ARCHITECTURAL PRINCE

The Prince of Wales, as you no doubt know, has strong feelings about urban design and planning.  He has therefore begun to build an experimental town, called Poundbury, on the edge of Dorchester, on land that he owns, according to the traditional principles of urban planning that he supports.  I have always had a slightly sceptical attitude towards the project, partly because it doesn't seem to have reduced urban motorcar use (which was one of its design aims) and partly because this is what you can see form the road as you pass it by -

it looks like something my grandson or Enid Blyton might have designed.

But we decided to visit it last week to see for ourselves.  I can't comment of what it's like living there - it's supposed to be designed with ease of travel and access to essential services in mind - but it certainly made an impression.  It's still a little like a cross between a Farrow and Ball colour chart, an estate agents catalogue and a Fairfield Porter painting, but I must say I thought the environment rather pleasant.  I can see why car use has not been less than elsewhere - the distances are probably more than most people wish to walk in their own towns these days, but walking around was a fairly pleasing experience and it is certainly more open than most new towns.  The visible construction did seem to be to the high standard it was puffed up to be too.  If it's true that there won't be disturbance from road works every few days either, I could see the model being a successful one.  Never the less, it is often land prices that prevent investment on this scale and I'm not sure whether spacious towns like this develop any sort of community.

Just a few glimpses, but how does it look to you?

NOT A HAPPY LOT

 

You no doubt heard the fascinating news that the body of King Richard III has been found under a car park.   Richard was King of England for two just years until he died in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.  Because of his defeat at the hands of Henry Tudor, the subsequent King Henry VII, he was not given a proper burial, but was thrown into an unmarked grave in Greyfriars Church, conveniently demolished by Henry VIII with the dissolution of the monasteries, and thus lost for 500 years.

Through a remarkable piece of detective work, the site of Greyfriars was located under a Leicester Council car park and excavation was begun last year.  The plan was to dig three trenches across the car park and thus locate a wall of the church from which proper excavation could be undertaken.  By extraordinary luck (or skill) the first trench uncovered some bones.  By the time the rest of the work was completed, the archaeologists came back to the bones and began to realise that they had in fact found King Richard III on the first day of the dig.

Richard's body had a number of clear characteristics, not apparent in any of the remaining pictures of him.  Pictures of monarchs were of course notoriously flattering.  He was described by contemporaries as 'little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed' and 'deformed of body ... one shoulder higher than the right'.  The skeleton displayed these sorts of deformities.  And DNA tests eventually proved beyond doubt that the skeleton was indeed his.

Whilst the physical descriptions of Richard do appear to have been accurate, what followed his death. however, was a textbook example of spin.  As well as deformed, Richard was described as 'hard-favoured of visage, devious and flattering', while planning the downfall of both his enemies and supposed friends.  This was of course Tudor propaganda.  A publication at the time, describes him as both 'a man ill-shaped, crooked-backed, lame-armed' and as 'tyrannous in authority.'  He is portrayed as a man motivated by personal ambition, who uses everyone around him to get his way.  The unconfirmed stories of him marrying for gain, taking lands and murdering the owner, and having the young Princes murdered in the Tower of London so that he could seize the throne, soon became 'fact'.  As was clear from the remains now found, Richard's body was abused and humiliated after death to demonstrate public hated and his loss of power.  

So successful was this propaganda that the Richard III character in Shakespeare's play is the main image we have of him today.  In the play, which was in fact written 100 years after his death, he was a physically deformed Machiavellian villain, describing himself as being afflicted with a curse and cheerfully committing numerous murders to gain power.  

This image persists.  But he is beginning to be viewed somewhat more benevolently today.  It was interesting to note that, in the BBC poll of some 10 years ago, Richard III was voted No 82 and Henry VIII only No 40 (but beating Boy George, who came in at No 46). The remains are now to be interred with due ceremony in Leicester Cathedral and I have no doubt more favourable propaganda 

will soon be all the rage on TV.  

