Britain should change its national anthem

One rather annoying issue is that its called the National Anthem...

Not really fussed about the national anthem but the union flag is another thing altogether.
The first born son of our royal family is given the title 'Prince of Wales'. Henry VIII, one of England's greatest monarchs had Welsh ancestry (his great grandfather was born on Anglesey), yet there is no concession to the Welsh on the Union flag.
Regards,
Steve.

Steve

Yours is nicer anyway - as is ours!

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by JamieL_v2:

Actually just on the lyrical point, my objection to the current national anthem is that it is not representative of the nation, it is almost entirely about one person, and a person who is in a position of wealth, and some power, who is a non elected individual. For that reason I will not stand to honour that individual.

That person is a good source of revenue, many tourists come to this island to see the past. Otherwise, you would be poorer by a couple of billion dollars per year.

Jamie, These two lines bring visions of nuclear bombers waiting to take off at sunrise!
Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

quote:

Originally posted by Blueknowz:
Jamie, These two lines bring visions of nuclear bombers waiting to take off at sunrise!
Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

That is very probably because there have been two films made about nuclear war called 'Dawn's Early Light' and 'Twilight's Last Gleaming'.

Peter: Perhaps if revenue generation is a criteria, then we should have a number of anthems representing different successful businesses.

Basically shouldn't a national anthem be representative of the nation, and not just one individual?

I will say that as designs, I think both the 'Union Jack' and 'The Stars and Stripes' are rather good designs. There is some interesting history on it on Wikipedia:

Union Jack Wiki

But I do recognise it does not represent Wales.

Some years ago whilst at the RFH to see the RPO doing Beethoven's Ninth (poorly), I remained seated for the National Dirge (being an atheistic republican) and was rewarded by an ugly German woman in a fox-fur behind me slapping me with her rolled-up programme and muttering "Das Kvaeen, Das Kvaeen!" at me.

I managed to restrain my impulse to punch her stupid lights out.

During the interval, I found myself amongst the first patrons at the bar. As I sat waiting for my drink, in rushed my assailant, determined to get there before the rest of the hoi-polloi. As I watched, she tripped up on the carpet and fell flat on her face.

Unkindly, I found myself indulging in a joyful smirk...

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:
Some years ago whilst at the RFH to see the RPO doing Beethoven's Ninth (poorly), I remained seated for the National Dirge (being an atheistic republican) and was rewarded by an ugly German woman in a fox-fur behind me slapping me with her rolled-up programme and muttering "Das Kvaeen, Das Kvaeen!" at me.

I managed to restrain my impulse to punch her stupid lights out.

During the interval, I found myself amongst the first patrons at the bar. As I sat waiting for my drink, in rushed my assailant, determined to get there before the rest of the hoi-polloi. As I watched, she tripped up on the carpet and fell flat on her face.

Unkindly, I found myself indulging in a joyful smirk...

Presumably she understood "Schadenfreude"

quote:

Originally posted by Joe Bibb:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:
Some years ago whilst at the RFH to see the RPO doing Beethoven's Ninth (poorly), I remained seated for the National Dirge (being an atheistic republican) and was rewarded by an ugly German woman in a fox-fur behind me slapping me with her rolled-up programme and muttering "Das Kvaeen, Das Kvaeen!" at me.

I managed to restrain my impulse to punch her stupid lights out.

During the interval, I found myself amongst the first patrons at the bar. As I sat waiting for my drink, in rushed my assailant, determined to get there before the rest of the hoi-polloi. As I watched, she tripped up on the carpet and fell flat on her face.

Unkindly, I found myself indulging in a joyful smirk...

Presumably she understood "Schadenfreude"

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will be a good introduction.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen das vorld!

Entschuldigung an meine deutschen freunde für diesen schlechten geschmack englisch witz

quote:

Originally posted by Mike-B:


Entschuldigung an meine deutschen freunde für diesen schlechten geschmack englisch witz

Hi Mike,

no reason for offering an excuse, your story is very funny .

The "Euro-English" looks very strange to me, I prefer the original, although it is often very difficult, especially the pronunciation ( e.g. bowl vs. owl ) .

Best wishes

Manfred

I'd quite like "Bhindi Bhaji" by Joe Strummer

Hallo Manfred, auch fur mich mit deutschen wortern zusammengefugt.
These next 3 weeks I am trying to speak Hindi

You can see why the St Davids flag is not included

To get back on topic, God Save the Queen is jolly British and always makes me feel proud whenever i hear it!

Debs

I prefer the one chosen by Liechtenstein

"Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring
May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King "

Why is this 'racist'? And if it is, against who exactly? And why get bothered about ancient history?

A little bit about that history...as I remember it, forgive me if some of the detail is sketchy.

This verse was added in response to the Jacobite Rebellion.

By then 'Great Britain' existed as a (sort of) united nation in law, brought about by 1707 The Act of Union, while in fear of The Scottish Parliament and Stuarts once again allying themselves with our friendly French neighbours ("...no, no, really, we won't get involved in anything like that again", claimed the Scottish. "Oh well, just to be on the safe side...").

The name Great Britain by the way was coined by James I, who was of course.....Scottish!

For many Scottish people this was a life saver. Literally rather than figuratively. The Scots had been f*cking each other over again for some time (ask the MacDonalds how they feel about the Campbells and why...), they had been through years and years of bad harvests plus, for some reason, they'd thought establishing a colony in Panama was a good idea and were surprised when it proved to be very expensive and a little tricky to maintain...and like it or not, the Scottish economy was dependent on (the now) wealthy England big time. The opportunity to wipe out their debt (the economy, such as it was, was completely f*ck'd in a major, big time, credit crunch style with no public purse to raid for salvation) was a huge relief.

