roaming_kate23

There is a documentary about King Charles.One of the interesting reveals from it was that when Charles found out that he was king, he was driving around Balmoral.He got a call on his cell phone while he was driving and the caller called him “Your Majesty”.

So much more modern than when his mother became Queen-she didn’t find out until quite a bit after the fact and it was Prince Philip that told her her father had died-and that she was Queen(and a fine one she was, too!)

The UK has a new Prime Minister!(they had an election .this was not one of those “I quit” situations like in the past.)

It is early days yet and the new PM, Keir Starmer just started today. We’ll circle back to this when he’s been at work for a while!

King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer.Not prostate cancer but they found it when they were doing a procedure  for that.

I wish the best for him.He ‘s starting right on  treatment and I hope it works.

King Charles’ coronation has got me interested in royalty.I watched The Young Victoria. I also have read books about Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II.

The Young Victoria underscored how domineering Victoria’s mother was and how scheming she was.At one point she is at a dinner party at her uncle(the King’s) house and he proceeds to read Victoria’s mom for filth. Mom leaves(she can’t handle being called out the way that she was.) Ultimately Victoria does become Queen(not long after her 18th birthday).

Interesting to me how(even now) there are so many nuances to who is in line to the throne.It seems like it is doesn’t need any explaining but yes, there is a lot to it.Add to that, being King is something that Charles has been preparing for his entire life.He has always had a clear path to being King..however I certainly heard plenty of comments over the years that they should skip over Charles and go to William.And then you have the drama with Harry but that could be a whole post in and of itself.

Watched a video(from a local) about the preparations for King Charles’(feels weird to say that even after all this time!) coronation

My parents were wondering why it takes up to a year for a coronation.I dare say that there is a lot of planning that goes into it. It’s probably evolved from the first time they ever had a coronation.

There is lots of touch up work being done and Union Jack flags(though not as many as you would think but there’s still time.) Parks have been closed down as staging areas and also for media(and there will be media there for sure!) For the first time in a while a coronation is on a Saturday. The Monday after is a Bank Holiday so everything will be closed(and getting around London on the day of the coronation is gonna be tricky.

To get seating you have to get there early(and stay). Also., crown flag toppers in gold.No expense has been spared although word is that with the financial crisis in the UK King Charles wanted to keep things a little more low key.

However, this is a coronation!The first one that has happened in *my* lifetime .Elizabeth was Queen when I was born and for a lot of people she is the only Queen that they have known in their lifetime. There are stamps with King Charles on them.There’s going to be money(bills and coins) but that’s going to take a bit longer. Amazed that they can get the stamps out so quickly but maybe there’s less leeway there and they have had them ready for a while.

On the day there will be a flyover by the RAF. Much differently than in the past, the carriage that they are coming back from Westminster Abbey in has air conditioning. With how unpredictable the British weather can be, that’s probably a good idea.

The other part of it was a trip to Fortnum And Mason which is high end, and the prices reflected that. The least expensive thing was a tea towel, to give you some idea! The breadth of items they had was amazing- tea pots,chocolate,honey,cookies,reusable bags(which given King Charles’ being an environmentalist ) makes sense.

I’m about halfway through Prince Harry’s book and..it’s a whole thing.Good for him for writing the book even if it alienates him from his family.Here’s the thing:

The Queen was emotionally distant to his dad(Charles) and Charles was the same way with him and Willian especially when it comes to Diana’s death. If you read the book you’ll see what I mean..but I watched the interview that he and Meghan did with Oprah a while back. That was eye freaking opening.Putting it mildly. The most eye opening part for me(and I haven’t gotten to it yet but it was talked about in the Oprah interview is that certain people in the family(and I do believe it was Charles) was concerned that he(Harry and Meghan)’s kids would look mixed race.

That turned out not to be the case.Technically, they *are* mixed race but they don’t look it-have you seen pictures of them?They are ALL Harry! Redheads,both,too!

Fell down a rabbit hole and started watching music documentaries ,specifically music from the 80’ and 90’s. I was coming up in the 80’s and was a fan of Duran Duran back in the day I’ve talked about that quite a bit..I was not appreciated by my teachers(especially my teachers) and classmates.I knew who all of the other Duran Duran fans at my middle school(and there were not a lot of us.) I was very into my fandom, posters all over my room and whatnot.

As I said, my teachers thought I was more into Duran Duran than school and they weren’t wrong..viewing this through the prism of 2023 ..yeah. But it has to be said that there were issues with my teachers(not all of them were nice..I did have a teacher who had been a Beatles fan back in the day so she got it for the most part but even she got exasperated with me once in a while.)

