (how was he supposed to live down the Afrika Corps costume he chose to wear?!) but I'm glad the military is trying to track down the treasonous cretin who exposed what was never intended to be public. Maybe the context of the remark will show that the 'victim' had simply retorted "Bugger off, you ginger-haired ponce."

Anonymous said...

I'm rather amused by Harry's remarks. Fairly innocuous, but they send the Politically Correct crowd howling.

Nice to see him taking after his grandfather ("Do you people still throw spears at each other?").