Monarchy

It's the Diamond Jubilee weekend... Huzzah, or a big pile of crap?  Well, many people in my Twitter timeline (lefty, liberal types) are republicans - either mildly or quite outspokenly so.  Below is the reworking of a blog I did for another site at the time of the Royal Wedding in April, which sets out some of my thoughts.

The Jubilee Weekend

Just as with the Royal Wedding (which I didn't watch), I personally genuinely couldn't care too much about the Jubilee.  I've nothing planned.  I am aware of the historic significance: I still see Diamond Jubilee plaques etc from 1897: this is a big event in terms of our country - I've put bunting up on my cottage more for a more of camp fun than anything else.

£1 from the cheapo store in Diss: bargain!

I am amazed, though, how many people (off Twitter) did love the Royal Wedding and how many people look like they will be celebrating this weekend.  Good for them.  Many irrational things in life give us pleasure: some people enjoy the environmental disaster that is Formula 1: I couldn't think of anything more boring.  If Eurovision is a reason to bring your friends together and have a massive once a year celebration listening to people singing utter trash, enjoy it.  I don't begrudge people having street parties or whatever else they're doing for the Jubilee: have fun.

The Hereditary Principle is Offensive

 
‘Argh!’ scream the ranks of republicans, however: the Monarchy isn't harmless.  It's illogical. It's patriarchal. It's about privilege.  It is based on the hereditary principle, and worse still, it derives from the Divine Right. It has no place in a modern democracy.  Yes.  I agree on all of these except the first.  No one would sit down and come up with this system.  There is little to defend it from a modern, rational, purely democratic viewpoint.  It is a product of evolution, accident and history - as are most things in our world. 

In a country that does not have 100% inheritance tax, a far from properly progressive income tax system, and private education, there is no question that people are born into positions of power, opportunity and privilege that will be reinforced during their childhoods.  The Royals are the most obvious high-profile example of this, but they are by no means the only "offenders".   There are plenty of undeserving people who inherit privilege and give an awful lot less back to society than (at least the core of) the Royal family with their public and charitable duties. 

We are all the products, to some extent, of the accident of our births.  This can be very unfair and I believe in society working towards reducing the effects of this.  Do I believe, however, that "getting rid of the Windsors" would in any way make a meaningful, practical difference to social mobility and opportunity in this country?  Absolutely not.  It would be highly symbolic, but I really cannot see how anyone could argue that the population is more socially mobile in two comparable countries such as Finland and Sweden, just because one is a republic and one is a monarchy.  It would not rid us of our class system, and do nothing to improve social opportunity, other than giving one person out of 60 million the opportunity to be voted in as president for one of more terms.

Prince Carl Philip: royally keeping Sweden's gays in eye candy

This is of course brings us to the uncomfortable point, for Republicans, that some of the most successful countries in the world in human development terms are monarchies.  Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are modern social democracies with Kings or Queens (7 of the top 10 "most developed nations" are in fact monarchies).  I would infinitely rather live in them, than countless republics I could name (Russia, Brazil, China, Democratic Republic of Congo etc...).  

Being a republic does not cure all ills, nor of course does being a monarchy solve them (Bahrain is a particularly vile example of a monarchy: there are others).  The reality is that there are numerous other factors: the constitutional arrangements regarding who is head of state frequently has absolutely no bearing on matters whatsoever.

A Dignified Figurehead

There are of course very real practical advantages to a having someone such as our Queen as head of state, over an elected or appointed president.  I believe that the Queen has, in the past 60 years, provided this country with a dignified figurehead, who has shown herself to be completely above party politics.  The monarchy provides stability, continuum, a focus.  The Queen (and indeed the Prince of Wales) are respected around the world and represent our country phenomenally well. Ask people whom they associate with the United Kingdom and the Queen will be pretty high up the list.  

Even when the President of the US greets the Queen, you know he is a passing figure: she will remain. She represents us powerfully and with dignity: no president of a country of 60 million could pack the punch that she does.

The 11th US President during her reign: she has personally met 10

There are few people I would want to see in practical terms as our Head of State.  What are the alternatives: an elected president with political power: a President Sarkozy or President Cameron? An ex-politician such as a President Major or Blair?  Or a grey figurehead president (no matter how worthy) that no one has heard of abroad: a Joachim Gauck or Micheline Calmy-Rey? Who? Exactly.