During the late 80’s and 90’s I was devouring music magazines from the UK..I would go out of my way to get imported magazines(this was before Barnes & Noble and later Borders-GOD I loved Borders!) so I would have to go somewhat farther afield which was fine with me(I liked a challenge).Select Magazine,Vox, Melody Maker, and the NME(all of which are no longer around. I remember when Melody Maker turned into a teenybopper mag right before it closed. That was a sad decline.

I listened to Rodney On the Roq who was on KROQ for years.He’d been around for a long time before he had a radio show .That was where I found out about all of the new bands from the UK.That and reading all of the UK music magazines of course.He was the first DJ to play Duran Duran and is probably one of many reasons they got as huge as they did back in the day.

That was a time when I was going to a lot of concerts-Suede, Charlatans and Happy Mondays at San Diego State(the Suede show was at their smaller venue, and the a/c was broken..not the first time I have run into broken a/c..I remember a Franz Ferdinand show at the House Of Blues-in the summer- where the a/c was broken and it was *still* one of the best shows that I have ever been to! I should do a post about the vest(and the worst though there aren’t that many of those) concerts that I’ve been to.

Ride were one of my discoveries..liked their music it was what was called “shoegaze”..But when I went to their concert ..yeah not so much.Later I found out they were having issues within the band(which would explain a lot of things..also the fact that their support band had a nice tour bus and they were in..a church van.That was so WTF.

The Queen was trending yesterday.Because it was 70 years since she became Queen. I always freak out when I see someone trending because either a) they’re dead or b) it’s for something questionable. But today it was a good thing! And 70 years is a long time.

Victoria made it to 63, almost 64 years which is a long time. Fair to say she was as well loved as Elizabeth is, if not more so.She also was up against the same sort of old white men that Elizabeth did when *she* became Queen. Hashtag girlpower. LOL.

I mentioned that I went to the British pub on India street the other day and also went to the little grocery store that is across a courtyard . I do love my British snacks, and they have a lot of them, though I did wonder if they are having some supply chain issues because there are a lot of things that they *didn’t* have though if I was really desperate I could go to Cost Plus because they have some British candy but they don’t have some of the other snacks(like Twiglets which are an acquired taste, to say the least.They are coated with Marmite and to some people they might taste burned but I..like it isn’t quite the word..I have acquired a taste for it, shall we say.)

Of course they have several types of tea(it’s a British grocery store so it is about to be expected) and also some hot food(the same sausage rolls that they serve as an appetiser at the pub..and let me tell you, they are really good! Something that I order pretty much every time I go there because they are TASTY AF.

As I mentioned the other day in my trip report that we went there on the way home from the airport(waiting for traffic to calm down), the store is the only one left in the area that does British foods almost exclusively. There used to be a lot, there was one that a friend of my mom’s ran but it’s been gone for a few years now. I don’t think Shakespeare’s store is the OG but it’s the longest lasting and it would be a shame to lose it. Unlike, say, the British Foods store(which had several stores and all of which closed after a time.)

So here was the thing with the British Foods store:The people who ran it(at least one woman) was always so rude when I would go in there.It was like she only wanted British people to shop at her store(even my mom thought she was intimidating the couple of times she went there. Sometimes there would be another lady there and she was nice, but most of the time it was the rude lady which was a turnoff for sure.)

Way too much going on-I schedule one thing and then everything happens.

Yesterday(last night) they had the interview with Harry and Meghan on CBS.

Very eye opening. And I can see why they wanted to get as far away from it as they could. They will be so much happier where they are right now.And maybe, down the road, the Royal family will try to make things right but(apart from the Queen who Meghan said she was very good friends with ). They’re a bunch of racist,classist assholes.Who knew what was going to be discussed in that video-talking about how they are so shocked. Yeah freaking right!

The most explosive thing was a certain person in the family being worried about the colour of Archie’s skin. Well, he(Archie) is all Harry! Do I feel bad about Archie growing up not knowing he is related to royalty?Well they can’t shelter him forever..but eventually he’ll be able to google himself and the truth will be revealed.

What I don’t like is that every little move is going to be covered by certain media-the Daily Mail is, by far the biggest offender.Piers Morgan has made no secret about how much he dislikes Harry and Meghan. He’s also only too happy to get stories from family members(especially Thomas, Meghan’s father, and her stepsister who is LITERALLY a evil stepsister(she told people that Dora was their house cleaner ...that right there there speaks MANY volumes about her.).I’m kinda amazed that Piers did not have an interview with one or both of them in the run up to the interview. Shockingly, Piers Morgan may have some scruples.On the other hand, it doesn’t take much for him to rant about Harry and Meghan on a *good* day.