Dreaming of the Queen.

“Tinkety Tonk old fruit and down with the Nazis!”

Of all the songs to find their way into my head since the news of the Queen’s passing, Dreaming of the Queen by the eighties pop duo Pet Shop Boys has to be the strangest.

Dreaming of the Queen,

Visiting for tea,

You and her and I,

And Lady Di.

From my current vantage point, the song seems typically witty with its plays on words and barely disguised gay subtext. Subtext has gone these days. Everything has to be “out there” and “in your face,” very obvious and literal. I ponder for a moment to wonder if subtext is even allowed these days? No matter.

The Queen said “I’m aghast,

Love never seems to last,

However hard you try,”

And Di replied:

That there were no more lovers left alive,

No one had survived.

The song is so much a product of its time and, despite being released a year after the Queen’s renowned “annus horribilis” of 1992, it has a very distinctive eighties sound. The play on the Queen’s reference to “annus” and “anus” was itself a source of rather tawdry jokes. The royal characters the song alluded to were, for we British, the backdrop of our lives and frequently the butt of jokes. There’s a strange tension surrounding the royals and it is found in the strain of logic and emotion meeting each other. Logically, a democracy should have elected representatives. But our anachronistic more emotional system somehow seems to work. Furthermore, after seventy years, the Queen really has been a constant, to cite a cliché.

I have learned to pay attention to songs and images that find their way into my head these days. What is my unconscious telling me? I wonder if there is a British person who has not, at least once, dreamed of the Queen? I know I have several times. I often think about the monarchy and the possibility of a republic. I ponder sometimes about how our American friends, whilst pleased to be rid of monarchy, nevertheless pay ours enormous respect and interest.

Of course, singer Neil Tennant was not singing about Her Majesty the Queen. That’s the joke. The song plays on the gay trope of referring to the effeminate homosexual as a “queen.” Tennant playfully enmeshes this with Lady Di (then, actually princess, but I quibble) and the “old queen” which in our (straight) imaginations was supposed to be the then Queen Mother. It continues:

Then carriages arrived

We stood and said goodbye

Diana dried her eyes

And looked surprised

For I was in the nude

The old Queen disapproved

But people laughed and asked

For autographs.

We know it is not the Queen Mother. However, in addition to the gay reference, Tennant is of course playing with the idea that we British do actually dream of the Queen. Dreaming of the Queen is a “thing.” I checked out the album for old times’ sake. Memories flood in as I listen. The album has a theatrical cabaret feel and it seems to reference the boys’ own experiences. It is witty, fast paced and in parts, quite funny.

Dreaming of the Queen.

Visiting for tea.

(Tea!)

We British (et al) have had the same head of state for seventy years, which is, however you regard the institution, something. Actually, it’s astonishing. The Queen has been our figurehead, our representative, the very face of that group of nations we call the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not to mention the wider scope of the commonwealth, for so long. For us, the royals seem far too familiar at times. Sometimes we dream about them.

Those in favour of monarchy point to that old chestnut of royalty not needing to go out grubbing for votes. Our head of state seamlessly passes on to the next in line. There are no campaigns, no TV commercials, political broadcasts and leafleting. It just flows on. It’s not perfect, but then what is? The thought of a politician taking the Queen’s place seems utterly ridiculous. Really, what or whom would you rather have? Blair? Mandelson? ……..Schwab? Come on now. You know it’s coming.

Monarchist or Republican, there is not much to argue about in terms of either system if democracy is effectively collapsing. And I think it is. Slowly crumbling and cracking. Deliberately. Over the past two years, I had been hoping that the promises made about our monarchy would come to fruition. The Queen (supposedly) as a bulwark against tyranny, the Queen (supposedly) as the protector of our rights and being (supposedly) above politics. The Queen having the ability to warn and advise. I naively imagined that the Queen would demand to know why our fundamental rights had not been upheld; why mandated untested injections were being pushed onto people and why we now lived in a censorious society. However, whispers of silence blew from Windsor, the Queen’s residence of choice during the period of Covidian house arrest.