A Costly Institution

I'm not too sure that people are aware of the fact that George III entered into a rather bad deal (for the monarchy) upon his accession.  He surrendered income from the Crown Estates to parliament in return for a payment known as the "civil list".  This has proven to be a phenomenally good deal for "us" in the 250 years since then.  We, the tax payers, support the monarchy and in return the state controls a property portfolio of over £7 billion, with an annual profit of around £250 million.  

The latest figures I can find suggest the monarchy as a whole cost us £38.2 million in 2009/10 (click for link).  The cost of the UK monarchy was therefore around 63p, per person, per year.  This is a literally a drop in the ocean in terms of state expenditure.  When you consider the deal with the £250 million profit from the Crown Estates, another, even more positive picture emerges.

Don’t of course pretend presidents do not cost money too: perhaps not as much if they are symbolic figureheads with a lesser public profile, but they are still far from free to the taxpayer.  The "costly institution" argument of Republicans seems to hold little water from what I can tell.

Tourism

The tourism argument goes both ways.  Monarchists claim the Queen brings people to Britain.  Republicans point out that just as many people visit Paris as London.  I don't know if there's proper research on this, but it seems to me quite obvious that people will visit wherever they want, regardless of whether there is a monarch there or not.  I don't avoid Rome because they got rid of the Savoys, and I don't visit Copenhagen expecting to bump into Queen Margrethe. 

The last Emperor and Empress of Austria

What I will say, though, is that when you visit somewhere like the Hofburg in Vienna you visit an empty, soulless, uninhabited place.  On a purely emotional level the whole magic has gone.  This was the home of the most powerful family in Europe for centuries: the seat of the Holy Roman Emperors.  No, of course they shouldn't be exercising political power in 2012, but there is something sad, crushing and depressing about the tacky "Empress Sisi" chocolates and Made in China souvenir watches on sale in the palace and the millions of visitors filing through.  

The grandson of the last Emperor, HIRH Karl, Archduke of Austria, worked as a TV game show host during the 1980s (incidentally at the same time Nazi officer Kurt Waldheim, with his alleged SS connections, was President of the Austrian Republic).  Is this something Austrians as a nation are proud of?  I wouldn't be.

The Harm Test

I've accepted few people would devise a system of monarchy in 2012.  Like many things in life, however, no matter how flawed it might be in theory, it really does work in practice.  

There is an obvious trap in mixing up the personality of any of them with the way the institution functions: you might of course not like any of the Windsors as individuals, but that is not a convincing an argument for making a long-lasting change to the whole 1500 year old institution.  

Given the British Monarchy has been around for so long, I would suggest we really do need to apply a "does it cause actual harm" test in considering removing it, as well as the obvious "how to replace it" question.  I genuinely cannot see the practical argument for instituting massive, fundamental constitutional change and abolishing the Monarchy.  With its almost total absence of practical political power, it harms no one in practice.  Nor can I see a good alternative.  

There really are many, many changes I would like to see take place in our society.  I think they deserve our efforts far more than what I see as a sixth-form style dogmatic position of "attacking" the Monarchy from a purely theoretical stance.  

Magical, beautiful - and completely soulless, empty Schönbrunn

It's Only When It's Gone

I frequently visit the empty palaces of Versailles, Schönbrunn and Potsdam because of my part time job leading educational tours around Europe.  I grew up in the Federal Republic of Germany.  Having grown up with direct experience of both countries, I can really say it's sometimes only when you’ve lost something that you truly appreciate its worth.  

I think I'm what you would term a "Lazy Monarchist" - I'm not all rah, rah, rah about it... but I do support it, and I do wish you a Happy Diamond Jubilee if you are celebrating it.  

If however you're a strident Republican and are going to sit around and be all miserable all weekend, here's a thought to cheer you up >  It's only ten years until the Platinum Jubilee....  Just *think* how big that one is going to be :-)

If These Walls Could Talk

A Wonderful Movie

There was a brilliant HBO movie made back in 2000 called "If These Walls Could Talk (2)".  It starred Vanessa Redgrave, Michelle Williams, Chloë Sevigny, Sharon Stone and Ellen DeGeneres (quite the cast for a TV movie).  

