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The real King’s Speech

7th May 2023 funtime65

I have a dream, and more later, but there is a leader for the ages who stood for equality and bottled it in the real King’s Speech.

That King, of course, is Dr Martin Luther King, who 60 years ago this year held a million people in the National Mall in Washington spellbound.

When he referenced the struggles of the disadvantaged…

‘Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered.

‘By the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.’

Our civil rights

You’d be forgiven for thinking that his message was focused on a divided America.

But his words rang around the world.

And that it was set in the Civil Rights struggles of the Sixties.

But there were echoes of state suppression this weekend.

In the shutting down of protest, random arrests and removal of anti-monarchist leaders around the Coronation.

For the impertinence of hollering ‘Not My King’.

Of course, in a democracy, government by the people, of the people, for the people is the standard we should all live by.

Our dream

And the symbolism of MLK delivering his I Have A Dream speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial passed nobody by.

Make then what you will of the hundreds of thousands of subjects who happily surrender their equality.

To support a bloodline, unelected royalty.

There is no denying that British tourist chiefs have been salivating at the millions coming into the coffers.

From tourists from the Commonwealth, North America and even countries who were never even in the Empire.

And we will no doubt be reminded in the days to come that the moneys coming in from tourism.

Despite historic palaces elsewhere in the world still a money-spinner.

And from a consumerist mini-boom from members of the public.

Suspending their cost of living concerns to spend money they don’t have.

Of course, for those of us living in the UK it all plays into the narrative.

Of the post-Brexit Promised Land we were all promised.

New British Empire

Or New British Empire, if you will.

None of which this citizen of this septic isle voted for.

Taking shelter as I was in the Republic of Ireland.

Where there was healthy respect given to the head of state, the President.

Who, of course, not for a minute claimed a divine right to govern.

Which has throughout history has been used.

By kings and queens and their lickspittles to justify their tyranny.

Conveniently ignoring that when Pontius Pilate asked Christ if he were the King of the Jews he replied: ‘It is you who says it.’

Crown of Thorns

All of which went through my mind when my Ghanain priest challenged our congregation in oh-so-royalist North Berwick in Scotland.

To pray for the King and that his rule was by divine intervention and that it was all our Christian duty to be royalists.

When I was hoping for something akin to the real King’s speech,

All under a cross with my saviour mocked on a cross with INRI, translated as Jesus King of the Jews.

And wearing a crown of thorns, not the best stolen jewels of Empire.

So rather than watch obsequious so-called rad musicians fall over themselves to pledge allegiance to Charles.

I’ll be replaying the real King’s Speech and girding myself for his Promised Land.

And if you want a truly spiritual and egalitarian experience channel MLK in any of the places he walked.

From Atlanta, Georgia to Selma, Alabama, from Washington DC to Memphis, Tennessee.

America, Central America, Countries, Culture, UK

Fantastically Great Women

11th April 2022 funtime65

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World.

That’s Daddy’s Little Girl, The Scary One and my Dear Old Mum, and Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks and a host of others.

And showing here that women aren’t just for International Women’s Day but should be valued daily…

We’re flagging up a celebratory musical which has been touring the UK.

And which is dropping in on our own wee capital, Edinburgh here in Scotland.

Bus boy: And I’d have given Rosa my seat

Premiered last Autumn it is running at the King’s Theatre from April 25-30 .

FGWWCTW is based on the popular books by Kate Pankhurst who realised while writing them that she was related to the Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.

The sisterhood of women from history are brought to life on stage.

From Civil Rights heroine Rosa to Marie Curie to Frida Kahlo and more when inquisitive heroine Jade discovers the Gallery of Greatness on a school trip.

All of which allows us to do a deeper dive into these Fantastically Great Women.

Rosa Rising

The most famous bus passenger in history was seamstress Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger.

And so she became the symbol and the headline name for a legal action which struck a key victory for the Civil Rights Movement.

She has a museum dedicated to her in Troy University in Montgomery.

And much more besides including name checks in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

Where this male, pale and stale dude was honoured to share a seat with her statue.

Vote for Women

Let’s here it for the women: And give them the vote

Like all injustices, it is only when they have been corrected.

With the passage of history their sheer ludicrousness hits home.

And of course at the time the protesters have to take desperate and self-sacrificing measures.

And they are often pilloried for it.

Stand up and stand proud Emmeline Pankhurst.

And her Suffragettes who went on hunger strike, chained themselves to railings.

And one even threw herself in front of a royal’s horse and was killed.

All so that they could come out of the kitchen and vote.

And yet too few of us are made aware of The Pankhurst Museum in Manchester where she lived. Mmm, plus ca change.