When writing to the Queen, the rules are/were that you should not discuss politics. Officially, she was above politics, which on the face of it is a rather fanciful idea. Of course the monarch is completely stitched into our politics. However, until recently, that little charade seemed to hold true. It collapsed spectacularly at Windsor.

Before that collapse was apparent, someone close to me decided to write to the Queen during the first Covidian house arrest. I was not privy to the hallowed details. However, I was aware that compared to the response from my local member of parliament, hers was a super-quick reply. First class, “royal mail” from Windsor. Her brief reply did convey the sense of her having read and thought about the writer’s letter. By contrast, the reply that came from my MP was a copied and pasted piece of meaningless froth. Hence, my mixed feelings about politicians being heads of state. I might not like some royal personalities, but I like politicians even less. Anyway, I do not engage with the personalities, it is the institution, a wholly separate thing, that I think about and refer to here.

A major problem for me ensued when the Queen apparently stepped out of her “non-political” confinement once the injection roll out started. She encouraged those who were “wary” to “think of others.” I have been told by some that she actually used the word “selfish,” however, I cannot find any evidence of that. Only the Daily Mail’s summary used that word. Queen Elizabeth’s sojourn into politics seemed to be informed by her advisors and politicians as is typical. All the wording used conformed to the “safe and effective,” “easy” and “painless” mantras we have seen and heard repeatedly.  These words were not hers. I wonder if she gave any real thought to what she was actually advocating. It is likely that she saw her role as requiring her not to think. Her job consisted of duty and service, and to an extent, obedience. Obeying orders. We have encountered that before. She’s been living in a world filtered through the past and various dogmas for a long time.

In her little “improvised” and “spontaneous speech,” the Queen likened covid to the “plague” with which she said we were in “battle.” This of course, was not true, but a product of the “narrative.” Her description of being “protected” by the “vaccine” (it’s not a vaccine) was completely false. This was known by many in the medical world in addition to the manufacturers of the injections as is now becoming abundantly clear. Her failure to heed her own promise was a crushing disappointment to me. I could see how she had probably been “got at” and propagandised in terms of that overall mission to penetrate the world’s population.

To see her filmed on a skype/zoom call making her preposterous statements served only as a reminder of one of the hideous players in all this, the former Microsoft tycoon, now drug pusher, fake meat manufacturer and cricket breeder, Billy-Goat Gates. I wonder how the current King will take to his lifeless digital farms, big Pharma and big no-farmer.

I am, dear reader, highly conflicted in all of this. I am angry at the Queen’s inability to see what she was doing over the injections. This is especially because she is, in many ways the last link we have to the ending of WWII, which I see as partly informing today’s issues. To think, Elizabeth the Queen mother signed off her letters to her daughter, “Tinkety Tonk old fruit, and down with the Nazis!” I am used to people not seeing the links between then and now. I am also used to the massive levels of propaganda pouring out over everyone. I am also mindful that the Queen (inasmuch as we could ever know this) seemed to deteriorate after the roll outs. That bright cheery commentator urging us to get the “easy” jab “for others” appeared to look very different just two days before her death, with blackened hands as if suffering from blood clots. Yes, it could be coincidence. The timing of her passing was uncanny, even by the standards of theatre we have seen recently. I only speculate in my cynical manner of course. A new prime minister and within two days, a new monarch. (You might think something sinister; I couldn’t possibly comment….)

What causes me to take my stance involves the knowledge that the globalists really want Charles in place as a royal climate change evangelist. Hang on though. Charles’s passion for the environment clashes solidly with the menacing actions being taken in its name. The climate change religion is at odds with his environmental concerns if we understand the contradictions at the heart of the matter (I originally wrote “debate” there, but it seems that there is no debate). Wind turbines that slaughter thousands of birds, with blades that cannot be recycled, using copious amounts of petroleum oil to run, lithium batteries that mine the earth’s precious resources, (with child labour!) not to mention the wholly obnoxious idea of fake meat and those crunched crickets. The whole aesthetic contradicts the former Duchy of Cornwall’s love of organics and nature, and the interdependence of the natural world. It would be telling to be a fly on the wall when (and if) Gates ever comes to tea with the King.

