Dear Australian Head of State,
We would like to place ourselves at your mercy and request a stay of execution for our television program, The Chaser's Royal Wedding Commentary.
We, like Kate, are commoners, and were looking forward to celebrating her wedding to your exalted grandson with a few affectionate observations.
To ensure that our coverage was respectful, we were only planning to use jokes that Prince Phillip has previously made in public, or at least the ones that don't violate racial vilification laws. We've also filmed a joke about hunting grouse which we think you might enjoy.
We Australians are a simple people who don't often get to watch that kind of pomp. The last big wedding we had here was Scott and Charlene on Neighbours. We've asked around, and there are at least six people in this outpost of your empire who would quite like to watch our commentary.
Please consider our plea.
We have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servants,
Cheers,
The Chaser
PS: How serious are you about treason laws?
Candide
Interesting to observe the different strategies people employed in avoiding the wedding. I personally watched the footy - only one station out of five free to air that didn't cover the wedding ( a bit like being a person with five cars when you only need the veedub to drive round the corner to the deli).
Funny how serfs so eagerly embrace their masters.
The wedding comes from that small strata of people at the top represented in politics by people like Cameron, who has imposed a rip off austerity budget on that self- same British public that so adores its owners, to help the City of London, the home of the British financial establishment, pay off the disastrous consequences of the 2007-8 global financial meltdown, incurred by its part in the global game of Casino roulette that induced this disaster for so many poorer people, the world over.
But Chaser is on UTube
Absolutely hilarious and biting - specially the skit about people in war and disaster zones pretending to care about the tiara or frock.
And the ode to Elton is brilliant.
Did not watch one second of the show
I felt that poking my own eyes out with blunt sticks would have been more entertaining.
Instead I watched the great and amazing Aussie film Angel Baby that I downloaded last month.
It remains the best view of how schizophrenia destroys people and their families and Jacqueline McKenzie should have got greater acclaim for it.
Can't think what Andy's little girls were thinking though - perhaps Fergies' revenge.
Now I know what peace is I couldn't stay here without you
Angel Baby is indeed a lovely, forgotten film, Marilyn. It meant a lot to me as a teenager. I bought a copy recently for $4 at a 2nd hand store. Jacqueline McKenzie has my acclaim, and yours.
It's to the barricades now ...
These things are of enormous interest with the UK public and especially hugely influential in the Neighbours demographic and good luck to them. Britain is an unabashed constitutional monarchy with a proud parliamentary tradition. The monarchy is good for business. Real good. End of issue as far as I'm concerned.
The same around here. Wall to wall wedding all frigging week. There's been no escaping it. The Neigbours sector isn't confined to the UK after all. It's been abominable. I mean seriously bad. Consider the social tensions this appalling spectable builds in a tight confined space, just for a start.
Then along comes the Chaser with the offer of respite. A compromise. A real alternative to the Sydney v Carlton match.
Then what happens? The fucking Queen bans it. Or someone. Does anyone know which one by the way? One of them should stick their hand up for this.. Was it King Charles 111? For all we know it was the bride. Maybe it was the butler - like with the last one.
Are these people really this stupid? Who do they think they are? Don't they realise the chances are excellent they will be lampooned for this long after the wedding was just last week's yellow bin waste. I had a quick scan of the UK press to see if they had a take. A number of good articles including a full piece in the Economist. Some commenters are suggesting the Chasers commentary should have been fed to the BBC. It was unfair of the Aussies to keep it to themselves. Lambasting the royals has a long and noble tradition in the UK.
This is just so incredily stupid. No wonder they're desperate for fresh commoner blood. Too late by the looks of it. This royal fucked with Carlton v Sydney live broadcast. This royal is dead meat.
Too precious by half
I'm hard pressed to recall an occassion which generated so much collective unthinking claptrap from otherwise intelligent people as this one.
For starters, this was a private function. Hands up anybody who doesn't know the meaning of the word and if they, the royals were obliged to make it public property, any footage of the ceremony is their intellectual property to control as they wish. That should surely have a resonance with the intelligensia.
