I must have been in the dunny when they called

A headline from the (London) Daily Telegraph:

Bringing back knighthoods will create more republicans, Australians say ahead of Prince George visit

"Australians say"? Which Australians? Nobody asked me.

But read the first three paragraphs:

When Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, decided to reintroduce knighthoods and damehoods after a hiatus of 28 years, the country’s republicans should surely have been up in arms.
The tradition of honours being bestowed by the Queen had, after all, been abolished in 1986 after Australians rejected it as an antiquated link to the Mother Country.
But the Australian Republican Movement has welcomed the move, believing it will be so unpopular that it will turn ever greater numbers of people against the monarchy.

So it is the opinion of the ARM – the organisation that completely failed to achieve its aims back in 1999 and has completely failed since then ever to get any traction – it is their opinion that the restoration of Knighthoods will drive Australians into the arms of republicans. It is not actually the opinion of Australians as such, just the opinion of those opposed to the monarchy, that is: those who have failed so dismally in achieving their aims.

It is unfair to blame reporters for headlines. It is unusual for any heading they pick to be used on publication. But the author of this article is Gordon Rayner "Chief Reporter" who has form in writing stupid articles.

Three metaphors for the price of one

On 4th December 2012 the SMH published A new monarch for Australia? from the AAP. The article discusses the expectations of the child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Although the only way to abolish the Australian constitutional monarchy short of armed revolution is by referendum, and although the Australian people have never voted Yes to a proposal to which they have already voted No, and although the Australian people voted No to a republic in the referendum of 1999, still for some reason our local monarchy-abolishers are supposed to be relevant.
But Australian republicanism might affect the extent of the new baby's ultimate dominion. Republican fever has gone off the boil since the defeat of the 1999 referendum, but is expected to resurface after the end of Elizabeth II's reign.
We have the metaphor of republicanism as a disease causing fever (couldn't agree more), which is now like a cooking pan taken away from the heat while simultaneously a submerged creature of the sea (a Kraken perhaps?). Doug Conway is "AAP Senior Correspondent".

The Queen and Tolkien

This story, about the Queen's visit to the Midlands, caught my attention.
Her Majesty unveiled a plaque commemorating her visit to the cathedral after a special Worcestershire-themed service led by the Bishop of Worcester the Right Reverend Dr John Inge, which included the audience singing an excerpt from JRR Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings to Elgar’s Land Of Hope And Glory before finishing with the National Anthem.
What, I wondered, could that have been?

The official press release from Worcester Cathedralwas not much help:
The audience, which included more than 300 schoolchildren, joined in a refrain based on words by J.R.R. Tolkien in celebration of Worcestershire, sung to Elgar’s tune of Land of Hope and Glory.
So not actually one of the poems in The Lord Of The Rings, and yes, that's right, the representatives of a Cathedral, discussing a Church service,  described attendees as "the audience". One of the congregation was a little more revealing on a Worcestershire community website:
We rehearsed a couple of things before The Queen arrived - three lines from J.R.R. Tolkien who said "Any corner of Worcestershire is home to me, as no other part of the world is", set to Elgar's tune of Land of Hope and Glory:
Worcestershire is our Shire,
Hill and vale and tree,
Every corner of this Shire is home to me.

And the National Anthem. The three lines were sung three times during the performance.
The line "Hill and vale and tree" (actually a half line) is from the hymn 'For the beauty of the earth' made famous by John Rutter, words by Folliot Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1917). As for the rest, it is derived from a remark by Tolkien in a letter to his son Michael, dated 18th March 1941, discussing his maternal relations, the Suffields, who were from the West Midlands and in particular Worcestershire.
Though a Tolkien by name, I am a Suffield by tastes, talents, and upbringing, and any corner of that country (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is.
Number 44 in: Humphrey Carpenter ed.,
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien,  George Allen & Unwin, 1981.