What struck me most about the whole business was the difficulty of finding a descendant from whom to take a DNA sample.  You'd think it would be a straightforward task of swabbing inside the mouth of The Queen and comparing her cheek cells.  But of course the Royal line was broken with Richard's death and the Tudors, who then reigned for 150 years, were not directly related to him.  In fact the term 'Tudor' was also dropped at the time, since it only served to remind everyone of their non-aristocratic beginnings.  The nearest living descendant of Richard turned out to be Michael Ibsen, a Canadian carpenter, who was a 17th generation descendant.  Just think, in another time, he would have had a claim to the throne.

What next?  Now I think we should have a go at finding the body of King Alfred.  Alfred was King in the 9th century and is the only British monarch to be given the epithet 'Great', as in Alfred The Great.  He successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking conquest (otherwise, as someone pointed out the other day, we wouldn't now be needing the subtitles to Borgen), he encouraged education and improved the British legal system and military structure, and certainly didn't burn anyone's cakes. Incidentally, he was voted No 14 in the BBC poll.

After his death, Alfred was buried in Hyde Abbey, near Winchester, but the location of the grave was again lost, as with Richard, after the Dissolution.  A prison was later built on the site and the bones are then believed to have been scattered.  The graves (of his wife, children and others too) were certainly robbed.  Subsequent attempts to locate them failed.  But now is clearly the time to try again, probably looking under the Winchester Council car park.  I wonder who will be found to be a living descendant of Alfred.

Anyway I thought I would end with this song from The Postal Service.  You no doubt heard the recent news of the band's reforming and the release 2 days ago of their first song for 10 years.  But it was the words of this song that I thought were so appropriate to Richard III.

BARE FACTS

I said I would write something about THOSE pics that appeared on TMZ.  I have only just got round to it.  But there are issues here that are worth discussing.

I think it's fair to say that, outside of Britain, comments were mostly jokey and dismissive.  There were some who thought that the #3 to the Throne might behave better, but, frankly, the children of the Heir to Throne (and particularly siblings out of the real running) have traditionally behaved badly.  That might partly be because they have nothing to lose; it might partly be because they have lots of money and lots of time; it may be because everybody wants to party with Royalty and there is a good chance they might get to do so with a sibling (as opposed to the better protected Heirs); or it may just be an indolent descent into louche society, since they don't really have a role (once they've risen through the military ranks and done a bit of charity).  That's not to excuse Harry necessarily, but it is probably why most people here seemed merely to shrug their shoulders and raise their eyes heavenwards.  Even TMZ's capture of the photographs had an oddly jubilent note about it and was not at all judgemental or even salacious.  I therefore thought the incident was going to die a death.

Over here, the Palace alerted the Press Complaints Commission to the fact that publication of the photographs here might infringe Harry's privacy.  The press were informed of this contact through the normal procedures (not warned off, as some arch liberals asserted) and the press as one decided to publish the story but not the pictures.  Again, it seemed as though that would be it.  Nobody showed a great deal of interest in the story.  But then The Sun newspaper broke ranks and published.  They said they had done so, both in the public interest and because, since everyone had by then seen the photographs, there was no point anymore in holding them back.  They didn't say so, but the inference was that Harry's privacy had already been infringed and further propagation of the pics could not constitute an infringement by The Sun.

Although no one showed much interest in the affair before this, there have so far been several thousand complaints to the PCC about The Sun's actions.  It seems that the British public does feel that publication of private or intimate photographs of celebrities is an infringement of privacy.

I say 'celebrities', even though the term is much misused these days, because the whole point about the Leveson Inquiry is that the media overstepped the mark in trying to obtain and publish private information about famous people with a claim to celebrity.  Sometimes such gossip is justified and of public interest, such as when the celebrity's public stance is shown to be a fraud; sometimes it is merely self-serving, such as photographs of celebrities deliberately exposing themselves to gain publicity; and sometimes it is of no real interest at all, such as 'celebrity dumps boy/girlfriend and goes to party with someone else'.  Well, I suppose someone somewhere might find that last example really interesting, but the question is whether the newspaper with the biggest circulation in Britain should be bothering with such fluff.  Of course it is the accumulation of such fluff that probably sells The Sun, but that's another matter.