After seeing the frustrated and angry comments from friends about the Queen’s death in online groups I have been unsettled. I could see why people who had chosen the path of no injections would feel this way. I even shared some of the sentiments. Amidst the fury though, I sensed a trap. Given that Mr Global wants there to be no nation states, no “borders,” everything controlled digitally, little or no travel for us ordinaries, what place is there for a royal national figurehead? There is nothing Mr Global would like more than the destruction of such a powerful symbol of nationalism and patriotism that is the British monarchy. So, my friends, if you are reading this, I strongly urge caution on those sentiments.

The question always remains. What or who would you rather have? There is never a fully fleshed out cogent answer to that. If it is so wrong to have a hereditary monarchy, what would the romantic would-be communist make of North Korea’s set up with its hereditary dynasty and god-like Kims? The Kims who demand worship and keep people on starvation rations. At least here, if you dislike the monarchy you are not forced to cheer them, and until recently at least, you could shout anything at them without fear of detention. I know about the police behaviour towards various recent protestors of the monarchy. And I understand that the current police priority is to control our thoughts. Our institutions are currently captured, it is true. It does not have to be like that. There might be some credence to the idea of taking back institutions that have been captured by wokery. Instead of trashing our rotten institutions, we need to consider taking them back and reforming them. Monarchy included.

Following on from that point. I was struck by the sense of continuity that manifested upon the death of the Queen. This can be seen as an exemplification of Edmund Burke’s concept of the intergenerational social contract where the state is in partnership with the living, the dead and those who are still to be born. Thus, as the crown is given up to the new monarch, the wheel of life turns with its simultaneous look back to the past and looking forward to the future.

This was demonstrated further at the Queen’s funeral where the crown, sceptre and orb were given back into the care of the church. They are symbols of spiritual and worldly power that flows from on high, from God. The Queen was thus returned to the status of mere mortal in the presence of the congregation. At his coronation, Charles III will take those responsibilities upon himself as King. The religious nature of the institution is laid bare. And the established church, paradoxically, is what guarantees freedom of worship to those of other faiths, and none. It is, in its way, a bulwark against state-olatry as practiced by states such as north Korea. We await to see how he conducts himself. Freedom of religion and belief must include the freedom to assert bodily autonomy and to choose one’s preferred diet. If Charles can guarantee those things, many will get behind him. The question is, will he?

I was reminded of another earlier pop song before we got to that moment in Windsor. In my inbox last week came a little tribute to the Queen.

Pictured wearing her tiara, the Queen was no longer punked-out with safety pins and disrespect. The author of God Save the Queen, the notorious punk rant by the then Sex Pistols had deigned to reverse those crass visuals and sentiments in a declaration of “pax” as John Lydon, no longer Rotten. “Send her victorious.” Furthermore, he subsequently disassociated himself from any commercial use of the song at this time, urging people to have some respect for the simple fact that someone had died, had a family and that this was not the time. I liked that.

I never got around to writing to the Queen. If I could write her one more letter, I would like to tell her that these last years have been our annos horribilis. That she got her political stance so wrong in the last two years of her life. That she should have spoken up for the ordinary person, allowed correspondence on the matter and been that bulwark against tyranny. Bob Moran’s take speaks volumes in this respect. You don’t control everything about your “legacy.”

The Queen, despite this particular dreadful slippage, did fulfil the covenant she made as a young woman, to spend her life, “whether it be long or short” in the service of her country. I think it is fair to say that she did do that. Seventy years is a long time to spend at work. However, the shadow that looms in the wake of her death is that of the son whose friendship with a certain Herr Klaus may lead to many proclaiming, Rotten punk style,

God save [us from] the King.

Thanks for reading, please do share with others who might find it interesting. As always, your comments are welcome below. With obvious exceptions, all pictures by the Sideways Thinker.