The basic idea was there was the story of the same house that had 3 sets of lesbian couples living in it: in 1961, in 1972 and 2000.  The first story is very bitter-sweet: the couple lives in secrecy and when one of them dies, the other has to move out.  By the 70s the story is much more about a "burn your bra" fiery brand of confident feminist lesbian identity.  In 2000 the perfectly "regular" lesbian couple's main concern is having a child together.

It is a beautiful film that I remember watching in Bermuda where I was living at the time.  My parents were visiting, so I went to watch it at a friend's.  I was mildly scandalised when I later found out my (then) 60 year old Mutti had pretended to go to bed, and had got up to watch it herself after I'd left.  I thought a lesbian theme was just a bit too grown-up for her.

ANYWAY the house is a character in the movie.  This is a wonderful thing: the idea that the walls are a silent observer of the lives and changing times of the people who dwell inside.  I have often lain in bed of my home thinking about those who have been here too before.

A Little Bit About My Home

My little thatched Suffolk cottage dates from before 1450.  I bought it in a terrible state in 2002.  I had to renew essentially everything in it, clear the almost 2m high nettles from the wasteland that was the garden, re-ridge the thatch and gut the interior.  I had a pair of hippy historic builders (who between copious "cigarette" breaks) would tell me about the cottage and what they were finding out as they worked on it.

My Little Home

The first thing was that it was built with no foundations, sitting on the earth, with a dirt floor, and originally it had only one level.  It has a timber frame, and the walls are made of "wattle and daub" (clay and interwoven sticks).  The whole house leans over at the back by a good 20cm after it "settled" once built.

The cottage has a high pitched roof to allow the water to run off the thatch (the pitch is always far steeper than on a tiled roof) - but also to allow smoke to rise from an open fire in the dirt floor.  This fire would have provided heat, light and cooking for the inhabitants.  In the loft space is a triangular structure which would have been covered in an animal skin, and pulled to one side to allow the smoke to escape.  This is what dates the house to pre-1450: after that date it would have had a brick chimney as they "made it" to Suffolk around then apparently.

THINK ABOUT THAT!!!  This is almost like living in a wigwam.  Images of Monty Python come to my mind.  We have no idea exactly how old the place is: it could be 1200, it could be 1300.  The little town itself goes back to Norman times.

Around the mid 16th century a Tudor chimney was added: this is easily identified from the brick used.  An upstairs level was also put in: there are 30cm wide oak timbers upstairs that look like ship's planks.  Because the house was only supposed to be one level, I effectively sleep up in the roof.  You can see from this picture that the bedroom window is at knee height.  The headroom downstairs is only just over 6' (I'm just taller than that), but upstairs it's a bit more.

My bedroom: note how the roof slopes down

Eco-Cottage

It is a one bedroom cottage. It's tiny.  I live here on my own with the mutt, Oscar, and we have just enough space to be comfy.  Downstairs is an entrance hall, a sitting room, and a kitchen.  A door leads to a steep little flight of stairs and the upstairs where there is the bedroom and an en-suite.  I wanted it to feel like a hotel as I like them so much.  It has everything I require for a very comfy existence.

This is the warmest, cosiest home I've ever lived in.  There was some research done on Medieval and Tudor houses, and the fact they have better insulation values than modern houses.  The problem came when the Georgians and Victorians shoved in big windows to let light in and the heat just escaped.  A set of eco-glass secondary double glazing has sorted that problem out for me: my annual energy bills are tiny.

Hunger, Famine and History

This place is big enough for me and my needs: I wouldn't want some huge home that I don't need.  However, when I think about the "walls that talk" I think about the large families that would have lived here.  I have my concerns: we all do.  People would have lived here in this same house with the realities of infant mortality, hunger, plague and famine, however.

This was a poor workers' cottage.  Apparently the town was a centre of the spinning industry in the 19th century: before that it was probably agricultural workers: peasants in effect.  I sit here drinking lovely wine watching a DVD in the same space where babies would have cried, parents would have been unable to feed all their kids properly and life expectancy was brutally short.  This isn't me being poetic: it is the reality for the majority of the cottage's existence.  Someone who lived here previously told me that even up until 1980 there was a shared loo in the shed out the back for the 3 cottages in the row.  Nowadays I have a little "designer" garden there.  I'm quite aware of how good I have it.

