State opening of Parliament today. Laudable or ludicrous?

Probably seems unnecessary today when any ideas about appropriate clothes seems old-fashioned in the extreme - except, possibly for uniforms. But personally, I think the symbols of office are vital and the sovereign wearing his/her crown in Parliament is an important element in tradition. HM can't really wear her crown with a nice frock and all the rest follows. Young person on Pointless yesterday thought the Battle of Waterloo took place in England in the 15th century. I despair.

Have you seen that brand new state coach that has been built. It was built in Australia and took ten years. Why Australia? It's called the Diamond Jubilee Coach.

Yes, Lillygran, I noted the reference to Waterloo having taken place in England in the 15th century on Pointless. I thought he was joking, but he wasn't! I agree that there is an important place for pageantry and tradition but I do think it goes a bit far these days. Perhaps a bit more effort should be made to educating the people properly about the nation's history, as opposed to dressing up the great and good like something out of a medieval comic opera.

What I find comic about it is the poor maj having to sit there and spout stuff that she probably doesn't agree with anyway. She is probably seething underneath sometimes.

I think she should just do a state opening with all the pageantry that draws the tourists and let the PM stand up and tell everyone what his government is planning.

A very good idea, Mishap.

Pageantry is great for tourism, irrelevant for parliament. Let her maj get on with entertaining visitors whilst politicians stop thinking they are the elite and remember it us US they are working for.

I love a bit of pageantry. We excel at it. i do agree with you Mishap about HM the Queen - she's probably thinking 'what now' as she is reading out her government's proposals.

I agree with everything said by Mishap and whenim64.

The powers that be have decided that basic history education taught in any detail will only consist of the past 2 World Wars. My least favourite period as I recall. So I'm really not at all surprised that the date wasn't known. I said to my son a few months ago 'Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred and 92' and he hadn't a clue what I was talking about!

It's the same over here janerowena - both of my granddaughters know an awful lot about the 2nd WW but very little of British history. My youngest granddaughter ended up sharing my fascination of Medieval England though but she was 'surprised we had so much history' lol (sorry, a grin emoticon just isn't enough)

It was enough to prompt me, several years ago, to write to the BBC and tell them it was about time they started showing some British history on tv in the way of drama or light entertainment - and they did!

It's sad, isn't it. I had to buy my son all the Horrible History books to compensate.

The Horrible Histories have taught my two DGC (now 4 & 7 and enormous amount of history, most especially the chronology of British history. I think they are superb!. DGD is determined to be a historian when she growsup - unless of course she decides to be a ballerina or run an art gallery, no, I do not know where that one came from.

DGS1 came out of his GCSE history exam the other day delighted that he'd had a question on the peasants' revolt, so there is hope!

Was the coach delivered late then? How much did it cost? How much did it cost just to ship it over from Australia? Who paid?
They are welcome to earn their keep by boosting tourism I suppose. Sigh.
I went to an interesting exhibition once on the continent about the way monarchs in the 18th century used to put on enormously extravagant parades of wealth and opulence to impress the populace with their glory. Those golden horse-drawn carriages originate from that I think. I don't know whether any other countries still have them

Elizabeth Windsor says

I expect she was pissed off that there were so few women amongst judges, reporters and other important people. What, one wonders, is not to get about women being in charge??

If things go according to plan, the next three monarchs will be kings. What a pity George didn't turn out to be Georgina.

I dont understand all this 'poor queen' stuff.
She has little enough else to do, and that goes for the rest of them.
Wave and smile, thats all they have to do, and they cant even manage the smiling bit most of the time.

Regarding the coach having been built in Australia: well, she IS the Queen of Australia too.

I think the whole crown and gown and pageantry is all part of tradition, and being a person who loves history, I don't mind it.

Here's the lovely story of its construction, design, and historical content.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/10873294/Queens-Speech-a-timeless-new-coach-only-eight-years-too-late.html

Better than a ludicrously expensive President.

I do think they ought to make a light-weight copy of the crown, after all, HM is not as young as she was and that is a very heavy weight to be wearing for all that time. How heavy are Swartz crystals? They could be very effective instead.

Maybe while our Queen is still with us we shouldn't change a thing. But after she goes to the great Throne Room in the sky then might be the time to update everything which surrounds the Monarchy a bit. But I hope we aways keep some pageantry and tradition as it means a lot to most of us.
I think there is much more to being Queen than waving and smiling.
Hoping we keep the monarchy for ever!