The point is that the Harry story became something much more here than a tale of naughty goings-on by a celebrity.  The Sun clearly took the view that, post-Leveson (or at least, since the Inquiry hasn't yet reached a conclusion, post-The Sun's evidence to Leveson) the media had to reassert its independence.  Not publishing photographs that were freely available, just because a possible infringement of privacy might occur, was clearly a step too far for the free press.  Having said that, it was only The Sun (and one assumes the slightly bruised Rupert Murdoch) that took that view.  Now we have to see whether the PCC has any teeth post-Leveson in the face of several thousand complaints from the public.  But, frankly, I'm not sure it matters either way.  The Palace has since not complained and said that the decision to publish is ultimately one for the editors.  Quite right.  And several thousand complaints is not actually so many from a population of many millions.  But none of those complaints has come from the Palace, Harry's legal representatives or anyone connected with the Royals at all.  So, bully for The Sun for showing that the press in Britain is still free.  But have they really done so in fact?
 
Do these photographs really shine a light on anything important?  We all knew of the story.  Many of us had looked in on TMZ's website. The decision smacks rather of Murdoch's continued power games.  He more than anyone suffered from the phone hacking and related scandals.  He clearly didn't want to remain cowed.  Yet publishing something that no one involved complains about seems to me not much of a bold disclosure nor much of a brave revelation by an unbowed campaigner.

But was privacy really an issue here?  There are two angles to this - one, should Harry have expected anything happening in his private suite to remain private?  Well, yes, he should.  And, two, in inviting up to his room a bunch of people he had just picked up in the bar, especially with everyone having a camera in their pocket these days, should he have accepted that he was giving up his right to privacy?  Actually, no, I think.  It is an unfortunate fact that almost any pic of Harry that night would have fetched a fair price from the gossip press.  So, if he insists on cavorting with strangers, he is putting his privacy on the line and must expect it to be infringed.  I think it is a sad reflection on today and I feel sorry that he can't really guarantee privacy, but that's the way it is.  What the newspapers decide to do about it is another matter.  He still has a right to privacy when he is off duty, but it's not a right that can be easily maintained.  No other British newspaper felt the need to flex its muscles in the way The Sun understandably did and they all presumably took the view that not publishing showed sympathetic restraint, if not a view that there was a lack of interest or even that publishing was a pointless gesture, once the story was out.  Personally, especially since the photographs were such poor quality and so unrevealing, I think they added nothing at all to the story.  And since the story was such a non-story, I think it was adequately dealt with on the first day, by referring to TMZ.  I'm not aware whether The Sun sold vastly more copies of its newspaper that day, but I suspect not.

Now, another question.  Did Harry do anything wrong?  Did that over-ride any claim to privacy and justify publishing the photographs?  OK, he's a senior Royal and maybe could be more stayed in his behaviour.  According to his friends, when the camera appeared, he was in fact gallantly, but probably foolishly, trying to shield the naked girl.  The two quickly left the room at that point to avoid further embarrassment.  But, whether that's true or not, he's single; he was understandably letting off steam before returning to arduous and dangerous military duty; he certainly wasn't doing anything illegal; I don't even think he let anyone down really.  Boris Johnson's Tweet was probably the view of most people here - "The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way.'  So, again, had there not been a freedom of the press issue, imagined or otherwise, the pics were best kept private and the story hardly ought to have deserved so many pages.

