100,000 fans watched the AFL finalists parade through the streets of Melbourne today. How different will it be for the Queen next month, wonders Barry Everingham.
David Flint’s latest offering on his personal website is a finale at the last night of the BBC’s Proms concerts from Albert Hall…oops! Dave, sorry, Royal Albert Hall. He goes over the top — and it has to be asked: has he been to The Proms and witnessed obsessed middle-aged Englishmen and half pissed Hooray Henrys , along with a smattering of foreigners, making idiots of themselves while they furiously wave Union Jacks?
Flint really needs to get his head out of wherever he keeps it; and we are too polite to mention where we believe it spends its life — when it’s not at the hair dressers, that is.
For a man of his age to get all breathless referring to the British national anthem God Save the Queen as Australia’s (and Canada’s, New Zealand’s – and, wait for it, “other realms”) royal anthem is really drawing a very long bow. We know how Flint is careless with figures — like the ones he has dreamed up about the number Face book “likes” ACM get. But let’s ask the good professor how many Australian kids still at school – private or public – have ever heard the national anthem of the Poms, let alone know its words.
Can they identify Indonesia’s national anthem, or Russia’s?
They’d probably identify more with The Star Spangled Banner.
And, while we are wandering through the Flint Fantasy land, he’s again on his old canard that the Governor General of Australia is our head of state. He trots out the specious reference to a section of the Crimes Act which names the Governor General as a “protected person” for the purposes of the Act.
Of course the person of the Governor General, whomsoever he or she happens to be, will attract top security when travelling abroad as Australia’s first citizen.
If, in fact, the best Governor General we have ever had, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, is our Head of State — why were the guests at Flint’s recent luncheon, which she graced with her presence, subjected to the singing of God Save the Queen?
I took myself off to watch the teams of the AFL Grand Final (go Collingwood!) through the streets of Melbourne today and couldn’t help but ponder how different it will be when the octogenarian Australian head of state and her nonagenarian husband are here next month on a one day visit.
The ABC reported 100,000 fans turned out for the footballers.
Perhaps mathematician Flint might give us his take on how many will turn out to see the pair of foreigners who will be in our midst for just a few “royal” hours?
