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Friday, December 25, 2009

The Queen's Christmas Broadcasts, 1957 and 2009

Your Head Trucker is a quiet admirer of Her Majesty the Queen. I think she has a rotten job - stop and think about it. Would you want to have to get all dressed up in your Sunday clothes nearly every day of the year? Make all those speeches, sit through all those boring banquets. Have to kowtow to the whims of politicians night and morning (only schoolchildren think the Queen actually runs the country; it's really the other way around). And then be a sitting duck for the press and the photographers?

Not me, buddy. I'm happy to be an obscure peckerwood. But I think you have to hand it to the old girl for endurance and fortitude: she's been criticized a lot in recent years on family matters, but as far as her job goes, she's really not ever put a foot wrong, that I can tell from what I've read. And I think she's been an influence for tolerance, good sense, and peace around the world.

In Britain, the Queen's Broadcast is a Christmas Day tradition. Here's the Queen's first televised broadcast from 1957; compare with today's and see how far technology and Her Majesty have come in fifty-two years.



4 comments:

Ultra Dave said...

Well from personal experience, it is exhausting being fabulous all the time!

Russ Manley said...

hahahahahahaha! oh Mary, ain't it the truth?

Gary said...

I, too, have always liked ol' Liz. I think she's a great lady and a stable force in GB, despite some of the difficulties royalty has had there. I really liked the 1957 video, especially what she had to say about it being so much easier to hate and destroy than to build up and grow (something to that effect, anyway). Certainly applies to the state of things some 52 years later, huh!

Russ Manley said...

Yup sure does. And I think she's stuck to those themes throughout her reign; not that good advice has ever been taken to heart by the world in general.

But the Queen is a good person, and I think has been a force for good in the world for the nearly 58 years she's been on the throne.

Probably in her heart she's a bit conservative, as you'd expect anyone's grandmother to be; but I think she's probably more progressive and tolerant than people might think too. She certainly embraces the diversity of peoples, religions, and races in the Commonwealth whole-heartedly; she's not at all stuck up or snobbish that way.

Monarchy just wouldn't work over here - God knows Reagan tried. But I think Britain is lucky to have her: a great lady who has held a steady course all these years, with dignity and grace.

That's not as easy as she makes it look.

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