And now for the science bit

Now time was, and still is to a certain extent, when science was considered the preserve of menfolk.

Try telling that to Maria Skłodowska (you’ll probably know her, erm, by her married and Francocised name Marie Curie).

Well, the two-time Nobel winner and radioactivity pioneer, is celebrated the world over with her trust is active in the field of Cancer care.

But to get right to the heart of her and her story visit the Museum of Maria Sklodowska-Curie in Warsaw in Poland.

And art too

And yes, if you were to ask most men (and probably a few women too) to name a female artist they would struggle.

They’d probably not get past Tracey Emin, great artist though she undoubtedly is,

Of course a greater modern appreciation for Frida Kahlo is changing that.

And not just for opening up the folksy world of Mexico to us.

But also as a champion of the Chicano Movement of Hispanics in the USA, feminism and the LGBTQ+ rights.

Visit the Frida Kahlo Museum, or La Casa Azul or Blue House as it is known, in the Coyoacan neighbourhood of Mexico City.

Edinburgh’s creme de la creme

And what about the city itself which will be hosting the musical Fantastically Great Women at the King’s.

Scandalously, and this is the case with statues the world over which is one of my pet subjects, there is scant recognition of women.

Unless, of course, you are a queen which is the case in Edinburgh’s port town of Leith where Victoria is immortalised.

We should take our lead from the working-class neighbourhood of Craigmillar.

It has marked the social activist Helen Crummy with a statue.

And where she leads educationalist Mary Erskine, suffragist Elsie Inglis or writer Muriel Spark.

I dare say though that if any woman will be placed on a podium it will be an adopted Edinburgh celeb.

JK Rowling, who her public profile aside, would deserve it for giving us Harry Potter.

America, Countries, Culture

It’s another American conspiracy

9th January 202110th January 2021 funtime65

We’re hard-wired to try to explain what we can’t accept by shouting CONSPIRACY!

And that is why Covid had to have been engineered by a Chinese lab.

And why the US Election was stolen by underground alien child snatchers.

They and the rest of the SH1T we’re seeing now will draw the Conspiracy Tourist for years to come.

Of course our curiosity for conspiracies is constantly fed by books and movies, the most recent of which is a new one on me…

Grab a Booth

John Wilkes Booth, Washington and Virginia: And it is timely to talk of Booth.

And we all saw the Confederate flag-wielding protestor breaking into the US Capitol Rotunda last week.

Channel surfing, I fell upon a PBS programme.

Somebody was positing whether it was indeed Booth who was shot dead in his hideout in Virginia.

It was though the actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC

Let your imagination run wild aa you walk through history itself.

The classy knoll

The Book Depository in Dallas where you found more than books

The Dallas Book Depository: And the segue here is the highest pub in Ireland, Johnnie Fox’s in the Dublin Mountains.

Where amongst all the Irish memorabilia there is a poster comparing the circumstances of Lincoln’s death and Son of Ireland John F Kennedy.

Both 43, both succeeded by a Johnson, Booth killing Lincoln in a theater, Oswald arrested in a cinema.

If it was in fact Oswald… all of which you can learn and more at the Sixth Floor Museum at the Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

The Lorraine Motel

King and Memphis: And the most recognisable bedroom balcony in history which with its bedroom is now the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Where you can witness where Dr Martin Luther King was shot down.

And you’ll learn, as I did the strange circumstances behind ‘assassin’ James Earl Ray’s flight.

And also how fingers are pointed at the FBI and the Mafia.

Ray was arrested weeks later in Heathrow Airport in London after suspicions were aroused because he was in possession of two passports.

All of which makes me edgy every time I visit the Deep South

And go through customs as I carry around my old passport with my ten-year American visa.

Goodbye Norma Jean

Marilyn and LA: And Marilyn Monroe fans will all pay a pilgrimage to her last resting place.

The Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary is a retreat of solace in La La Land.

Where Marilyn rests in peace for eternity.

Apart that is from the unwanted attention of her nemesis Hugh Heffner who bought his drawer next to her.

In life Marilyn too was hounded to her death. By suicide if you believe the official line.

Better celebrate her life instead around LA and in Hollywood and Venice Beach… forever the California Girl.

A concrete story

What’s behind the door? The Mob Museum in Las Vegas

The Mob in Vegas: And Las Vegas is built on conspiracy with every gambler who has ever lost his shirt able to blame the house.

Of course Las Vegas was built on Mob money and on top of crooks who have crossed then.

You can learn all about all the shady goings-on at the Mob Museum

It’s an offer you can’t refuse.