Any money change hands for the privilege of installing cameras in Westminster Abbey and if there was under what terms and conditions? Given the 2 billion audience it would have been bloody good value.
No, what this is all about is a collective sooky j'b that the media were denied a free kick against their favourite easy target. Get over it.
What's happened to debate in this place? Counter arguments anyone?
The only reaction I've had was positive, from David of all people .
Consenting royals in private
Never mind, Scott.
Every right wing conservative monarchist in the country agrees with you.
Arise Sir Scott
Er, don't think so.
As you well know Goeff I'm soaking wet left but I wouldn't be the first to find myself in the enemy camp occasionally. I'm not a monarchist, couldn't give a toss about the royals and like you got pissed off with the saturation coverage that interferes with the footy broadcast.. (You didn't miss much though which is some consolation I suppose. Bloody umpires.)
I've long advocated constitutional change but am fearful of what would replace the status quo. I'll go for a republic once I see the details and am happy with it.
It's not about that though; it's principle and I notice your article makes the same case as I but more eloquently and the arguments I have yet to see rebutted.
Laugh, Scott, laugh
It is an excellent article, as Christopher Pearson's columns usually are. Pearson is conservative, gay and Christian. I am none of those things. I am deeply respectful of all and always read what Pearson has to say.
But I'm still not buying. Of course they "own" the "property" and of course it's theirs to sell. I admit now I had a passing thought about how much a small patch on the gown would fetch on the open market. Nothing vulgar or in your face, mind you, like what the footballers or cricketers wear. Just a tiny "Repco" badge on the breast or maybe a small McDonald's "M" on the left back shoulder.
That's the law. It is also irrelevant. Nothing about what these people do is "private". We have just witnessed the wedding of a future head of state of our country that will likely produce the offspring of future heads of state and sorry, that fact jars with me, not least because I'm a seventh generation Australian. If they don't like being mocked in the streets then they should stay in the palace.
I agree with you about the "republic". Of course you need to see the details. I, for example, would most likely oppose an elected head of state and therefore opt for the status quo if nothing else was on offer. "Direct election" republicans feel the same. This division, which Howard exploited brilliantly, is the reason the "republic" is off the agenda in my lifetime.
In the meantime we can just laugh. That is what the Chasers were trying to do. There is nothing left for republicans to do. Just laugh at the royals and at each other. Otherwise it's not worth discussing.
My last word
unless someone comes up with a counter argument because all I've seen on this thread from it's inception, is opinion and a lot of it irrelevant.
"Nothing about what these people do is "private".
Don't you think this a bit cruel Geoff? After all they have no choice, they're born as celebrities. I've said this before, they're trapped in a lifestyle with nowhere else to go. Edward opted out in age when the press were far, far less venal than they are in this age and still was forced to go into exile. Diana who foolishly married into the family was hounded to her death.
My concern is as a humanitarian; I doubt I could find too much to like about the lot of them but they are people too and as such are deseving of consideration. "Just laugh at the royals", no I wont Geoff, they're helpless. I will however laugh at the arseholes who make a good quid out of their discomfiture and the pathetic people that really rule our lives. Think about it, if you had the choice would you swap places? I sure as hell wouldn't, and for a lot of my life I have struggled, and my future at an advanced age is uncertain. I would like this answered.
Christopher Pearson should be invited to our pages, a rare commodity, a right wing intellectual. I would value his contribution. "No man is wise by his own counsel."
who paid?
Not primarily publicly funded, in fact.
The actual direct costs of the wedding were split between the families, much like the rest of us, but with more of a bias toward the groom's rellies chipping in. It's claimed that the overall cost was less than a mil.
The public paid for the security costs, but they didn't employ any extra police or LifeGuards, just moved them about differently, so probably only a few mil in overtime etc.
The big claimed cost is the ludicrous ambit claim of £6billion in "lost production" from the extra day public holiday. This, like all such loss claims, would only be true if all those workers were so flat out working that they couldn't possibly squeeze another widget on the line to make up for the missing day, whereas in a UK economy that is currently more prone to layoffs and short day working than overtime, the actual net loss might well be close to zero.
