kezia, diana and charles
royalty archives
royal memorabilia shop
a sign the empire lives on (at least in some peoples' minds)
the new zealand press
isn't the correction above the best thing ever ?
and you've got to admire this chief executive's honesty
and this is how kiwis view britain - a national of lardy wobblers
burger king in disguise
something strange happened to Burger King in Australia and they are called Hungry Jacks. there's probably a reason for that. perhaps related to the Australian's growing republican sentiment ?
it's the queen's mum
i'd not seen this memorial to the queen mum before. it's jolly good.
faded glory
ah. queen elizabeth. still ruling over a rather faded empire
someone important (probably)
i was on the way to a meeting with a lord (which was cancelled because he was summoned to the house of lords at the last minute.
on the way i spotted this cavalcade coming, so i got out my big camera and grabbed some shots
and then i enlarged the people ...
they came out of buckingham palace. i suspect the actual member of the royal family is in the car (at the top)
they certainly had nice hats, which is important for a carriage rider
and a nice purple wrap
all jolly english fun
although not everyone seemed to be enjoying it
so there we go. exciting stuff
king's bench street
well throne the crows
charles and diana
actual colours due to the table mat and my beer level
dear diana
her memory lives on in these dreadfully designed plates with their strange colouring.
(nice touch to have borat to the right)
i've just realised i'm the same age as she was when she died. we've lived very different lives (so far) though.
in the same shop they had this sign saying 'up to half price sale'. i wasn't sure if that was 0-50% off the price or of the price.
royalty - your help needed !
remember elton my old hairdresser (from when i had old hair) from Betty Tigers in Sheffield? well, anyway, he's a major creative influence and i probably wouldn't have bothered doing funkypancake if it wasn't for his approach to just doing stuff even though it makes no sense !
anyway ... he needs help for a project he's working on. he writes:
I am attempting to write a film script at the moment,and in one bit a girl artist produces a portrait of the queen out of stamps,(the stamps are placed,probably by a computer program into the correct order to make a portrait of H.M. from a more distant view!)
Do you know anyone who would be interested in doing this and subsequently being up for receiving a knighthood or something. Love to all Elton
drop him an email via betty tigers if you are interested !
(by the way, i was really happy with how this twenty pound note came out!)
windsor castle seen from a plane
click the pictures for a better look. what a great view from the plane (i usually end up sitting on the wrong side so miss this as you come in to heathrow)
rufus stone
whenever we go to Bournemouth we pass a sign post to Rufus Stone. on Saturday we went there to see what it was. And here it is:
there's more details here, but it seems it was the place of accident monarchy death.
the queen's guards
on the entrances to Windsor Great Park are various little huts where the park wardens sit. this one was empty so i took a photo of the contents.
it consisted on a first aid kit, a harrods china mug and an old copy of the sunday sport.
the queen closes something
i think i've mentioned before that they often get dignitaries in to open buildings, but i've not heard of them coming along to close anything.
today the queen went to the BBC to open their new building. And as a result they closed the bike parking, so the queen does close things after all !
i like how they've over-dubbed the original sign on this too.
princess anne on a train
princess anne is on this train. i know this because the newspaper man told me. newspaper men know everything.
news is their business, see ?
apparently he'd seen her get out of these cars a few moments earlier
this car possibly contains a member of the royal family
not one of my best shots.
royalty passing
here is the queen's husband prince Philip in a car.
and here is another car with someone important in. they should really put their names on the outside so we could identify them easilyer
pea beer
a pea dropped in my beer and sunk to the bottom. then the bubbles congregated and it bobbed to the top.
due to the level of the beer and the oldness of my favourite drinking glass it wobbled around in charle's shirt until i retrieved it with a fork
someone's life
occasionally you see piles of clothes on the streets of london. here's a good example of an emptied suitcase
what intrigued me most with this was the poor quality prince charles tea-towel.
those people with funny hats
someone will know what these people are called. they aren't beefeaters are they ? last time we looked there was only one, but there's two now (or at least when i took this photo back in may)
diana memorial garden
you might have heard about the diana memorial garden ? it's been a bit of a classic - originally a nice idea but went all a bit wrong when people slipped in the water channel. oh well
it's actually looking very nice now
and see how many categories i can put it in: no dogs, no cycles, people, royalty and slippery floor
buckingham palace
i took this photo on request as kezia had forgotten what the queen's london house looked like. i thought you might be interested in case you had forgotten too.
princely reporting
prince william graduated yesterday in scotland. so this journalist did a report outside buckingham palace.
he could have stood outside a newsagents shop with all the prince william post cards. but he didn't.
guards
smart chap
the other one's nipped off to the loo
where will we put camilla ?
when charles married camila a few weeks ago there was an obvious question we all wanted to ask - where will they live ?
although the queen has lots of houses with lots of rooms, nearly all of them are full of crowns and royal gifts, so camilla couldn't live there.
instead they decided on this rather nice camper-van just outside the front gate.
ideal for royal visits and an economical alternative to the Royal Yacht (which was actually a giant boat i think)
flags on palaces
i learnt a new thing last week about flags on royal palaces. i always thought it was the case that if a union jack was flying it meant the queen was in residence.
however, it's only this standard flag here which means she's actually in the building. the union jack is just general decoration.
apparently the queen's standard is raised as she enters the building and lowered when she leaves to go off to one of the other palaces.
so now we know.
the media
i was amazed at how many media people were at the wedding in windsor. there was almost more cameras than people. and certain more foreign TV channels and well wishers than UK ones !
is this a catapault to get people in to the castle ?
photographer's dark room
random interview
and then there were the obvious media stunts like this one from the London Dungeon
wedding crowd
royal lookylikies
the guests arrive
rich and famous guests arriving for the royal wedding in windsor. i looked through lots of windows but didn't recognise anyone.
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