HURRAH!!! The repeat that just started on Freeview 304 HD is just the raw footage - no commentary from Edwards, Barker or anyone else!!! 
Recording
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"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Far too many foreigners there for my liking ... send all the blighters home and give us English a bit of peace, for goodness sake.
Thought Queenie was brilliant, though ... her obvious contempt for the whole she-bang was truly breathtaking ... what a star!
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The kit was designed by Stella McCartney.Comment
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Originally posted by scottycelt View PostFar too many foreigners there for my liking ... send all the blighters home and give us English a bit of peace, for goodness sake.
Thought Queenie was brilliant, though ... her obvious contempt for the whole she-bang was truly breathtaking ... what a star!
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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From the Opening Ceremony programme:
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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It was not broadcast live over here (US) as far as I know.Originally posted by mercia View PostComment
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That only begins to scratch the surface. The number of direct ancestors you have (meaning only those whose genes contributed to your being you - parents, grandparents, great-grandparets and the like) increases exponentially with each generation, so that the calculation for their number is 2 raised to the nth power, where n is the number of generations. For instance, the number of your great-grandparents (ie: three generations ago) is 2 x 2 x 2 = 6.* [By the way, I'm saying "you" and "your" all the time. This applies exactly equally to me.]Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post
Now go back thirty generations, to about 1066. The number of your direct ancestors in that generation only is 1,073,741,824, or about 1 billion. This is almost a thousand times greater than the population of Britain in the 11th Century, which is variously estimated at between 1-2 million, and significantly bigger than the total world population, which was some 400 million. And the same is true for you and everyone else. (By the way, it cannot be 1 billion for me and a different billion for you, but we'll deal with that in a minute.)
If we're more realistic about where our ancestors lived and how much they crossed geographic barriers, numbers of potential ancestors alive in any generation decrease. Most people are probably descended from a pool that was at most a third of the world's population, or about 130 million in 1000 AD. Bearing this in mind, the number of people who might have been our ancestors thirty generations back only fills about one ten-thousandth of the number of spaces on the ancestral chart! This tremendous shortfall of possible ancestors suggests that (1) almost anyone alive and reproducing in the geographical area in question in 1000 AD had a high probability of being an ancestor; (2) that persons descended from one geographical area (such as Europe and the Mediterranean) must necessarily have very many ancestors in common, and that (3) among any one person's ancestors, close intermarriage was inevitable. Equally inevitable is the remarkable proposition that everyone living in Europe in 1066 was an ancestor either of everyone of European descent living today, or of no-one at all. If there are descendants of Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Owain Gwynedd ap Gruffydd. Brian Boru or Macbeth living today, I am one of them. So are you.
Actually, the most recent time when everyone was either an ancestor of all in the current generation in Europe or an ancestor of none is much later than 1000 AD - probably more like 1300. Even 1600 would see most being ancestors. It all makes it difficult to rely on 'ethnic origin' as a meaningful concept beyond a purely cultural one.
So we really are closely related. Can I borrow a tenner till the end of the week...
[* see posts 502 and 513 for my (well deserved) public exposure for this gaffe.
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Last edited by Pabmusic; 28-07-12, 09:46.Comment
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I don't agree with you. God Save the King was a song of debatable origin, that audiences at Haymarket and Drury Lane Theatres began singing in 1745 as the Young Pretender's army got going. The Marshall Wade verse was certainly there, though presumably dropped pretty quickly after Prestonpans, when Marshall Wade was replaced by the Duke of Cumberland. But it was simply a popular (and in the circumstances, perhaps understandable) piece of anxious bluster, very much of its time. The song had certainly become a tradition at theatres in London, if the monarch was present, by the 1790s , because Haydn was delighted by it and persuaded Josef II to commission a Hapsburg equivalent (since 1918, used by the Germans - before then they used Heil dir im Siegerkranz, to the tune of God Save...!).Originally posted by mangerton View Post
Even so, it remained very much the monarch's anthem until perhaps the time of the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, which coincided with Britain's imperial apogee. However, it's never been given any sort of official status as a national anthem - no legislation, or vote in parliament, or even government regulations, for instance, though there are regulations about how it should be played in the Queen's presence.
The offensive verse has, therefore, never really been part of anything that could even be called the 'Queen's' anthem, let alone the 'national' one. But one notable contemporary 'anthem' spends several verses alluding to the defeat of English (well, Norman) knights by Scottish (well, Norman) knights, and then says "Those days are passed now and in the past they must remain". Hear hear!Last edited by Pabmusic; 28-07-12, 05:56.Comment
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Pabmusic, thank you for your dissertation on the NA. Points noted. What I dislike most about it is its inaccurate use of the words "rebellious Scots". They were of course Jacobites, and many Scots were aginst the rebellion. My own ancestors were by that time probably living in Ireland, whither they had been expelled when the borders were forcibly cleared after the union of the crowns.
Your post on ancestors is most interesting. I was aware of the population number around 1000 years ago, but not of the dates for common ancestry.
But no, sorry, you can't borrow a tenner.
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Sadly the Queen's attitude was not as healthy as you suggest Scotty. She'd been given the news that there has already been three applications for asylum before the first note of the ceremony and she was wondering how, with so many foreigners who can run very fast and jump high, we'd catch them if they didn't want to go backOriginally posted by scottycelt View PostFar too many foreigners there for my liking ... send all the blighters home and give us English a bit of peace, for goodness sake.
Thought Queenie was brilliant, though ... her obvious contempt for the whole she-bang was truly breathtaking ... what a star!
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True, and it is often reported (though I find it rather hard to believe) that some families in the Highlands still don't speak to each other over the disastrous affair.Originally posted by mangerton View Post
It is also true that there were quite a few Englishmen who rallied to the Jacobite cause, as for example ..
As for the National Anthem, the lyrics are so ludicrously dated it's surely time for a radical change. Personally I'd scrap the whole appalling dirge altogether and invite competition for a new royal anthem, but we've been through all this many times before, haven't we .. ?
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Most notably by the 'Big Yin'Originally posted by scottycelt View PostTrue, and it is often reported (though I find it rather hard to believe) that some families in the Highlands still don't speak to each other over the disastrous affair.
It is also true that there were quite a few Englishmen who rallied to the Jacobite cause, as for example ..
As for the National Anthem, the lyrics are so ludicrously dated it's surely time for a radical change. Personally I'd scrap the whole appalling dirge altogether and invite competition for a new royal anthem, but we've been through all this many times before, haven't we .. ?
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostIs there more than one???
I've decided not to bother with watching this extravaganza. 3 hours is just too much; on the other hand, not much is to be gleaned by the occasional look-in. I'd feel in all to many ways like an impotent gawping at an orgy!
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