Then you add back all the money spent on booze, street parties, booze, bunting and booze, and the economy more likely got a boost than a loss - particularly when you take into account things like NBC America flying 500 staff into London to cover the wedding.
So, the public did probably pay for it, but mainly in direct consumption of the aforementioned booze etc, which one hopes they enjoyed - looked like it from here.
What's on the History Channel?
They should have considered themselves honoured Australians could have been bothered to take the piss. This thing is of no interest at all now.
Cultural cringe
Watched Q&A last night and bugger me if Nick Minchin didn't endear himself to me further. Who'd have thought it?
Now those Ozzies that would push for a republic don't have the slightest clue what they would lose; our constitutional monarchy is a treasure and comes at great cost to the royal family who are virtual slaves as Edward found out just before the war and Charles, much maligned and to my eyes, not the sharpest tool in the shed but a decent chap condemned to hang around like a stale bottle of piss trying to find some meaning to his life while waiting for the old tart to pop off. Given the vitriol directed at him you'd think he'd like to say "fuck the lot of you I'm going to bugger off." but where could he go? George Harrison found it hard enough to get some privacy even after he bought himself an island. Couldn't even marry the love of his life and no choice but to marry a po faced girl with no "history". After all, any woman that had been around would inevitabley invite some arsehole to sell his story that she was a dud root or something. Poor Di my arse, from all I've gathered she threw herself at Charles, was a foul mouthed, evil tempered cow to her staff and there is doubt about her fidelity as well, as Adam Hills rather cruelly pointed out in his advice to Kate to be "nice to Harry's father, if you ever meet him". (You should watch some TV Fiona, there's is a lot of good stuff on it.)
Sorry about that, it was a long digression.
The point I'm making is that having a monarch as head of state is an ideal situation; it's the head of state you have without having a head of state if you get my drift.
After the event of '75 the incoming Liberal government took good care to ensure it could never happen again. The idea that the Queen could not have intervened is crap, she wisely chose not to. After all, it was Gough that appointed Kerr to the position and while he was that rareity, an intellectual politician, his conceit and poor judgement let him down. Kerr was a Tory piss-head and just what was in Gough's mind I can't imagine.
So just how do we go about becoming a republic and more to the point, is it advisable? Howard, a monarchist and though dim-witted, the consumate politician that he was saw an easy wedge to drive into republicans.
Let's say we had another referendum only this time only two options; monarchy or republic. My guess is that the latter could well carry the day but then what? Malcolm always argued that it was impossible to change the constitution but he was wrong, the Poms would cut us loose if we so desired and then we would have to work out a new constitution and method of governance. Next question, elect a president by popular vote or by parliarment? Guess what, you'd get a president elected by the great unwashed and wind up with something as bad as Anzac day or the dismal banal dirge that is our national anthem. Think about it, President Dick Smith or some drongo sports star. I'd rather have Justin Bieber.
As to the "Chasers" thing, it was ill conceived to start with. The crux of their success was their hilarious ability to infiltrate. Once that's gone it's all contrived and they are censored by the ABC here as one of their number pointed out last night on Q&A. Secondly, I don't blame Clarence House one bit; if it's not bad enough having to world stage one's marriage when for preference it should have been a quiet village church affair, one has to put up with being lampooned. Think about your wedding(s) because for someone to take the piss out of mine would be to invite a straight left to the beak followed by a right cross while they were blinking the tears out of their eyes. Of course I'm too old for that shit now but it doesn't matter because I've no intention of marrying again.
Udder disgrace
Scott, from memory I think (and I stress I think - it was the 70's after all, which came directly after the sixties, which for many was unfortunate) Kerr got the gig because he had assisted Gough's good mate/comrade Lionel Bowen in a messy divorce case, or something like that.
Lionel came out OK. Kerr played ball and therefore got rewarded with the GG gig, and 27 cases of Johnnie W - and then Kerr played ball with the udder side, I reckon he'd suck on anyone for a case of JW, but history tells the story as we know.
