BS: The Royal Wedding

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 May 18 - 06:51 PM

perhaps he thought the bride had farted...???

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 May 18 - 06:43 PM

It must have been quite an experience for them!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 May 18 - 06:03 PM

I have to say I've replayed on Youtube a couple of times the moment when one of the Mulroney twins, Brian, who was holding up that long veil, heard the fanfare and was absolutely blown away by the sound. He told his parents later that at the rehearsal there were no trumpeters, so he hadn't expected that! Loved his gap-toothed grin.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 26 May 18 - 04:41 PM

There are some excellent photos of the wedding in the Telegraph magazine today!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 May 18 - 10:29 AM

"I have stood or sat in front of auditors back in my company accountant days and provided fairy tale answers to some of their irritating questions"
Real Walter Mitty stuff - even company accountants need a modicum of brains
Dream on Bozo
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 May 18 - 08:58 AM

Go and play that D-18, Bonz.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 May 18 - 08:41 AM

The left will sneer and argue till the cows come home!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 24 May 18 - 07:40 AM

You may sneer but the fashion industry contributes over £20bn pa to the economy and directly or indirectly employs more than 1.3m people.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 May 18 - 06:54 AM

The Inside Story...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 18 - 05:24 AM

Wow. A boost to the "fashion industry." Just what we need! No doubt almost all of those "fashinable clothes" will be made in China...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 24 May 18 - 04:52 AM

A brand consultancy has calculated the economic benefits.

Brand Finance plc

Now you may say that they are doing this to promote themselves, but that would backfire if they were not using accepted methods for determining brand value and other intangibles.

My paper today reported that Meghan Markle is expected to give a £150m boost to the British fashion industry due to women buying copies of her clothes.

Anecdotally, there are usually people gathered outside Buckingham Palace. I once saw the President of France emerge in a car from the Elysee Palace and no one, locals or visitors, paid very much attention.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 May 18 - 04:50 AM

I have stood or sat in front of auditors back in my company accountant days and provided fairy tale answers to some of their irritating questions - great fun!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 May 18 - 04:44 AM

Better to live in Hope than die in Clay Cross as they say in Derbyshire...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 May 18 - 03:43 AM

McGrath, no-one wants a royal to wear a permanent grin. But when one is feeling 'grumpy' (which as you say happens to most people) one should still strive to be polite and pleasant. Prince Philip is not a child and presumably can behave himself while doing his job. It's called self-control and good manners.

I have stood in front of a class of pupils many times feeling ill, sad, bereaved, in pain etc but it was my duty to continue with the lesson and be pleasant to my colleagues. I managed it somehow, even if it was a struggle.

Meghan and Harry purport to be humanitarian. I just hope this fashion among the rich and famous of 'virtue signalling' is matched by generous 'virtue giving'; one lives in hope...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 May 18 - 03:00 AM

20 Most Popular Tourist Attractions

These figures are for 2016

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 18 - 07:34 PM

"You prove that the royal family doesn't attract tourists - I don't think you can."

I invite you to look at those league tables of the most popular tourist attractions.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 May 18 - 07:33 PM

How many tourists actually get a glimpse of the Royals
Apart from Princess Di under the dryer, the only glimpse I ever got of on was on 'Empire Day' at school when we were all hauled out and lined up along the the railins of Speke Secondary Modern in the pissing rain because the Queen Mother was passing on her way to open something
The car sped past doing 40 - we didn't see her and I'm damned if she saw us
It's utter bullshit that people come to Britain because of Rayaly - if they got withing half a mile from one they'd be mown down by an armed copper.
They may come to see the Stately Homes (when they'ere allowed in them) or the artifacts of past royalty, but they would see those anyway
Now if only they opened up the Guildhall and executed a Royal (as they did Chas One).....
I think I'd take a trip back to London to see that one!!
Or maybe if they reopened the Imperial War Museum as Moorfields Asylum as an asylum and allowed the visitors to come up and view Boris Johnson or William Reece Mogg on Sunday afternoons..... a real fillip for the tourist industry
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 May 18 - 05:57 PM

I'm a few years younger than Prince Philip, but I still find I can be quite grumpy on occasion, and look grumpy on even more occasions, even when I'm maybe feeling quite affable. It happens to all of us as we get weathered by time.

