}

Monday, December 26, 2016

The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2016


Above is the annual Christmas Broadcast from Her Majesty the Queen of New Zealand (etc.). Once again, I saw it on YouTube. New Zealand gets a name-check early on.

The Queen has been ill this Christmas, and missed Christmas Day church services due to what her spokespeople referred to as “an abundance of caution”. This seems prudent—she IS 90, after all.

The religious stuff doesn’t mean anything to me, of course, but the Queen’s talk of the importance of volunteering did. I’ve volunteered in the political realm for decades, on and off, and this year I began moving toward non-political community volunteering instead.

The music played at the beginning is, of course, “God Save the Queen”, the national anthem of the United Kingdom. It’s also one of New Zealand’s two official national anthems, though I’ve never heard it played in place of “God Defend New Zealand”. Someday, when New Zealand becomes a republic, it’ll drop the other national anthem (among other things royal). But that day is still quite awhile away.

In the meantime, I’m still fascinated by these annual broadcasts, even if most of the Kiwis I know aren’t.

2 comments:

rogerogreen said...

So does Chuck finally become king before he's 70? If he has the job for c. 20 years - and no guarantee of that - , William could be king by 55.

Arthur Schenck (AmeriNZ) said...

Whatever happens is unprecedented: Queen Elizabeth is the longest-reigning monarch now. The previous record-holder, Queen Victoria, was succeeded by her son, Edward VII, who was 59 when he ascended (and he was dead nine years later). So if Charles is a very old man, what's one more record?