Anyway Lionel Bowen then went on to introduce his greatest achievement:
The Family Law Act 1975.
The '60s?
As with you me old wombat, after all this time memory does become hazy.
I can remember getting off the ship in Adelaide in '62 and waking up in Canberra ten years later with two small boys and a stuffed marriage.
Couldn't have done too much harm to myself however; still of (relatively) sound mind (though Fiona might well argue the point and call it "debatable"), the boys have turned out fine (and still talk to me), if a bit hippy but that's to be expected having a beatnik for a father.
Well thank Christ that's over; the wedding I mean. Now it's time to get back to the important stuff, the footy.
Getting back to the thread, here's Peter Hartcher banging on and totally reinforcing my idea of monarchic slavery.
The idea that a publically funded ceremony is entirely public property is bullshit. They had no other option and what the Brits got out of it was bloody good value. Worse, the public purse was entirely British so when he criticises Charles for pulling the pin on the "Chasers" he's talking rubbish.
On the subject of Charles, the reception he got was best described as desultory. How would he feel about that given the sacrifices his position has forced him to make? The abiding memory of Charles is as a small boy, not having seen his parents for six months greeting his mother. Hugs and kisses? Not a bit of it; bow to the queen; how cruel is that?
By the same token, I'm disappointed that our Dame Edna was snubbed. A charming and endearing lady gifted with the ability to take the piss out of an adoring public and at the same time leave them with the impression she was talking about somebody else, was reduced to commenting from the sidelines. Her floral presence would have certainly lightened the ceremony but I'm certain she'll get over it. Like me she'll be hardened to people being precious. In my case I can't buy a decent debate. You and I Justin appear to be in lockstep for most things and while Geoff pops up from time to time, he's culturally different and befuddled in his dotage. (By the way Geoff, can you remember what model "Sunbeam" is in your possession? I have a passing interest in vintage cars.)
Sunbeam 300ZX
I used to drive a Nissan 300ZX. I bought one of the first sold in Sydney. It was December 1989 and, as you can see, I helped define the nineties. It was even this colour for chrissake.
They used to be called Sunbeams. Or maybe it was Datsuns. Anyway, does that count?
Aha, a boy racer I see
'89 you say, god is it that long ago.
As to it counting, well not as far as vintage goes Geoff but yes with regard to your lucidity only I don't recall them being called Sunbeams. I was hoping you'd have a 40's Talbot or matybe the later Alpine.
dinky toys, batman comics
Just as well the wedding is some thing that resists satire itself, however feeble, any attempt to improve on the status quo is futile. The only thing that is already so redolent of laughs that not even the Chaser could improve on it. They could spend the money saved on current affairs.
Okham's Razor again, reversion to the prior form and the answer is to pop off chuckling and do something constructive for three hours. But from the Chaser team only kudos, another case of them thinking outside the square and recognising the opportunity that commentating on the event would be a promising exercise. However, this time their fame has preceded them and there is a posse, waiting to cut them off at the pass.
The bottom line
Pararphrased from Alan Pease' Politically incorrect jokes. Originally a Charles and Di:
These two will bypass Charles and Camillia as England's next sovereigns... they might be ours too, if they treat us nicely. With such an introduction, though, they've most likel brought Australia many years closer to republicanism than it was yesterday.
And what's this Rick, Fiona? I don't do Dick either... hmm, wrong place and time, such a line would certainly deflate the, um, royal lineage ?
Freudian Slap
A slip of the lip twixt the cup and the sip.. misreading the "h" a tad slack. Hope Wills remembers his aiches tomorrow!
If the youth of the monarchy want to engage the youth of their colony, a repeal of the censure would be a bloody good start!
(And yup, I've gotta lay off reading Crowley ;)
Realism
No, Rich, not in the least ironic. Completely and utterly realistic.
Bugger waiting for a republic, time for the revolution
If we can't take the piss out of the Royals, what use are they? This is being perceived by many as a cultural affront to the larrikiniism that's such a major component of the Australian psyche! More ranting to come
Wouldn't it be ironic if the downfall of our monarchy was attributable to such a silly censorship?