I suppose he could get his face bottoxed into a permanent grin. But I don't imagine that would make his critics any less hostile.

I suppose the next big royal event will be his funeral. I can't see that shutting the critics down.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:34 PM

Difficult to prove a negative. Besides, the onus of proof is on the person who made the statement that they do.

Pesonally I think that they are not marketed well enough to attract anything but criticism. Now Bonzo, you, as a rampant capitalist, must be able to see the benefits of selling Windsor World off to the Disney corporation...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:12 PM

You prove that the royal family doesn't attract tourists - I don't think you can.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 May 18 - 02:37 PM

Paris swarms with tourists, and there's no royal family there. I reckon the tourists would come anyway. It's the history that fascinates them, not the actual personages of the royals, they never catch even a glimpse of them after all.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 18 - 02:13 PM

..."and it seems to generate tourist income as well."

This comes squarely into the category of received wisdom. If you really believe tbat the royals bring in tourists that wouldn't otherwise come here, prove it. You could start by looking at the various league tables of the top tourist attractions. You won't find many royal links among them unless you're extremely adept at stretching points.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 May 18 - 01:33 PM

I expect you're right Bonzo, and it all depends on the actual day etc. He may be quite pleasant at times, and a bit of a Nasty Thing at others. One shouldn't judge (as I did) just by watching him walk past.

I'll never forget, though, that awful interview he 'gave' with Fiona Bruce on TV. The poor lady was nearly bitten in half by his crossness and prickliness. She bravely carried on, polite and respectful, while he objected, scoffed, hinted he'd never wanted this interview anyway and so on.
I'd have stood up, turned my back and left the room. Unforgivable rudeness.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 May 18 - 01:08 PM

"When Prince Philip visited my wife's school in Buenos Aires during the 1950s,"
I think you've farted yourself into disgrace at this particularity dinner party, don't you Bozo ?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 May 18 - 12:54 PM

When Prince Philip visited my wife's school in Buenos Aires during the 1950s, she found him an entirely agreeable person.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 May 18 - 12:11 PM

I stood in line at Edinburgh Uni when Prince Philip, who was our Chancellor, walked past. It wasn't on the street, it was on the campus. But he didn't even look at us students, and he had a most arrogant, curled-lip expression. He looked like a very cross Headmaster who was going to give us all the cane. I got unpleasant vibes from him.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 May 18 - 11:32 AM

I'd rather shake the Queen's hand than Trump's or Macron's.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 May 18 - 11:28 AM

As long as I'm never expected to stand dutifully in line to bow or shake a royal's hand...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 May 18 - 11:24 AM

There may be many reasons to argue against a monarchy but I don't think the cost is one of them."
please provide stats and figures to back up your opinion

Sandman, please read my first post. The costs are paid from the income from the Crown Estate which goes to the Treasury, so they don't add to the burden on the general taxpayer.

Do we need our head of state to do as much as the royal family does? Possibly not, but people seem to enjoy having royals open their hospital or visit their workplace, and it seems to generate tourist income as well.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 May 18 - 11:14 AM

Some of the figures for security seem to be based on a claim that security for the Cambridge's wedding was also around £30m, however according to the BBC report an FoI request showed it was only around £6.35m. I really have no idea, and as the police are neither confirming nor denying it I suspect no one else does. The journalists are probably all copying each other's homework.

The other question is whether this is net or gross cost. The police, army, security services will all be paid their normal salary whatever they are doing, so it is only the additional costs - overtime, travel and specific additional security measures - which should be counted.

