A sad demise.

The only thing I have in common with the Queen is that my time on this earth closely coincides with hers on the throne. Britain celebrates its Queen today, with displays of bunting and small craft on the Thames as have not been seen since the US won the last world war.

During that time Britain has destroyed what was left of her magnificent industrial heritage, forgotten what Englishness is all about by virtue of a seemingly non-existent immigration policy, and sold whatever was left to foreigners. Thus, somewhat comically, what lucre is to be made from the upcoming London Olympics will largely end up in the Swiss coffers of tax avoiding American global enterprises. You know, people like Kraft and its newly American Cadbury’s, whose unspoken goal is to kill as many of its consumers with its junk food products as nature allows. Think of it as the Tobacco Lobby business model.

What prompts these thoughts was a question from a very English friend asking whether I was watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV. “Well, not exactly, dear” I responded, “you see, America is a republic”.

After a carefully crafted British education, complete with public schooling by pederast Catholic monks and a proper degree from a proper university, I was all set to join Rolls Royce aircraft to help make better engines when RR went bust, taking Lockheed with it. Bother. Scouting around I found a job with a multinational in finance (where the numbers bit was child’s play compared to fluid dynamics) and, inevitably, started working with and for Americans. Now this was a greatly distasteful experience. That same schooling on which I prided myself had carefully inculcated a deep xenophobia directed at all things American. Yanks, you understand, were still regarded as “Over loud, over sexed and over here” as the pointed epithet aimed at Britain’s savior Eisenhower had it a few years earlier. But as one trained in analytical ways I stood back, observed and shortly thereafter …. emigrated. Rarely has a decision been so easy to make on grounds of sheer obviousness.

Meanwhile, since that November day in 1977 which saw me leave, Britain has continued to sink. Its serial theft of centuries past, known euphemistically as ‘The Colonies’, came to a rapid end, though the English always had a reason until then to pillage, plunder, rape and steal, for as the toast in the Officers’ Mess had it: “Gentlemen, the Queen!”. Now they still have the Queen but little to toast.

Still, it doesn’t take a computer to figure out that Mrs. Windsor is one heck of a good deal for a nation that has little left to sell. Sure, she’s a poorly educated philistine with awful taste in dogs. However, receiving a modest stipend from the taxpayer and paying substantial taxes on her investment income, she costs little or nothing in upkeep. As for all the tales of her wealth, they are meaningless. She can no more sell Buckingham Palace and its stolen Leonardos than the US taxpayer can sell the White House. It has zero value, as do her other residences as they cannot be transacted. In exchange, she fills the Treasury’s coffers mightily with tourist dollars, at least those dollars as are left after Kraft et al have kept theirs.

So happy Jubilee Your Majesty.

Nothing to wave the flag for. Hyde Park, 1977, right before I left.
Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX.