Happy Birthday Prince Charles

Happy Birthday Charles and it is the day the Prince of Wales becomes a pensioner! He is not only the longest serving heir to the throne but also now destined to be the oldest yet to inherit the crown.

The Queen is now 87 years old and the process of handing over duties to her son is well under way. This week is an important sign of that transition.  For the first time since 1973, the Queen will miss the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

He has used his 'kingly' apprenticeship to both publicly and privately to promote issues he believes to be important.  Long before environmental concerns such as climate change became part of the mainstream political agenda he was pressuring the establishment to take them seriously.

His wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, of course, has the unenviable task of choosing a present for the man who really does have everything. “I have bought him something,” she said. “I will tell you that he is the most difficult person in the world to buy a present for".

So what had the Duchess settled for in the end? At first she was reluctant to share her secret, but then relented, saying: “Actually I have bought him something but whether he will like it or not … I don’t know...Well, he collects a lot of things and it is something special — china — that I have found. It’s what he really likes. And I know he will be happy with that.”

At OISE Oxford, we hope the Prince will have the chance to eat lots of cake.  Happy Birthday!

Does anyone really care about the British Royal Family?

1,141 years ago King Alfred (the 32nd great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II) became the first effective King of England. Since then we have had a healthy supply of Henrys, Georges, Williams, Arthurs, a few more Charles, and a sprinkling of Elizabeths and Victorias. One cannot deny that the royal family have been around for a very long time. For better or for worse, it doesn't look as though this will be changing any time soon. Just the other week we heard news of our precious princess Katie soon to deliver the next of kin.

This is all well and proper, but many people do not understand what the point of the Monarchy is. Ok, they bring tourism and publicity to the UK economy, and probably overall the money that this brings in is more than the gastranomical amount of public money spent on polishing their silver spoons. But could these funds not be invested more efficiently elsewhere?

What are your views on the British Royal Family? I pose this question to my OISE Oxford colleagues and got some mixed responses:

Office worker 1: "On the one hand the Royal Family seem fairly pointless as they do not have much political influence and it doesn't seem very democratic for someone to be born into power. However, they do raise a lot of money for charity and bring in a lot of money through tourism which is obviously an advantage. We should count ourselves lucky that we do not have a corrupt Queen. She is so inoffensive at the moment that people aren't too bothered about getting rid of her but once she's gone, who knows how long the monarchy will last."

Office worker 2: "I do not see a point of the Royal Family at all! I don't understand the political system where there is a government and a monarchy. Those two should not exist simultaneously. We either chose our leaders or we don't. The monachy doesn't bring much to society, if anything they eat up too much of our public funds."

Office worker 3: " From a rather uninformed standpoint, I believe that the Royal Family is a positive feature of modern Britain. For many people in Britain and from abroad they are inspirational figureheads and offer huge amounts of goodwill and support to a wide range of charities and other organisations. The Queen has been a central and steady influence on British society for 60 years. The Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year were a time of great fun and provided a boost to international opinion on the UK. In many ways could the royal family provides the great in Britain?"

Office worker 4: "In politics, you never know what you're going to get Politicians have so much to prove.. The stability that our Monarch has brought to our country over the last 60 years is immense. 2012 has been a terrific year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a Royal wedding, and a future heir on the way. What is there not to be proud of?!"

Interestingly today marks the first time that a monarch has attended a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in over 200 years. Whilst this might be interpreted by some as an attempt by the Queen to re-assert her political authority, it seems the real reason for her attendance is the announcement that a portion of Antarctica is shortly to be named after her in celebration of her Jubilee; perhaps not the most pressing matter on the political agenda.

English footballer, Joey Barton, who recently appeared on Newsnight, is known to have some pretty controversial views. Click on the image below to read his article about the pros and cons of the Royal Family.

British Wedding Fever Hits France

The Kate-effect is taking France by storm

An unexpected trend is emerging in the land of l’amour. Today’s French couples are increasingly ditching the wedding traditions of their homeland for the Anglo-American customs of tiered wedding cakes, bridesmaids and bigger budgets. The so-called ‘Kate effect’ has taken France by storm and French designers have been inundated with requests for bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses inspired by the royal wedding. Not only that but the popular period drama, Downton Abbey, is said to be partly responsible for the craze, triggering an increase in the popularity of veils and gloves. Favours (small gifts given to guests at a wedding) are another element of the British wedding that are said to be catching on on the other side of the Channel. And the traditional French wedding dessert, the ‘croquembouche’, a towering pyramid of profiteroles is being exchanged for tiered sponge cakes.

But what is it about British-style weddings that appeals? Some think it is the effect of films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually, whereas others see it as a move towards modernity. Parisian TV director Celia Riviere explains, "British style is seen here as fun and a little bit quirky, not so traditional," she says. So is the traditional French wedding at risk? Riviere doesn’t think so. "I guess British-inspired weddings are very much the style of my generation. I can see them remaining popular. But I don't know if our children will also choose these fashions."

Read the full article at www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20411273