Is this still going on?
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I’m a living link to the 1970s.
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I have a certain grudging respect for old Philip
He was born into a weird royal family that was imposed on Greece and was so bad at kinging that the Greeks got rid of them.
Despite that he served with distinction in the Royal Navy during WWII even though he could have taken a cushy job out of danger.
Although he was quite racist, it seems to have been racism of the era he was born in, rather than actual ill-feeling towards other races.
At least he wasn’t on TV whining about how tough he had it, like his grandson.
Given the choice between Gritty, the Queen, and any recent US head of state I think there is a very, very strong case for Gritty.
Don’t get my hopes up.
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There may well be national mourning… for losing a chance to insult Philip to his face.
whining about racism is definitely worse than the actual racism /s
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I grew up in Canada, live in Australia, and I also do not give a rat’s ass about the royals.
Buuuuuutttt…
I look at Canada’s neighbours and the Hollywood celebrity machine, and I’m struck how in the absence of undeserving “famous because they’re famous” celebrities like the royals, people will struggle to invent them. I wonder if maybe it’s better to assign some undeserving folks celebrity status, train them from birth for the job, and be done with it.
Tongue mostly in cheek. Mostly, apart from marvelling at the weirdness of HumanOS.
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Newsflash;
‘Why’ he was racist or whether or not “he meant it” doesn’t fucking matter.
A bigot is a bigot; nobody gives a fuck about their reasons ‘why.’
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Not to mention the fact that “of his era” doesn’t fly, because a) plenty of people “of his era” weren’t racist dicks quite literally acting as colonial overlords and b) he was also of this era and had plenty of time and opportunity to educate himself to not fucking be a colonial overlord racist shit.
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They seem to have missed the simple fact that national public broadcasting as a propaganda tool does not work that easily more. There are just way too many other options available to your public if your programmes are too boring.
And beyond the message that the man was dead what else was there to say? Since the BBC couldn’t give any critical or even balanced news all they could do was regurgitate the same bland short biography over and over again.
I mean, I was a bit miffed when I missed Richard Osman’s House of Games friday finale but, you know, netflix… 
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I ended up having to watch al-jazeera-world to find a news channel on it that had actual news…
I dont get why the BBC thought it was a good idea to show the same show on all its channels, this si the age of sky, netflix and any number of other wise to didtch the bbc, fine, having something on the news about him, but even on CBBies they had huge banners announcing it.
From what I know, it is.
Somebody should explain citizen Georg Friedrich von Hohenzollern, that he is not german Kaiser and never will be (unless something really weird and unforseeable happens), and that he just can´t just demand stuff as he pleases.
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Charming…
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Something in us definitely seems to be wired to need a person to “get behind” or be enthused about. As though in the absence of true tribal leaders, that instinct or need goes off the rails and latches on to whatever burned out hard case is on TV or movie screens a lot. Some more than others, too. Some people seem to have more of an emotional need filled by celebrity watching than others, hence gossip magazines and blogs and such. I wonder what the origin of that is.
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He didn’t join the dark side in the 1930ies, I’ll give him that.
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Until you posted that link, I was not aware of it. Which says a lot about German media and their interest in their former monarchs. Other nations’ monarchs aren’t really more interesting, but it’s cheap and easy filler to just translate and repeat what British reporters write than to go out and actually investigate rich snobs whose only source of celebrity is that Great Great Granddad was nobility.
On a side note, I actually saw this Georg Friedrich von Hohenzollern at a Dorffest (village festival) as he was the invited guest of honour. It reminded me of seeing some down on his luck C-list celebrity, only less interesting. It was demeaning to see a person try to cash in on his family name, but also demeaning to see the villagers go all deferential and reverential to him. Me being an American expat, I decided to simply ignore him before I did something rash and insulting, as that (rightly) always makes me look bad as well.
All this to say I find it very hard to care less about aul’ Phil finally kicking the bucket, and it’s a good thing I am not visiting the UK in the near future lest my loose tongue get me in trouble.
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He might make out that he’s from 1850, but he’s actually younger than Kylie.
But to get back to the matter at hand, the BBC are probably trying everything to avoid upsetting the establishment at the moment, since they’ve been given a new Director General who used to be a (regional) deputy-chairman in the Conservative party, and has said he wants the BBC to “find a better balance of satirical targets rather than constantly aiming jokes at the Tories.”.
On top of that, former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is tipped to be made the head of Offcom (roughly the equivalent of the FCC), which is basically like making the head of Fox News the new head of the FCC.
Basically the Tories have the knives out for the BBC, which they accuse of having an incorrigible left-wing bias*, and now they have all the power, they’re unlikely to hold back.
*Of course, many accuse the BBC of having a rightwing bias, and it does, but when they employ everyone from Jeremy Clarkson to Iggy Pop, you’re going to get quite a range of viewpoints.
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The funny thing is that while Clarkson definitely leans small-c conservative he isn’t an ideological Tory at all. He certainly appeals to the political correctness gone mad crowd but on the other hand he’s an EU federalist and vocally anti-special relationship.
By which I’m guessing I’m trying to say that the entertainment part of the BBC is mostly irrelevant to accusations of bias. The problem is the political part that is quietly subservient to the government or even outright manipulative (such as with the diverse Question Time audience plants)
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Yeah, I guess the entertainment wing leans mostly left but the news wing felt very comfortable hiring the likes of Andrew Neil, a right wing extremist and member of the Adam Smith institute (whose ideas even Adam Smith would be aghast at) without giving itself pause.
One of course recollects the BBC’s doodles of Christmas trees on people’s files…
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The entertainment wing leans liberal and cosmopolitan, but never leftist, especially when it counts.
The fact that this political position, which could be approximated to David Cameron in his “hug a hoodie” phase is seen by anyone as left-wing shows exactly how rabidly reactionary the London press is.
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