May our Queen live to be 120

And here's why I hope she does...

The heir to the throne of Great Britain, HRH the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, during their visit to Egypt and sundry other places in north Africa.

I know HM Queen is hardly a snappy dresser. But she's managed to cope for over fifty years with visiting a great many sacred places of religions other than her own, and show respect for their faiths without ever feeling the need to .....And that includes her readiness to go barefoot when visiting a Hindu temple.

Years back, at the height of the fashion for an approach to "multicultural education" which got characterized as "saris and samosas", there was a colleague at my university, a lively and otherwise down-to-earth working class ethnic Englishwoman, who insisted on dressing herself in a sari whenever she presented lectures on the subject to our teacher trainees. I just used to wish the floor would open up and swallow me when I had to sit there and watch it. And then, even worse, when I found trainees attempting to follow her example in classrooms crowded with children from Pakistani and Punjabi families.

I would have thought the brilliant reverse portrayals of "Goodness Gracious Me", written by Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar and other British Asian writers, had put paid to that sort of nonsense for ever.

But no. Perhaps HRH thinks he might pass muster as some sort of Imam in waiting?

Time was when eccentric toffs like him fancied themselves dressed up in Arab tribal dress, like Lawrence of Arabia. And of course he grew up being dressed up in highland kilts, an absurdity initiated by his great great great great grandfather Prince Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha when he and Victoria first played at being traditional highland lairds. He still wanders around looking almost as silly in a kilt during his summers at Balmoral.

Long may she live.

image from here, via here, which llinks to some more images of HRH in similar garb here.

Comments

[Eamonn]

The worst thing is he seems to feel at ease in those clothes. Someone needs to give him a sharp slap accross the face and tell him to pull himself together.

[waterdragon52]

Geez. Maybe Brian (witless) Whitaker wasn't so far off with his claims of Charles being an "Islamic Dissident". And who would have thought that Camilla could look even dowdier and frumpier than she normally does.

[Debbie]

Very nice post and blog. I'm American and wish the Queen to live forever. That woman has guts. She is strong and absolutely nothing wrong with her dress. At lease she dresses as a Westerner like she is.

What happened by the time Charles was born? Sad.

I have blogrolled your site so I will be back.

[chevalier de st george]

Is this a form of fetichism?
Are we to see the prince in a burkha next?
Certainly he comes from a lomg line of distinguished queens.
Still i thought Lawrence and St John Philby had far more allure in their day.
Ah- those glorious days F.O fashion in and around Whitehall and all those Silly Walks !

[Rick]

I think it is far simpler than that. Charles is a man riddled with self-doubt; he has an awful knack of mis-reading people and recruiting some real charlatans as advisers. He married a woman who was living in fairytale land and could not cope with reality.

He is an ageing heir to a highly-respected monarch - indeed many of the women who have held the throne of England - Elizabeth I, Victoria, and Elizabeth II have been truly magnificient in the way they have run things.

Charles is un homme manque - he is looking for certainty. Islam provides certainty to the bewildered because it does not require as much self-awareness as Judaeo-Christian belief - it is submersion in the group