The Church and The Law in Scotland were initially unconvinced, self interest prevailed though when both were told they could continue in their own right...Highly moralistic those Scottish institutions you see.

OK, so Joe Public didn't like it but there would be no Scotland at all had this not happened. Probably.

By 1745 we were on our second German King (George II), who was equally as inept and distant (again literally) as his father, George I. These two delightful souls came to the throne via the Act of Settlement which had passed the throne to Electress Sophia of Hanover. (Surely you've heard of her? Grandaughter of James I, the Scot?) Mainly to stop the Catholics ever being able to be monarch again (they still can't).

Anyway, the country had got itself into a bit of bother recently. Walpole had governed pretty well for sometime and peace had broken out almost allover. Bit boring though wasn't it? The rest of Parliament wanted to have a good old fashioned bunfight so after some pretty pointless biff ups involving Spanish, Prussians, Silesia and the Austrian Succession...We finally got to square up to our best friends, the French again. Hurrah! (And for anyone looking for a new anthem, this is where 'Rule Britannia' came from after knocking the French and Spanish navies about a bit, so if you elect for that one you could be accused of being 'racist' against other European nations too)

However (and I'm getting to the point now), we then took a bit of a pasting ourselves, making invasion by the French a very real probability. Our army was stuck on the Continent and a French army was gathered in Dunkirk ready to sail over the Channel while our armies were busy elsewhere. Waiting with them was Good Old Bonnie Prince Charlie, that Scottish hero much lauded by patriots. I say Scottish, he was about as Scottish as a croissant covered with Camenbert cheese served with a Croque Monsieur, washed down with a nice bottle of Bordeaux, however he claimed to be as Scottish as his dad, James Stuart (the one who grew up in and was educated in France and I think spent most of his life in Catholic Rome, although I could be mixing up my Jameses). The invasion never went ahead as planned, I think it was the weather that saved us again(?) But urged on by his Highland supporters, Prince Charlie landed anyway, was a little taken aback by what he saw as uneducated, unsophisticated savages. The Scots were surprised that the Big Girls Blouse hadn't brought the French army with him too.

But the two 'forces' combined anyway and assaulted Edinburgh. This was taken seriously in England, resulting in a major run on the Bank of England. The army marched south, crossing into England, took Carlisle and headed for Manchester then turned for an undefended London. They got as far as Derby before turning back, most of them being a little suspicious about how easy it had been so far. The English Army got itself sorted, chased them back up North and then gave them a bit of a bloody nose at Culloden. OK, so maybe 'Butcher' Cumberland went a bit far in his treatment of prisoners (but then he was the son of George II, so German, not English...).

This all basically sorted The Union as we now know it, got rid of the Caholic 'threat' and screwed the French, which was a bit of a bonus.

Not surprising it was added into the National Anthem I guess. But as has been pointed out the anthem is addressed to the Monarch, a German, about a factual act, the defeat of a rebellion against lawful parliament as subscribed to by Scotland (with large numbers of Scottish MPs sitting and representing Scotland in that Parliament) by a Scottish army led by a Frenchman which had laid waste to much of England having allied itself (again) with our greatest national threat, The French, and almost forcing the second greatest one, Bankruptcy.

So, tell me, why is this racist? Why continue to claim it is an 'English' bullying Big brother thing thing against the plucky and morally upright Scots when the English had no more to do a with it than the French, teh Spanish, the Scottish, a German monarchy and in reality was part of the continuing, ridiculous struggle of two faiths united in their shared belief in Christ and hatred and fears of each other's methods of carrying out the mechanics of such. And why was it wrong to put it in a song two hundred and sixty four years ago??

To say it is an English vs. Scottish thing simply ignores history and I suspect that's because most people have no idea of the history and it's much easier to jump on a fashionable editorial or byline suggesting it's 'racist', rather than look it up and see for themselves?

And before anyone relates the feeling that maybe I protest too much, I have nothing against the Scots. In fact I married a Jock and being a Glaswegian she'd be first in the line should they ever start issuing passports. (Whoops )

quote:

Originally posted by Blueknowz:
You can see why the St Davids flag is not included

Not really.

JamieWednesday, very good point, I stand corrected. I had only heard it referred to out of context.

It still stand by it being a bloody awful tune, and not being about the nation, but one person.

Considering history, that one person is a German descendant but I would defer to JamieWednesday's historical knowledge on how German they really are, tenth generation I think.

HM is the Head of State. As such, she gets a mention in the National Anthem.

jamie - top post.

M

I know I am not supposed to post on this, but:


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace


M.

An interesting post Jamie - thank you.

Wish all history was presented so clearly.

All things considered I dont think it is a bad tune when played well, the words are a bit suspect.

Pity when we thrashed the French we did not pinch their tune.

Jamie,

quote:

History supplies little beyond a list of those who have accommodated themselves with the property of others.

~Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary
AND

quote:

History is written by the winners.

~Alex Haley

From a Scotsman who does not have any more wish to be called Jock/Jocko/Scotch than you would being called Nigel/ Pereguine etc
I'm sorry for not having enough knowledge of Scots history to take up your argument as I am of the generations of Scots who were not taught Scottish history in School as the curriculum only allowed British(English)history!
If I sound like a Scot with a chip on my shoulder then I appologise,but I do take offence at a National Anthem that demonises a section of that very nation.
regards
Charlie.

Charlie I agree with everything you say. I also hate being called Jock. However I don't think you need to know anything about Scottish history to criticise this monstrosity of a song as it's obvious to anyone with even half an ear that it's one of the direst, most miserable dirges ever written.