Back Garden (hardwood chipping: no mowing!)

Then there are the historic events.  If this place was built in (say) 1420, it would already have been old when Columbus set sail for the New World.  It would have been over 160 when beacons were lit along the coast warning of the arrival of the Spanish Armada in 1588.  At over 200 years old the Cavaliers would have been meeting the Roundheads, tearing the country apart in Civil War.  At 245 years old, the Plague would have hit distant London: now just a 90 minute train ride away.  When Queen Victoria ascended the throne my cottage was almost 420 years old.  When the first car drove past my home, it had probably already had 480 years of people living in it.  The Luftwaffe dropped a solitary bomb on our town in the summer of 1940: my cottage had been standing for 520 years.  Pill boxes were being built all over East Anglia; the bells in the local church were silent, awaiting to ring out that the Germans had landed.  When I moved in this home was 580 years old: if it does date from 1420 it will be coming up to its 600th birthday soon.

Isn't this mind-blowing? I'm in awe of it.  How many souls have lived here?  I can't even imagine what they must have looked like, what their names were, what joy, love, upset and sadness must have been felt here.  "If these walks could talk".

Some Photos

My home isn't some design masterpiece, but it is a cute little place.  I've put some more pictures below showing some of the aspects.  I'm very proud of having "saved" the place and put some love and care back into it. 

Front door with Lion Knocker. RAWR: Come Inside!

Sitting Room with view to Kitchen

Kitchen: scene of many a culinary crime

Sitting Room. Giant Rat on Sofa

A strict "no pets on furniture" policy applies here

Dining Niche (with sleepy Rat)

Me tweeting. Usual position, feet up.

Secret Staircase! Lovely old door

Landing: stunning old timbers. Note floor planks!

View from Bed: fabulous old Tudor chimney

Bathroom Door: Little Boys' Room

Bathroom. Spend way too long in here

Bathroom Window View. Yup, it's Giant Rat again

Election Time Fun! Pissing off the Tories opposite \o/

And that's our little tour done! As ever thank you for reading and allowing me to share with you :-) Bye for now.

A Bit About Languages

Language fascinates me!  I recently was talking to a friend who studies French (*waves*) and was surprised to find he didn't know some of the boring stuff about the origins of English that I was spouting at him.  So I've decided to put it in a blog so you can ALL be bored.

A Little Acorn

Right.. we probably all have some vague idea about "language families".  I like to think of them literally as a tree.  Imagine an acorn: as it pops up from the ground it is basically a single shoot.  As the oak tree grows up, so it starts branching out and splitting off.  This is exactly what happens to languages.  A good 4000 years ago the languages of around 3 billion people came from the same acorn, a language called "Proto Indo-European" that was spoken on the shores of the Black Sea.  It was a first a single shoot coming out of the earth; then it grew.

This is Indo-European when it was a baby

As time went on and people moved further afield, our parent language started branching off into different related languages.  How and why did this happen?  Well if you think about US and British English, we speak essentially the same thing (Churchill called us "two nations divided by a common language").  300 years ago we spoke *exactly* the same thing however, and over this time we have grown a little apart.  Nowadays we say "dived" and the Americans say "dove".  We refer to a car "bonnet" and they say "hood".  We also spell it "colour" whereas they spell it "color".  When Americans say they "landed flat on their fanny" or talk about putting their passport into their "fanny packs" we explode into uncontrollable laughter because a fanny is a girl's private parts and we have mental ages of 4 year olds.  I could go on and on.  Through time and geographical distance the English language is splitting and gradually growing apart.

Back to the acorn.   We all spoke Proto Indo-European in 2000 BC.  Our language divided up as its speakers moved apart.  Imagine a mighty oak tree with lots of branches, plenty of twigs coming off those branches, and several hundred leaves.  That is our language "family" today.  Proto Indo-European is right at the very base.  There is a branch called the "Germanic branch" and right at the end of it there is a leaf called English.  There are other branches: the Latin branch, the Slavic branch, the Hellenic branch, the Celtic branch etc.  They have all come from the trunk and they all have their own twigs and end up in leaves such as Spanish, Polish, Modern Greek and Welsh.

