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One of those little changes

England cricket team become first national side to sing ‘God Save the King’ in emotional scenes

For near everyone the only version we’ve ever sung is “Queen”. Gonna be an awful lot of people getting that wrong….

25 thoughts on “One of those little changes”

  1. Yeah!!!

    It’ll be entertaining to see how the republicans push goes. I was happy to see that Charlies’ advisors seem to have suggested he tone down some of his pet projects.

    That way neanderthals like me can relax and just let the republican propaganda piss us off even more.

  2. It’s weird, like when Catholics started saying “and with your spirit” in answer to “the Force be with you”.

    We fear change.

  3. A couple of hours ago, my wife presided over her first Book of Common Prayer service with the following lines:

    Priest.O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us.
    Answer.And grant us thy salvation.
    Priest.O Lord, save the King.
    Answer.And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

    I told her to highlight the “King” bit to make really sure. No errors today, but can she do it until it becomes second nature?

  4. My guess is it won’t be King/Queen that will trip people up, because we’ll be conscious of that. It’ll be the pronouns that we make a hash of.

  5. “It’ll be entertaining to see how the republicans push goes. I was happy to see that Charlies’ advisors seem to have suggested he tone down some of his pet projects.”

    I don’t know why republicans bother. The monarchy is not going to disappear because of a bunch of beardie Guardian readers making political arguments. The monarchy has no political power at all. It’s just a nice show. It’s going to disappear because they’re gradually getting relatively poorer. And women will gravitate towards richer men. 20-30 years from now it’ll be a camp gay thing like Eurovision.

    I know there was Wallace Simpson but you know the king could have had the best class clunge around at the time. Harry couldn’t get some sloanes to stay with him and ended up with a woman who was chasing a celebrity chef (who wouldn’t commit) days before she targeted him.

  6. @ Julia M
    Most men die before they get to 74; Charles is 73 and I was mildly shocked at how old he looked, but I hope he has a few years left to go: his has been the longest apprenticeship in history, poor guy.

  7. john77: well, I’m only a few months behind him and I’ve no plans to peg it. His parents, like mine, were long-lived so I expect he has a shot at 90, barring stuff like cancer or road/helicopter accidents

  8. @john77 – “Most men die before they get to 74; Charles is 73”

    Not in the UK. 50% of boys born today will live to 88. Obviously someone who is 73 has a longer life expectance today than they had at birth as all those who died at a younger age are already dead. For someone who is 73 today, they have a 50% chance of reaching 86 (and a 2.6% chance of reaching 100). Try it for yourself at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07

  9. The crowd at the Proclamation outside Ely Cathedral this afternoon sang God Save The King without difficulty.

    The problems will arrive when we have to sing it without concentrating very carefully on getting it right.

  10. In Ely were we? Checking up on this blog’s favoured potato? That is, he’s right to be paranoid because people really are out to get him?

  11. Bloke in North Dorset

    It’ll be entertaining to see how the republicans push goes. I was happy to see that Charlies’ advisors seem to have suggested he tone down some of his pet projects.

    Brendan O’Niell, a republican, has written and said some of the best comments on the Queen’ her role and why she was so popular. His basic point was that she was always there and was the link with the past that all societies need, even republics.

    His main point about republicanism hasn’t taken off even when things looked bad for The Firm, was that she didn’t hector us or presume to tell us how to live our lives. However, he reckons if Charles doesn’t wind his neck in that could well change and I tend to agree with him.

  12. @ BiND
    Charles’ first speech said that he would devote less time and effort to the Charities and Causes that concern him so much.

  13. Bloke in North Dorset

    John,

    It’s not what he does but what he says. Of course he’ll spend less time on them, he’s now got a real job.

  14. @ BiND
    He’s had a real job for decades, just a bit different from yours.
    Would a steelworker describe what *you* do as “a real job”?

  15. “A real job is one you can get fired from”

    Like Prince Andrew….and Harry?

    And not like Gary Lineker or Emily Mateless?

  16. @ Charles
    Interesting but it doesn’t reflect the mortality experience of those born in 1948. The (rather-out-of-date) mortality tables I had to hand which showed 49.5% surviving to 74 don’t either but they will be nearer due to the understatement of mortality at younger ages (slightly more than) balancing out the overstatement at older ages.
    In 1948 life expectancy at birth was in the low-middle 60s.
    Pendantically, my life expectancy at birth was just over three score (but not plus as much as ten), now it is about one score which is less than three score.
    Technical point – the 2019-derived tables are very probably inaccurate due to the accumulation of small errors since the last census resulting from the unreliability of migration data. The number of deaths at each age is known but the denominator (those alive at that age) is estimated from the previous census by subtracting the death in that cohort and adjusting for immigration and emigration – which latter is little better than guesswork (but is normally relatively unimportant). The impressive improvement in mortality in 2001-10 turned out to be an illusion due to errors in the 2001 census as the denominator at older ages was overstated by about half a million so the ratio of deaths to those living was understated and the error in the death rate increased as the half million became a larger %age of the actual number until the 2011 census revealed the error.

  17. A real job is one you can get fired from.

    The English have form when it comes to firing monarchs. The severance process can be quite brutal.

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