To be annoyed about the Jubilee

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I know I’m being miserable but I’m bloody pissed off about the sodding Jubilee! I went to sainsburys this morning, paid £1.68 a litre for petrol and then popped in to be confronted by bottles of champagne! The last thing I feel like doing is celebrating! I spent all morning cancelling non-essential DDs as things are really tight with the rise in energy prices and the increased NI contribution.
funny how this ‘magic money tree’ can be harvested to pay for this event when people are genuinely struggling and are told to ‘get a better paid job’! I have a bloody well paid job, thankyou, but am still feeling the pinch. I know people are going to say that the economy will benefit - but how? If people spend more then inflation will rise and the BOE will put up the mortgage rates! I despair!

I'll just be treating it like a normal bank holiday

And where do you stop?
No Christmas chocolates, Easter eggs, valentines, mothers day, fathers day,....

To be fair social media is full of bollocks about not celebrating mothers day too obviously because of those with no mothers, or those who want to be mothers but can't and all that kind of stuff.

I really hope small businesses (cafés, pubs, bunting makers) really get a lot of business through this to make up in some small part for a) having to work and b) the last few years.

I think she looks like a cloud's lifted now Philip has popped his clogs. Bet she's put up with some awful behaviour behind the scenes while he was alive. For years she was only ever pictured with a face like she was sucking a lemon. Every picture now seems to be her cracking a smile with the sparkle back in her eyes.

NHS hospitals are setting up food banks for STAFF who can't afford to live on their pay, people are dying because they can't access healthcare or pay for food or heat. The RF aren't coming off well recently.

Bit of a stretch to blame that on the royal family- ffs. Perhaps blame those responsible, our glorious (not) government.

Ignore it by all means (I'm sure you'll be no loss) but why can't other people enjoy themselves?

Besides, one of the main reasons she's survived like she has is because has access to incredible healthcare that most of us can only dream of - hardly worth celebrating IMO

So did her father. He died at 56.

On the other hand, my dad who was born ten years before the Queen in a mining community where they couldn’t afford doctors, lived to 99 with access to the same healthcare as all his contemporaries. It’s a lottery.

@GooglyEyeballs Massive historical event just for England?

That’s a really sad outlook. We are broke, we can’t afford to do anything or take the kids anywhere during the holidays. My local parish council are putting on a free event, it will be the only memorable thing the kids would do this half term, why spoil it with rain? They’ve spent time making costumes to wear with things from around the house and rehearsing dances that the local school will perform. We’ve budgeted £20 for the day, where else can we have a full day out for £20? The queen is almost irrelevant on the day, it’s the enjoyment that’s the important thing.

It is a wonderful achievement and we may never see anything like this again unless things go very wrong, so historically it is very special.

However I am sick of it already. It is only Monday. You can't move for tat and programmes. It feels like overkill, it is overkill. We should make it with a toast to the Queen and that should be it, the rest of it is just way too much. I can see why people that are fearful of the economic future may find it grating too.

I’m happy to celebrate this 70th Jubilee. But I do feel sorry for people who are having to work, when others are celebrating, I was talking to a shop assistant this morning and she was upset and annoyed being told she had to work, she had no choice! And she doesn’t get extra pay!

Sadly some people are just bitter, spiteful and nasty (insert rude word here).

The whole thing just makes me cringe with embarrassment. And I resent people accusing me of being surly and unpatriotic. I AM patriotic, but my pride and patriotism are based on our cultural achievements, not the royals. I like being from the island that produced Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Isaac Newton, Blake, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Ruskin and Pater, Charles Darwin, Dickens, Virginia Woolf, etc (to name just a few). This is only a small island, yet we have TWO of the greatest universities in the world! It is the place in which DNA was discovered, where the novel was invented, where the atom was first described, etc. As Bill Bryson wrote:

"Can there, anywhere on earth, be a landscape more packed with centuries of busy attainment?"

Frankly, I take more pride in the Beatles and David Bowie than I do in the royals.

Yeah, when I see the Tindall's at the Houghton Hall horse show horsing around with Wills it boils my piss.

never put a foot wrong herself

She has consistently signalled her disdain for public opinion in the case of the 'favourite son', most recently manifesting in allowing him a central role in front of the country's TV cameras.

Acted with integrity we could only dream of for our PM and cabinet

She acts most nimbly in her own interests and has never seen fit to make royal finances fully transparent.

On the other hand, my dad who was born ten years before the Queen in a mining community where they couldn’t afford doctors, lived to 99 with access to the same healthcare as all his contemporaries. It’s a lottery.

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It's not. Good healthcare leads to longer life. It's proven

I look at presidents round the world - including the US, Syria, Russia - and wonder why anyone wants an extra layer of politics. All of them have vested interests and their elections cost millions, including to the taxpayer over and above elections for senate, local representatives etc. For a US president to win they need to raise serious money from powerful institutions like the NRA. Or, like Assad and much of the world, presidency is hereditary just as a monarchy is, or tossed back and forth between rival groups (Pakistan, India).

I think northern Europe with its apolitical monarchies are just fine. When the money spent in the UK on numerous households and unnecessary foreign visits and houses - and numpties who just happen to be royal - are dialled down, then I'd prefer them to a President.

I will be saluting the Queen for her service. Not a job I would like - at the country's beck and call and little time off for good behaviour.

I can both feel desperate about the state of this wankpile govt/country and raise a glass to Her Maj. Obviously the whole idea of a hereditary head of state is inegalitarian nonsense but I quite like the queen. She has a certain something. Sadly not shared by the rest of her family.

And I don’t think it’s a massive historical event

Well it is, regardless of your wider feelings, it’s an event in the timeline of a monarchy that has been present in this country for centuries. It’s part of history regardless of individual perspective.

I look at presidents round the world - including the US, Syria, Russia and wonder why anyone wants an extra layer of politics

Well largely because there are multiple better examples out there. You've highlighted the most controversial three you can think of and clearly don't have much of the grasp of the varying presidential models out there.

The Queen enjoys poll ratings that politicians could only dream of! Must be doing something right. I’m not sure I hold much hope for her successors. A hard act to follow

I'm just staying in the comfort of my own home.
The thought of communal picnics combined with my anxiety is a terrifying thought!
I know I'm an anti social bugger, but it's part of my illness unfortunately.

Also.. it's fun watching the flag-shaggers do performative patriotism. Some cardboard cutout of the queen got nicked from a shop and the brexity types went bonkers. Said it was TREASON. lol.

I just find it a bit weird. Like saying congratulations, your dad has been dead for aaaaages.

Happy to join you in the killjoy brigade @PuppyMonkey , you've summed this up perfectly!

Sometimes I feel there must be something really great they're doing that I've just been missing - but no! The royalists really are just celebrating their servitude like happy little sheep

Love this