But the final point (at least it is one made by The Sun) is whether the public interest was really served by publishing the photographs.  I think we ought to distinguish here between 'the public interest' and 'public interest'.  I think these are different things.  I don't rush out and buy The Sun when I hear that there is a scandalous pic published in it.  But if there is a story (or maybe even a photograph) in the newspaper I buy, which refers to something I didn't know about or which sheds light on something currently being debated publicy, I think it's fair to say that there is public interest in that item.  And I guess I am interested in seeing pics of famous people doing silly things, even if I don't rush out to get hold of them (the pics, not the famous people).  But the public interest is served only when the newspaper reveals something that has been kept from public knowledge - a revelation about secret or illegal activity, the real reason for a Government policy, a new tax that has an effect not publicly announced, etc.  I might actually rush out and buy a newspaper carrying that story.  But I don't think a pic of a naked Prince is in that league at all.  I don't even think that publishing the pic against requests for privacy is in the public interest.  I do think that having the courage to publishing something that has been suppressed, in the face of some sanction or legal action, is a noble and legitimate act.  The Sun's action was about something else.

In fact I think it's a great pity the story is still being written about and given airtime.  Oh . . .

CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT

I was going to comment eruditely on the popular reaction to HM's Diamond Jubilee celebrations over the last 5 days.  But I think most of it has been said now.

I was constantly amazed.  Not because The Queen is unpopular particularly, but just simply at the gushing outpourings of affection and support.  There is, it must be acknowledged, an anti-monarchist, or Republican, or a purist democratic, movement in the UK, which I kept expecting to see or hear disrupting events.  But there was nothing anti.  Even the official, organised, pro-Republic demonstration could raise no more than 50-odd people chanting 'Down with Liz', as opposed to the millions cheering and singing in support.

We booked our spot on the river to watch the flotilla at 8am, even though The Queen didn't lead the boats past until 2.30 that day.  But there were people on The Mall who had camped overnight to make sure they saw The Queen glide by some 20 hours later.  And that was just a couple of carriages, not the 1,000 boats that we saw. 

After the Buckingham Palace concert, the band struck up the National Anthem and, remembering the chanting at football matches and the silence at other public events, I thought, 'oh no, they're going to dampen the concert euphoria or spoil the success of the event'.  But, no, the crowd sung with gusto and raised three cheers afterwards for The Queen.  They even chanted support for The Duke of Edinburgh who had been taken ill the night before.

With recent royal cock-ups and a succession of PR difficulties since Diana's death, despite a pretty successful Golden Jubilee 10 years ago, I felt that public enthusiasm for the Royal Family had waned in Britain (and in parts of the Commonwealth for that matter), particularly among the young.  But I appear to have been wrong.  It seems to have been impossible for interviewers to find a member of the public willing to say a downbeat word about The Queen.  Far from it - nearly every sentence spoken seemed to include great affection and, not to put too fine a point upon it, loyalty and devotion.
 
There were even frequent spontaneous chants of 'God Save The Queen!', as though we were fanatical subjects in North Korea, rather than democratic and irreverant Britons.  There were plenty of irreverant references too of course, not least the number of masks worn.  But even they showed affection; ridicule was far from anyone's mind.

Of course the story might have been different north of the border, for all I know.  And I'm not entirely sure how the Commonwealth felt.  But I noted that even the Australian Premier's message of congratulation and admiration was gracious in the extreme, when again it could have been more subdued, given her antipathy towards the Crown.

But what really struck me was the way the celebrations had united people.  I mentioned in my earlier post that The Monarchy works much better here than a putative Presidency might.  As was pointed out in one of the newspapers today, there isn't a President that hasn't proved divisive (or totally irrelevant) in their own country in some way.  Yet, apart from a residual minority view that maybe she shouldn't be there at all, there was no sign of any of the divisiveness that our political masters have managed to achieve. 

The second feature was that that unity was formalised under the Union Flag.  It may seem odd to some of you that I say this, but our flag, except maybe in times of war, isn't really held in the same reverence as many other national flags are by the populations of those nations.  We tend to like it as an emblem and, from the swinging sixties onwards, have decorated everything from cars to home accessories with it.  And indeed, this last weekend, most people in the crowds were wearing red, white and blue, if not Union Flag clothing from head to toe, painted faces or nails, etc.  I even saw a Union Flag scarf on a Muslim girl by the river.  This patriotic upsurge is unusual for us in the absence of outside attack or physical national achievement; seeing it to celebate simply the survival of one person, however important constitutionally, was heart-warming, but still a surprise.  If nothing else, this inclusive, non-religious, non-political coming together under the national flag has done more for Britain than any other achievement that might be found in the 60 years of her reign.  And yet it is an achievement purely of passive survival.  We are merely celebrating the fact that she hasn't died or abdicated.