English is related to every one of these languages I mentioned: just go down from our leaf back along the branch, onto the trunk, and back up another branch and you find the other language.  Ukranian might sound very foreign to us, but it shares our DNA.  Some features of the language, some vocabulary and some structures are the same in both languages.  Okay, Russian is far closer to it, but we are definitely related. We are both part of the same tree and if we go right down to the base, where the acorn came out of the ground, we came from the same place.

Think of our language family exactly like this: a mighty oak

Everyone knows that French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian came from Latin.  The way to think of it, using the tree analogy, is the current day languages are the leaves at the tips.  Latin (now dead) used to be a leaf when the Latin branch was just leaving the trunk.  It grew into a branch of its own and divided up to produce all these leaves we have today.  Other languages used to be on the tree but they either grew into whole branches, or they died.

Even Persian, Hindi, Bengali or Romani ("Gypsy") are on our tree: it is just they branched off early when the tree was first coming out of the ground.  Persian is related to English and we have words in common that go an awful long way back: for example, the Persian word for daughter is "doxtar".

English: on the Germanic Branch

Now let's look at where exactly English is.  We are on the Germanic branch of the oak tree.  The branch has an exact equivalent of Latin called "Proto Germanic" or Old Germanic.  From that now dead language the branch grew out that resulted in all the Germanic languages, including English.

We are a leaf on a twig with 4 other languages or leaves right next to us.  They are:

ENGLISH - FRISIAN - DUTCH - LOW GERMAN - HIGH GERMAN*

The closest language on earth to ours is therefore Frisian.  It's almost touching our leaf.  A sentence of Frisian (it is spoken mainly in the north of the Netherlands) is "Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk." This handy holiday phrase means "Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Frisian."  I use it all the time.

Frisian Speaking Areas

Dutch is also very close to English.  "Doe de deur open" is "open the door".  "Doe de deur toe" is "close the door".  "De man is in het huis" is "the man is in the house".  "De kat zat op de mat" is "the cat sat on the mat" etc etc.  It can sound incredibly similar indeed.  There is in effect a huge amount of common vocabulary and language structure because we did not split off that long ago.  It's sometimes said that a Dutchman could stand on the stage in Shakespeare's time and be understood as a comedy figure.  I'm not sure that's true, having studied Medieval Dutch, but it's not that far off.

Dutch is literally the language smack bang in the middle between English and German.  Over the centuries, German has been through some "sound shifts", as has English, that have taken it further away from our Latin equivalent, Old Germanic.  For example, the "d" sound in Old Germanic changed into a "th" in many cases in English.  The "t" sound in changed into a "s" sound in German.  Look at these three sentences and compare:

ENGLISH "That is water" << DUTCH "Dat is water" >> GERMAN "Das ist Wasser"

The Dutch is the "purest" form of Germanic.   Dutch "dat" changes to "that" in English.  The same word changes to "das" in German.  Dutch "water" also changes to "Wasser" in German.  It takes a little bit of work to get from English on the far left to German on the far right, but if you look at Dutch in the middle you can see how it works.

If you know the patterns that all of these so-called sound shifts follow, you can instantly work out that the English word "thoroughfare" is in fact, for example, the same word as "Durchfahrt" in German.  The sign below therefore simply says "thoroughfare forbidden" in English.

Let's Blame the French

What happened to our lovely language then to ruin it and take it truly far away from its Old Germanic roots?  Of course we have to blame the French.  They invaded in 1066 and brought with them that thing known as Norman French.  Its parent is Latin, so it's on a branch right next to our Germanic branch and of course we both came from Proto Indo-European.  However, it was sufficiently different to bring a very different influence to our language.  Something extremely odd happened to English: in the hundreds of years after 1066 our leaf touched a leaf on another branch and they fused together.  English is still Germanic in structure and our vocabulary is still more Germanic than Latin based, but French had a huge effect on our language.

They didn't just bring Renaults & Croissants: they RUINED English!

