I am thinking about knighthood and similar honours

General Discussion
1

It is the morning after a violent storm.


No need to describe this incident as many of you will have


noticed the damage it caused.


Me, I am thinking about my childhood and being afraid of the dark. Now I have time to think and research, and to ask questions about some of the dark things I have escaped....and the


ones which I have faced.


I am wondering how people get honoured by the monarchy?


When I realised who is on that special list of special people


and I like many could have been a victim



Before honours are awarded is there not a dynamic research?


Are these people checked?





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2

Ok, this made me laaauugh, lol.

3

We both love cats and now share our lives with Pujols, Grizzle, Tito

and Ginger.....we take care of some wild ones too.

4

Yes animals are far more loyal than people as a rule.

5

I have touched one but had no interest in taking it off the shelf, the Haddon Library, my old faculty library has a couple. Such books are in a restricted access room for work there and no lending. Worth a few bob indeed.

6

In our local antique auction a first edition in English of The Origin of the Species is coming up in their sale of 4 and 5 August. Their estimate is about 50,000 euros plus commission if anybody here is interested!!!

7

Plus Shirley, they are far more loyal than humans as a rule.

8

That's the devil I meant...

9

But I thought they had locked Sarkozy up.

10

Just checking ! :-)

11

Saw the film Shirley, you are quite right to be worried ;-)

12

Charles did not but several of his progeny and grandchildren got titles, Stephen Keynes (son of Geoffrey, John M's brother, and Margaret Darwin) my former next door neighbour never has but then the whole family is full of Wedgwoods, Vaughan Williamses, Galtons, Foxes and Crofts as well as Darwins and Keyneses with so many titles it is almost a relief to see one without. They weren't so generous in Charlie's day though, academics were still commoners unless born noble and got little more than a pat on the back. He didn't even get that with the Archbishops of Canterbury Charles Longley and Archibald Tait toward the end of his life having it seriously in for him. No way Q Vic was going to even be seen looking in his direction.

13

Vic, better do something about that lisp, we all know Eve O'Lushian was a married woman ;-)

14

MY reply is missing....BUT if it turns up it is riddled with grammatical

errors which I tried to edit and the whole thing disappeared.

Just like the dividing line between just enough and far too much...

GOOD and bad so close to each other.

Norman can you imagine any normal human being telling a full

courtroom and half of the world that they have been raped?

What would it feel like...can you imagine?

15

So evolution is a myth?

16

When I was in short pants (do any children go through this stage these days? used to be a rite of passage at one time) one of the first 'foreign expressions' I became aware of was 'Noblesse Oblige'. I thought this was rather nice and even at the the very bottom of the social heap, and any lower I would have had to start digging, and I did have a probably misplaced respect for my 'betters'.

Somehow though they represented what I felt and hoped life would be and even could be. I always thought then and now, that somewhere, someone needs to set standards for the rest of us to look up to and try and emulate. If we don't have the people to set the standards where do we get them from? Set them ourselves?

I fear that this is precisely what has happened, we have opened doors to reality, we have discovered that heaven forfend, no-one is perfect, and many are not even close. Through the trash media we have become enamoured of rubbish, 'reality' TV, sleaze and gossip - tell me the worst about people, don't bother me with anything good.

We are not only surprised that people have feet of clay, we positively revel in it. We delight in seeing our icons destroyed and our values de-valued. What do we offer as alternatives? Nothing.

How can we wonder and tut-tut all over the place when we are all as imperfect as each other? What standards are left for parents to impart to their children, when we spend half our lives seeemingly destroying those we thought we had?

How much truth is in the accusations? How many are climbing onto the media-payments bandwagons? How many will forget and deny, and contrive 'truths' and half-truths and innuendos to get to the cash?

Would we recognise truth, honour, decency or even common humanity now it jumped up and hit us in the face - or would we all be so cynical as to say 'Oh yeah, and what's he hiding'.

I do NOT exclude myself from any of this, but I find nothing very satisfactory in recognising it.

17

I like that Norman how you have opened up. Carol too.

I think that through our lives most of us try to be someone who we

really are not and are never satisfied. Perhaps for most of us coming to

France is an acceptance.....moving on to a simple life....without the

complexities....and that desperate need to keep us with everyone else.

As I said yesterday I have nothing to prove. The reality is that I lived in

London as a working class person and through my strong sense of adventure

I met a great number of interesting people and went through some very

challenging situations.

As a child I read books as a necessity Typoon and Youth and Macbeth were

never books which I would choose to read but I had to pass some exams.

So getting back to the topic which I began a few days ago.

I study people rather than books.

So it is very interesting to learn of peoples views on here.

So it looks to me that when the honours lists are contemplated it

is the job of someone or someones to check the lives of the candidates

more closely. Dig out those dark secrets which are destructive and

immoral.

All these "doggy" sirs provide a bad image for the Royal Family and the

UK in general,

18

Hi Barbara, I understand. On the other hand I was a solitary and lonely child and books were my escape - and that has stayed with me now all my life - even to the extent of writing and producing them in my dotage - and still loving them. With a few human and a lot of animal exceptions, books have remained my truest and most permanent 'friends'.

I am reminded though of something a very wise and young lady said to me in Australia 'Friendships are like lives - some are long, some are short, and you must enjoy them whilst you have them, and remember them fondly when they have passed on''. I suppose she might have read it somewhere, but I always remember her through that one thing.

I never got any certification from school having left aged 15. Yet there must have been something in the genes as later I was to find out my maternal grandfather was The North of England Trustee of the Carnegie Foundation, and the Chief Librarian. I never knew him and only vaguely remember meeting him once as a child.

I have fascinated others and myself on reflection when I tell them how I started collecting and reading the Heron Books series - anyone else remember these? A monthly book club which represented paradise to me. I read everything I could afford to buy - Russian Authors I remember clearly, then Women Authors - which I remember as surprising, then Lives of Artists and Sculptors. Anybody remember Dennis Wheatly? I learned a lot aout history reading his books - expecially the Roger Brooke series, and the modern Duc de Richlieu ones. My shelves are still graced with a complete London Edition of Charles Dickens (1910) and I STILL read and re-read them as I do with many books which seems different from a lot of people? Maybe because I have a poor memory? Or is it that in reality I am a goldfish with a memory span of 3 seconds?

Crikey a trip down memory lane again!

By the way re material things a distinct difference today. Even last year I was a Puce Buyer now if I go at all, it is to sell - and I don't enjoy that either. I hardly find anything to interest me now - and I admit to being an internet nut finding just what I want all the time.

Financially speaking as someone else said 'I started with Nothing - and have most of it left'

19

Carol your story is sad and it is upsetting for me to know that many people

who deserve help do not get it.

It is a mad world.

I was not, by the way suggesting that you lived in a world which was

touched by magic.

I was saying that material things, and non material things are not easy to

come by,unless, let us say you are born lucky.

That IS not me and it sounds like it was not you. Born lucky...

that is.

I too love animals and I have some very good friends...

But really sincere people are becoming a rare thing these days.

20

Norman I am not a reader....

OR a good pupil MY HEAD master was Rhodes Boyson I never liked him....

and I was hardly ever at school....so, perhaps passing any exams was a miracle.

He seemed bad news to me....perhaps I was right?

Animals are very, very special and the best friends I will ever have.

Friends seem to come and go....

the animals will sit by your side.

I DO not agree with you Carol.....sorry...They do not appear like

magic.

All my material gains and assets have been gained by hard

work and taking chances.

We take ourselves through to the next step by generating courage....

SURVIVAL.