Finally, the other notable point highlighted in the press was the number of children and young people celebrating in the crowds.  I'm not sure many of the very young will have understood exactly what was going on and in fact many of their parents were not that clear either - there were a good many comments such as, 'well, we won't ever see it again', which made me wonder if they were there for the spectacle alone or maybe for the party.  One reporter, trying to inject a modicum of seriousness, asked one lady whether she was there because she supported the Monarchy per se or whether it was simply to recognise The Queen's achievement, but she looked a bit puzzled and just mumbled something about 'once in a lifetime'.  But those kids will be monarchists for life.  I remember even now collecting my commemorative glass at school and watching the Coronation on our new TV.  That event shaped my enthusiasm for the royals for many years.  There is now a new generation of enthusiasts coming through.

So here's to the next 60 proud, patriotic years . . .

Tags: politics, britain, flags, patriotism, royals, jubilee

FASCIST REGIME?

I read an article in yesterday’s newspaper (here) in which the journalist explained that he has belatedly become a Royalist.  This change of heart is interesting in itself, since the trend is probably the other way.  It is a bad moment to reflect on the Monarchy probably, with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations about to start in earnest and the whole country bedecked in bunting and patriotic flags and nothing available in the shops that doesn't carry a Union Flag or Royal cipher.

But what I found interesting in the article though was that what brought about the journo's conversion was not the value for money of the Monarchy, the relative low cost of the maintenance of all the buildings, the staff, the hangers-on, etc, nor the spectacular panoply that goes with ceremonial monarchical occasions, nor the high cost of the elections and all the razzmatazz of choosing a President instead of a Monarch, nor the disruption to life brought about by such elections every 4/5 years, nor the loss of stability and consistency and reliability and unity that comes with a different person running the country just as you get used to the previous one, nor the potential problem of our gaining an executive leader for the first time (since the Dark Ages), any of which would be argument enough not to change our present system.  No, it was the process that had unnerved him.

He had watched the rise of Baroness Ashton to the post of European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, making her the highest-paid female politician in the world, without actually having had a proper job before.  She had done so (in his words) through political patronage, upon having the correct views and knowing the right people.  The point is that Prime Ministers and bureaucrats under them have a strong interest in who is in charge of their country and won’t necessarily choose the person with the strongest personality or greatest competence in decision-making or indeed proven record in leading.  The important point is that they do what you want them to do.

I can understand that point.  If you are going to elect a boss, you want to make sure they are someone who thinks the same way as you or, worse, not someone who will disagree strongly with your views.  But his article made me wonder if Baroness Ashton’s case was actually relevant to the election of a President.  I conclude that it is.

Firstly, Prime Minister’s (and their parties)(and the Opposition for that matter) have very much an interest in keeping the present monarchical system, because it is they in fact who make all the decisions.  The Queen makes very nice policy speeches about what ‘Her Government’ is going to do, but these speeches are all written by the Government (in fact by a bunch of bureaucrats.  If the Government wishes to include a para about the situation in Afghanistan for example, to do with withdrawing troops say, someone in the Foreign Office will write the first draft). 

Secondly, following on from that, the Prime Minister currently makes the decisions and informs The Queen.  Of course, if a President makes a policy speech or a policy for that matter, some bureaucrat (?wonk) will draft it for him.  But the difference will be that it will be the President’s bureaucrats that do the writing, not the Prime Minister’s.  Having a Constitutional Head of State makes running a Government fairly straightforward; having a leader with executive or quasi-executive powers won’t suit British Governments at all and will make a real mess of their party manifestoes.