What is fascinating is how the two languages (Old English/Anglo-Saxon and Norman French) merged.  Essentially most "peasant" words in English remain Germanic: we have stuck with the Old English vocabularly.  You'll recognise many basic words in German or Dutch: man, house, live, eat, sit etc.

Any noun that you think of "irregular" in the plural because it changes its vowel is in fact almost certainly a good hearty Germanic peasant word.  Consider, for example, goose (geese), mouse (mice), man (men) etc.  This is what Germanic languages often do to form the plural: they don't just shove an "s" on like French does, but instead change the vowel.  The same goes for verbs that change their vowel in the past tense: I ride (I rode), I sit (I sat), I swim (I swam) etc.  They are basic words of Germanic origin that survived the onslaught of the French invader.

Looked after by Germanic peasants, eaten by French nobles

Think also of a sheep (the word is schaap in Dutch; or Schaf in German).  This is clearly a word that came from Old English, as you can see from its relatives in our Germanic siblings.  The peasants looked after the animal when it was still alive.  When it gets served up on the table it becomes mutton, however.  It is the greedy French nobles gobbling it up ("mouton" is French for sheep).  The same applies to cow (Dutch "koe" and German "Kuh") which becomes "beef" on the table ("boeuf" in French); and to swine (Dutch "zwijn" and German "Schwein") that becomes "pork" (French "porc") when it is eaten.

Other Language Families

Now obviously Indo-European (the Oak Tree) is a big language family.  It has 3 billion speakers around the world.   There are, however, other language families which are not at all related to us.  This comes about because when humans climbed down from the trees and started speaking to one another, they did so in multiple places in the world at the same time.  Linguists used to think there was one parent language: they now believe there is not.  All that stuff about the Tower of Babel in the Bible?  Nope, sorry.

If we are a leaf on the oak tree, take a look at the beautiful olive tree over there.  It is the Semitic family and it includes Hebrew and Arabic.  Oh the irony: these two languages are very closely related.  Imagine a beautiful cherry tree: it is the Japonic family.  The bamboo tree could be said to represent the Sino-Tibetan family, with 21% of the world's speakers.  This is where we find Mandarin, Cantonese, Burmish and Tibetan.  There is the Niger-Congo family from Africa with other 1500 languages; the Eskimo family of languages etc.  In each case think of a tree, but not a tree that is related to our oak tree.

Hebrew and Arabic: right together on the same tree

Within Europe we have a couple of really interesting non-Indo European examples.  Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are together in one family, not related to us at all.  They have come from somewhere deep inside Asia (the family is called "Ugric".)  The language of the Basques, spoken down in the south of France and north of Spain is also not related to any other language in Europe.  It is all on its own in its own family and is amazingly ancient: it is the only survivor of the pre-Indo European languages that were once spoken across Europe many thousands of years ago.

This brings us to the end of my little explanation of where English comes from and where it belongs.  If you're a language historian and think this was all complete shite, ooops sorry.  I've tried to explain it in a non-technical way with what I can remember from university.  If you're not a language historian and it has explained or taught you anything, huzzah!

Many thanks for reading.





[A far better name for High German is "Standard German" by the way: long story but what even the Germans themselves call Hochdeutsch is actually East Middle German.  High German is in fact a collection of dialects in the high mountain areas of the south, which interestingly include Yiddish, Bavarian, Alsatian and Austrian German.]

Equal Marriage: A Fudge

The debate about same sex marriage rumbles on.  And on.  And on...

Last night of course President Obama became the first president of the United States to say he supports the measure in an absolutely ground-breaking statement.  Do not underestimate what that means in terms of influence around the world to the equality cause.  My feed was awash with some brilliant tweets last night on the subject. This from @JournoDave really stuck out, touched and inspired me:

It's Quite Simple

The issue, as has been said repeatedly, is plainly and simply, one of equality.  Unlike North Carolina, which has just voted in a measure to block all forms of civil unions, in this country we do at least have Civil Partnerships.  Why are they not good enough?  Well my friend @TheSecretJake puts it beautifully and pithily here:

The denial of marriage equality to same-sex couples, to quote President Obama "means that they are considered less than full citizens."  It is that simple.

