Change the Record
The fast approaching world cup means requisite singing of the national anthems and crass displays of nationalism are just around the corner. This prompted me to check out this site. http://www.national-anthems.net/ It’s been said many times by many people before but I don’t mind reiterating; the British national anthem is such an embarrassing piece of crap. All national anthems are inherently ridiculous but ours really takes the biscuit on a number of levels. How I wish I were Russian or German! Such wonderful pieces of music. That our miserable little excuse of a tune is supposed to be rousing is a joke and the lyrics are just shameful.
What ever your views regarding the royal family, (personally I would get rid of them all in an instant) I think its high time we had some sort of sustained campaign to get rid of the anthem and replace it with, well, pretty much anything else would be better. This is a matter of aesthetics as much as anything else. When the current monarch finally pops her clogs in ooh I don’t know 2031 or something, is anyone going to give a toss about a by then octogenarian Charles the dissident water-colour enthusiast? Is anyone going to want to sing ‘God save our gracious King’ about that befuddled old git?
A good start for the campaign would be the axing of the nightly rendition of the anthem after the Shipping forecast on radio 4. This is of particular annoyance, you know how it is; you’re just drifting off to sleep having been transported afloat through the shipping lanes of the northern hemisphere when all of a sudden you’re rudely awakened by that drum roll of doom, your semi-conscious arm stretches out to switch off the radio knocking over a glass of water in the process, but by now its too late, it’s already entered your consciousness and a whole day is ruined. Perhaps we can build on the momentum gathered by the recent cutting of the UK theme at the beginning of the day on radio 4, though by the responses on some of the forums radio 4 listeners aren’t exactly the most progressive bunch. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/misc/uktheme_20052401.shtml Well sod the lot of them! The revolution starts here.
I’m thinking of starting a website with a petition devoted to this very cause – radio 4 would be a much better place without this shit at the end of every evening. If I achieve this one thing my life will have been worth it. At the very least it’ll annoy a lot of people. A casual look on google doesn’t reveal anything quite like it yet. There seems quite a well organised movement to replace ‘God Save the Queen’ with something specifically for England and ‘the English’, though this seems equally abhorrent to me. http://anthem4england.co.uk/ And then there is the, er, Australian republican movement… and I remember Billy Bragg expressing a similar sentiment recently. At any rate I believe the writing is on the wall. Who’s with me?
In other news I’ve completed my MA. Well the end of the taught classes anyway. Hooray! I would like to be able to say with some style and aplomb but towards the end I was just hanging on in really. It seems it’s not enough to just turn up to each seminar with a modicum of enthusiasm every week, eventually some actual work is involved. I’m looking forward to doing my dissertation now as it allows for more freedom in what I want to talk about and will hopefully represent a summation of everything I’ve learned in terms of theory and methodology. I may write about it on here a little as I think some of its themes may be of interest to the non-specialist. Something to look forward to eh?