Thirdly, the situation that often, it seems, exists in the US for example, where the President’s policies cannot be implemented, because the Government (ie one or other House) will not agree the legislation, would leave our popularly-elected representatives effete.  Whereas having a toothless non-elected Monarch doesn’t seem so undemocratic.

Fourthly, and I think this is a separate point, it is difficult to imagine a situation where a President has little real power yet is so universally loved.  Would we all have street parties, and regattas on the Thames, and all wear silly hats and sunglasses, just because a President had been around a long time, and despite his not having done anything?

If I am right, there is not much chance of all this changing here any time soon, democratic process or not.

OK, I know the presidential system is a different kind of democracy, but, let’s face it, you don’t get to be President (anywhere I think) unless you have a fair amount of money already.  That means that Candidates will be of a certain section of society, maybe not as exclusive as our Monarch, but not very often a complete unknown under-privileged outsider either.  But what role does a Parliamentary Representative have then?  Do they have to support the President to ensure influence and/or money?  Or do they have to oppose the President to maintain their constituency?

I’d be interested to know how Americans feel about their system.  Do you feel represented in Government?  Do you feel you can influence decisions in Government?  Do you feel that voting for a President empowers you?  Can you still affect local policies or influence your administration locally?  How do you feel about having a President named after a baseball glove?

Tags: politics, monarchy

DIAMOND GEEZERS

As you all may know, this is the year of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  All the main events happen around the date of the actual anniversary (2 June).  In fact the entire weekend is a holiday (some events are taking place on the Friday and I think the Monday and Tuesday are holidays too), so it should be a bit of fun.  I’ll try to report my involvement as it happens (I am doing something Jubilistic every day of the holiday I think). 

The High Street and main road into Haslemere (and indeed Petersfield and most towns I have visited recently) are decked from end to end with bunting and everyone's flags have been dug out of garages and lofts and erected everywhere you look.  I was a bit taken aback the other day to discover the flags of Zambia and Malaysia at the end of my road and have been trying to work out what the significance is.  But I see that all the Commonwealth flags are flying somewhere along the road, so perhaps it's just chance.

All of this (‘a party 60 years in the making’ is the strapline) has led to reviews of the life of HM and a look back over the last 6 decades.  I was amused, listening to the radio the other morning, when one of the presenters invited listeners to telephone in with thoughts on how lives had changed since the 50s.  One woman of 83 rang in and said, ‘well, for a start, in the 1950s you wouldn’t have got any 83 year olds ringing in because nobody lived that long’.  Good point!

But it did make me reflect too.  Yes, I can remember the Coronation, so I do have some sense of how things have changed.  I think my earliest relevant memory was of sweet rationing ending in 1953.  I only had a couple of pence pocket money in those days, but suddenly all those delights (long since disappeared, except in specialist confectionery shops), at 4 for a penny, became available.  Actually, it must have been a delight for my parents too now I come to think about it, because, after that, my father always came home on Fridays (pay day) with a bag of sweets for my mother.  It didn’t seem strange at the time, but I guess now it would be a bit odd to give your loved one a paper bag of sherbet lemons.

But what else happened then?  What strikes me is how momentous a time it was.  In the first 5 years of the 50s, the first credit card was produced (remember - there were no computers or Wi-Fi in those days, so this was pretty momentous for us to have an alternative money), the first organ transplant was undertaken, Mount Everest was climbed for the first time (I listened to a news programme on the radio the other day in which a mountaineer explained that climbers had recently lost their lives on Everest because there was now a queue at the summit and the last ones up were too late for the ‘climbing window’), colour TV was invented (most people were then of course buying their first B/W TV just to watch the Coronation; ours was a 12”!), World War II officially ended (one forgets that the Japanese didn’t surrender until 1951), seat belts were introduced for cars, the polio vaccine was developed (I had friends at school then still afflicted with polio), the King died (that of course hasn’t happened since), DNA was discovered, the first atomic submarine was launched, cigarettes were found to cause cancer (it seems amazing, doesn’t it, that no one knew that before 1954), segregation was ruled illegal in the US, and the MacDonalds company was founded.  This is a subjective list of course, but what extraordinary times we lived in!  And I was duly excited with each development.