There is however undeniably a fudge at the heart of the current UK proposals.  We are seeking equality, but the proposals clearly do not provide it.  They suggest that same-sex civil weddings be permitted in registry offices and other licensed venues.  However, as a sop to prevent religious opposition, the government has made it clear that there are no proposals to force churches to allow same-sex weddings - or more critically, even to allow them to hold them if they wish.  I'm not sure everyone has got that last point.  That isn't equality.

Misleading Voices

I think I'm safe in saying all of the opposition to marriage equality I have encountered has been from traditionalist Christians.  The stance of the Anglican hierarchy is however no where near as anti-equality as these loud voices would have us believe, with the Dean of St Albans having called two weeks ago for the church to "rejoice" at the prospect of gay marriage.  The Jewish Liberal movement has long accepted and lobbied for same-sex unions, as do denominations such as the Unitarian Church, the Metropolitan Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America etc etc.

There are plenty of great individuals on Twitter I follow: Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, United Reformers, Unitarians, Muslims and Jews (literally I can think of someone from each group including quite a few clergy) who are in favour of marriage equality.  The ban on allowing those institutions who actually want to conduct same-sex marriages is simply wrong.  It perpetuates inequality amongst their own members and it is against their own will.

The existence of these pro-equality religious bodies is one issue.  The other is of the scare-mongering traditionalists claiming that churches will be forced to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies.  Neil Addison, a Roman Catholic Junior Barrister at Palmyra Chambers in Warrington (he is held out to be a "leading discrimination lawyer" by the likes of the Mail) has published what I consider to be a misleading and inaccurate blog on the subject.  He "quotes" in a curious way from the recent ECtHR case of Gas/Dubois v France.  This was actually a case which actually upheld that the ECHR currently does not provide the right to same-sex marriage.  When asked to provide the paragraph references by both me and @AnyaPalmer (an extremely sharp pro-equality employment barrister) he refused to publish our comments.  He also makes a somewhat odd statement in his comments about the UK being the only country where ECHR law is applicable in the domestic courts.

Ruling against SSM used to justify slippery slope. Huh?

Addison's blog is still being quoted as "fact" by the likes of the Anglican who poses as a Archbishop who died 450 years ago, @His_Grace.  It is not fact: his viewpoint is speculation, it is heavily coloured by his own religious stance, and it is not supported by any passage in the ECtHR ruling (Anya and I have both carefully read the entire thing, in French).  The Telegraph took down a misleading story in March based on Addison's views, yet he has since published this item.  The concept that all people should be treated equally appears to be terrifying to this type of Christian: so much so that they will use non-facts to bolster their argument and will not allow polite, reasoned, critical examination of their claims.

Marriage as a Civil Contract

Nonetheless, we must accept that are plenty of people of faith who would accept state civil weddings, but do not want religious ones.  They must be free to govern themselves and their institutions in that way, if that is their choice.  The Catholic church does not have to marry divorced people.  If the Pope decrees that "gay marriage is a threat to humanity" (yes, really apparently he did; also caution, the link takes you to the Daily Mail) then the same principle should presumably apply to Church performed same-sex marriages, as ridiculous and offensive as I find such views.

The problem is, however, that in Britain you may either marry in a church, or in a registry office (or other venue licensed for civil weddings).  Whilst churches continue to have the right to join people in matrimony in a sense that creates legal rights and obligations in civil society, there will always be an unresolved issue.

A German "Standesamt"

The solution really is blindingly obvious, and it is one that practised in almost all our close neighbours (the Code Napoleon countries).  Here marriage is purely a contract in civil law.  The three legal jurisdictions I'm personally most familiar with from my practice are Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands: I'm pretty sure the same applies in France, Spain etc.  In these countries you are married by State officials in the City Hall (Standesamt or Gemeentehuis).  Only this civil marriage contract has any legal force.

You then may, if you wish, go along to a Church, Synagogue, Mosque or anywhere else for a religious ceremony.  As a "believer" you may consider only after that are you married "in the eyes of God" - fine, that's your belief.  Your institution may not allow you to have this ceremony if you've been divorced before, or if you're marrying someone of the same sex: that's up to them.  It doesn't matter to me as I don't share your faith and you're welcome to apply your own rules to something that has no civic legal standing.  If your institution does welcome same-sex couples, superb: all the better for the people that this matters to.