Either way, it's likely to have been a lot of money, but these are the times we live in. Even so the income from the Crown Estate makes up for it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 18 - 10:13 AM

Just google "how much did the royal wedding cost?" Howard, and you'll find multiple sources on both sides of the pond in general agreement that the shindig cost around £33 million, of which around £30 million was for security which the taxpayer pays for. Don't ask me where they all get their info from, but I haven't read any official denials about the alleged costs. Agreed that they are still only alleged costs, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 May 18 - 09:24 AM

Perhaps the Windsors could pay an annual substantial lease fee to remain heads of our monarchy...
Or put it out to tender to the highest bidding family...

That might appeal to tories...

It'd be really cool if a wealthy Sikh family took on the role for a few years...
The music and pageantry would be far more lively and colourful...!!!

...and, if royalty was run as a franchise like McDonalds
we could have a local royal family in every town,
and motorway service station...
Each with it's own bouncy castle and royal garden party venue on the grass behind the car parks...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 May 18 - 09:13 AM

There may be many reasons to argue against a monarchy but I don't think the cost is one of them."
please provide stats and figures to back up your opinion

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 May 18 - 09:03 AM

Steve, where is it "generally settled" that the cost of security was £30m? The information I got were from the BBC News page I linked to in my post. That says the police were not releasing the figures for security reasons. Have some authoritative figures now been published? Otherwise most of what I've seen seems to be guesswork by journalists.

I was not "singling out" football, only giving it as an example of other policing costs which happened to be at a similar level to the security for the previous royal wedding. You are quite right that the police have to cover all sorts of events from which individual taxpayers may not benefit, and I agree with your comments entirely. My point was that it seems to be only events like royal weddings where people seem to make an issue of the cost.

I take your point about the Crown Estate. However it seems truer to say that the Norman aristocracy seized the land from the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy. The ordinary people before the Conquest seem mostly to have held land under conditions of service, just as they did later under the Norman feudal system. You'd probably have to go back many more centuries to find that 'ordinary people' had owned the land themselves. Be that as it may, we live in the world as we find it, and the fact is that the Crown Estate income effectively more than covers the cost of maintaining the head of state, even the extended one we have in Britain. That seems good value to me. There may be many reasons to argue against a monarchy but I don't think the cost is one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 18 - 05:35 AM

The Crown Estates should rightly belong to the people of this country. All such properties were stolen by the ancestors of the royals from the rest of us. You talk about the cost of security being speculation. No it isn't. It's generally settled that the cost was around £30 million. Comparisons between this royal shindig and the last one must take into account the recently heightened threat from terrorism, demonstrated by the fact that thousands of people getting anywhere near the guts of Windsor Castle were obliged to go through security far stricter than what goes on at airports. As for policing football matches, well you might as well complain about any police activity such as patrolling Soho or Liverpool One at night, overseeing festivals and concerts or policing the motorways and demonstrations. Not one of us benefits from EVERY activity of the police. If you have a bee in your bonnet only about policing football you're not being especially objective. As a matter of fact, policing entertainments such as festivals and concerts and keeping order on the streets at night and on our roads costs far more than policing football matches. There's definitely a debate to be had as to whether the Premier League should contribute more than it does, but, on the other hand, it's unfair to single it out. On 365 nights of the year the police have to work late to oversee the tens of thousands of pubs and clubs and the surrounding streets. How about an extra 50p on every pint to pay for it...?

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 May 18 - 05:01 AM

Well said Howard Jones!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Howard Jones
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:50 AM

The £30m figure is pure speculation, and includes the private costs which were paid by the Royal Family from their personal funds. The taxpayer paid only for security - the costs have not been published but for William and Kate's wedding were £6.35m BBC News   This is roughly the same as what it costs the Met to police football matches in London (they were able to recover only 5% of the costs) over which no one bats an eye.

The Sovereign Grant is paid for out of the profits of the Crown Estate, which in 2016/17 yielded £328.8m to the Treasury. In the same year the Sovereign Grant was £42.8m. It is due to nearly double, but that is due to the exceptional costs of carrying out essential repair work to Buckingham Palace (which belongs to the state, not to the Queen, and the work would need doing whether it is to house the head of state or turned into a hostel for the homeless). There are additional security costs in addition to the Sovereign Grant of around £100m but the total costs are still less than the overall return from the Crown Estate.

