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Friday, 17 December 2021

Bugger Bognor - Or Not

 



A well-produced video on the death of George V in 1936 and his doctor’s diary admission that he terminated the King's life with morphine and cocaine injections. As some of us may remember, this only came to light fifty years later in 1986 and by then media reaction was muted.

For those with an hour to spare it is easy listening, rather like listening to the wireless instead of reading a book. An interesting video, there is also something remote and other-worldly about the story which holds the attention.

As for drawing conclusions, it is a curiously powerful reminder that the establishment is still with us behind facades which are only mildly plausible. It may be home to some ghastly shits but they are hardly ever ejected into our world.

2 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Many thanks - that's an interesting find, and I watched it all. I found myself thinking about Maguire's method. There is a great deal of circling around and repetition in the narrative, a lot of it based on unsubstantiated material. A suggestive work of fiction, but very entertaining in a dark sort of way.

The moral, if true? Strangely reassuring to see how royalty can be such degenerates and even the best of them seemed to be mildly dysfunctional; and how eminent people are often the worst sort of ambitious chancers. Whereas once we might have envied these people, we now know enough about them to be very glad that we "missed out" on such glittering prizes. And, of course, things don't change. The circumstances and the exact configurations change, but the likes of Boris, Cummings, Case, Prince Charles, Greta, Soros, you name them....They are going to look distinctly sordid when their lives are revisited by our grandchildren, aren't they?

A K Haart said...

Sam - it's as if we are always bound by protocol and cannot allow honesty to intervene. If George V had been able to nullify Edward's position as heir maybe he would have done so and many problems would have been avoided. But that would require more honesty than protocol seems to allow.