I looked through a list of the main events of 2010 and 2011 to compare. 

2010 - earthquakes, volcanoes, plane crashes, oil leak, eurozone problems, iPad launched.
2011 - Arab spring, first artificial organ transplant, royal wedding, more earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, iPad 2 launched.

I don’t know, maybe there are more momentous events that I have missed, it is again a subjective list, but (apart perhaps from the Arab Spring) these don’t strike me as events that I will remember in 60 years time as being especially earth-shattering (and there’s a good chance I won’t remember anything in 60 years time anyway).

If you read a potted history of the 50s, apart from anything else, it is the politics of the time that are so significant, it is filled with references to Churchill, Stalin, Eisenhower, Chiang Kai-shek, Che Guevara, and a host of other famous names.  I wonder whether the famous persons of today will have the same stature in 60 years time. 

The BBC has attempted to answer this question by drawing up a list of the 60 British ‘New Elizabethans’.  Of course, they have to cover every aspect of Elizabeth’s reign, so there has to be a musician, a celebrity, a footballer, etc on the list, but you can imagine the problems the committee had whittling the list down to 60.  If Lennon and McCartney are on the list (as one person), should Bowie also be there?  And what about MIck Jagger?  Which politicians should be there?  How many painters or sculptors or playwrights are appropriate?  And so on.  I listened to one of the committee explaining this morning how they had negotiated between them to produce an agreed list.  Horrendously difficult, especially with a committee of persons each with subjective views. 

Anyway, the list is here, if you want to see it.  There are certainly some oddities there and I suspect many of them will be forgotten in 60 years time.  In fact I had to look up about a dozen of them now.  Interestingly, Richard Doll is on the list (he was the one who established the link between smoking and cancer) and Edmund Hillary is there too (he led the first successful Everest expedition), but Francis Crick (who discovered DNA) has fallen off.  Bowie got on in the end, and so did Goldie (bizarrely I think), at the expense of Massive Attack and Johnny Rotten who were both excised finally (I don't think Jagger was ever on the list).  There are of course quite a few politicians, some of whose importance I am unsure about, yet Edward Heath (who took us into the EU) fell off.  Is he less important than David Trimble?  There are also, in the end, only 2 sportsmen, George Best (no one would argue probably with his inclusion, but I suspect he is there because he was Irish) and Basil D’Oliveira (presumably because he was coloured, even though he was born in South Africa), but no other cricketers or footballers warranted inclusion (Beckham eventually fell off, even though he was on the original list more as a metrosexual than a footballer, and so did Bobbie Charlton), and there are now no athletes (Steve Redgrave and Kelly Holmes, the only female sportsperson, fell off) and all the rugby players, snooker players and boxers similarly fell at the last hurdle.  And I don't think any beach volleybal players were even on the first list.  Finally, in this personal review of the list, I am surprised that Tony Hancock is the only comedian or satirist on the list, unless you include Graham Greene and Barbara Windsor, (Morecombe and Wise, John Cleese, David Frost, and Ian Hislop were all dismissed eventually.  And what about Kenny Everett?); it makes Britain look a very serious country.  Perhaps this reflects the serious natures of the committee members.  Although it makes the inclusion of Goldie even more bizarre in that case.  There were at first also some 'trivial' celebrities; only right I think as a reflection of the times, if not their innate importance.  Don't you think there should be a 'celeb' who's famous for being famous, or a model, or a soap star?  There were examples of each initially.  And I saw immediately that Julia Bradbury is absent.

And, hang on a minute, I’m not there either.  Surely there should be a white, bridge playing, nomadic, blogger on the list?!

Tags: fame, royals, jubilee, julia bradbury, anniversaries, blogging, haslemere