My point is that this costs the ordinary taxpayer nothing, and there is more than enough surplus from the Crown Estate income to cover the occasional exceptional cost of something like a royal wedding. That's without the tourist income the royal family attracts, estimated at around £550m. There may be very good reasons for preferring something different over a monarchy, but the cost should not be one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:38 AM

If I spent £10 and got back £6.70 I would call that a loss, not a win.

I didn't spend £10 to win £6.70. I spent £2.50 to win that. I also spent £7.50 and won nothing so that is a bit of a downer... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:34 AM

About 12 years ago I won £2000 in Thomas Cook vouchers in a competition I didn't even remember entering. To this day I still don't know what it had been and what I'd had to do to win. We used it for a trip to Oz to visit Mrs Steve's old aunt and uncle and her cousins. It's still the only time I've ever gone beyond Europe!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:28 AM

My wife won £5,000 on the football pools 10 years ago - went towards a holiday in Argentina, and in 1991 she won a 2 week holiday in Florida!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Jos
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:20 AM

Dave the G,
If I spent £10 and got back £6.70 I would call that a loss, not a win.

One thing you would NOT see me doing if I won the lottery, or anything else, is squirting champagne all over the place. Such a waste.

When Eddy Izzard completed a succession of marathon runs in South Africa, including a double marathon on the final day, he staggered up the steps to the statue of Mandela and was handed a bottle of fizz. He opened it carefully, drank from it, and then handed it back. That showed 'em.

(Mind you, I suspect that sometimes they give you a champagne look-alike bottle with fizzy water in it to squirt for the cameras.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 May 18 - 04:03 AM

That looks like a very nice car Dave. Why not just buy one now? It's only £35,000. Get two! :)

We often dream about what we'd do 'if we won the Lottery' (if we even DID the lottery) We've completely designed the house we'd have built, decorated it, furnished it, filled the triple garage with fancy cars, built a huge annex for all our African family to come and stay, even decided whom we'd employ as Staff (cleaner, gardener, handyman etc)
But then we start back-tracking. We love our little bungalow, we love this village, we love our small but pretty garden, and especially our lovely neighbours all around us. I don't think we could bear to change it all and leave.
We might do a bit of travelling though. My husband longs to fly First Class, where you get a bed to sleep in while the plane whizzes off to Australia! (Emirates airline, he says)
I wonder if Harry and Meghan will be just as happy together and as content as us. I sincerely hope so.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 May 18 - 03:06 AM

I did the lottery for the first time in years yesterday, Sen. Dunno why really. Just a whim I suppose. Anyway, had 4 lines on the Euromillions (£10 altogether). Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to an email saying there was lottery news for me! I logged on and I had indeed won.


£6.70 :-)

It will not change my life.

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV for me with a little soft top runabout for fun. Not sure what.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 May 18 - 05:24 PM

Er, yeah, OK...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 May 18 - 04:28 PM

Steve - wanna reconsider that...???

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/53/f0/83/53f08317abe5e5850f35ef298c90a3cd.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 04:22 PM

We've decided that if we won the Lottery we'd buy a Range Rover Evoque (with running boards) for my husband and a Mini Countryman for me, both in taupe. Trouble is, we don't do the Lottery.

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 May 18 - 04:14 PM

I'm a Gene Hunt Audi Quattro man meself...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:42 PM

I was a small boy in the early 1960s.....

The E Type Jag rules supreme...

even more than The Saint's Volvo...

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:29 PM

Well, it apparently belonged to Toby Smith, a keyboard player with Jamiroquay, who sadly died of cancer last year. His widow sold the car, but no-one has said Prince Harry bought it. All this mystery makes one think he DID buy it, otherwise why not say it was lent by so-and-so?
And if he DID, and it's his, then what an enormous waste of yet more money!

Subject: RE: BS: The Royal Wedding
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:19 PM

You're right keberoxu, I couldn't find any information about the ownership of the car either. I reckon it was lent to the couple as a jolly good publicity demonstration. I'll have another scout round Google after my tea!