It would not be terribly difficult to make this change in the United Kingdom.  It is so much cleaner, so much simpler, and allows both those who object to the religious "ownership" of marriage (of all sexualities), and those whose faith does matter to them, to both be accommodated.  Are you listening Mr Cameron?  Exactly as in the Netherlands (who introduced this in 2000 and whose society has not collapsed into the fiery pits of hell, anarchy or the world of Morris dancing):

Marriage should be open to all two people of the requisite age and capacity, regardless of gender, in the form of a civil contract, performed exclusively by the State.


It's really quite a simple, attractive idea, I believe.  I hope one day that it will be applied widely around the world.

Phylis (77) and Connie (85): first same sex marriage in New York

Finally, if you want to know why this matters, and why the voters of North Carolina who backed the ban on same sex unions have pain and misery on their hands, and spite in their hearts, take ten minutes to click here and watch this harrowing video.  It certainly had me in tears.  Equality isn't an abstract concept.  This stuff matters to people around the world.

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness" is something that's banded about in our society without too many people, I think, considering too much about what it actually means and whether it's a good thing or not.  This blog is a random set of reflections on the concept.

School Assemblies

"Forgive our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us".  I grew up with prayers at school assemblies (do they still do that?) and we would mumble these lines of course without thinking about it or even actually understanding it.  I had a vague notion this related to land rights, I guess.  When I considered the German version I'd also been taught (double indoctrination!) it referred to "debts" not trespassers. More confusing still.  Liberal, atheist American friends are often amazed at our lack of separation of Church and State.  As I explain to them, hymns and prayers at school are the best aversion therapy possible to lead to generations of atheists being produced in Britain.

No trespasses, or no trespassing? All *so* confusing for a blond

The meaning of this line actually refers to sins - the word in Aramaic for debt and sin is the same.  We are asking for forgiveness for things we have done wrong, and saying we will forgive others for wrongs towards us.  As with much of Christianity, a potentially really sound, important lesson is being missed because so many people are turned off not just by the way it is taught, but the way Christianity is perceived in such negative terms in this country for a whole raft of reasons.

The concept of forgiveness is far from unique to Christian thought.  I spent a week in March in Turkey with a beautiful, wonderful woman: a follower of Sufi Islamic Mysticism.  Her utterly inspiring personality was founded square on the concepts of love, forgiveness and the heart.  Contrary to many people's perceptions, Judaism is full of the requirement to forgive.

The best explanation I have experienced about the power and need for forgiveness did not come in a religious context, however.  I was on a personal development/ communication course called the Landmark Forum that I have previously touched on, back in August 1997.  One of the results of the course was my going out and phoning my Dad to tell him I loved him.  Please do read that short blog if you haven't already done so.  That story matters a huge amount to me.

A Fireman Forgives

The power of the Landmark Education courses (this Observer article gives a reasonably fair assessment) is that you experience other people working through things and you learn directly from them.  This was 15 years ago and I remember so clearly a man on the course who broke down during the module on "forgiveness".  His story in summary was that he was a young professional fireman.  He'd been accused of arson by a "friend" who was getting revenge for the guy having run off with his girlfriend.  He had been suspended from work, was going on trial a short time after the course.  The fireman said he could hear what the course leader was saying about forgiveness, but he could not, and would not do it.  The wrong was too great, put simply. 

The course leader spelled out two contrasting situations.  In both the fireman was found guilty, lost his job and went to prison.  In the first he would fester hate in his heart for the perpetrator.  This would consume him every day, eating away at his personality and his being.  At the end of the prison term he would come out, utterly broken, full of revenge and would probably do something stupid in some way or other.  It was as bleak as you could get.  In the other situation, the fireman forgives his friend.  He serves his time, but he comes out with decades still in front of him and a daunting task of rebuilding his life.  The task would be met from a very different space, however: one of power and creativity, not anger and hate.  Life is sometimes desperately unfair.  We cannot control the terrible things that can happen.  They can literally be of this life-changing magnitude and so, so, so, fucking wrong.  But what we can do is control or seek to control how we behave and react in the light of them.

I can picture the pain on the fireman's face and the tears streaming down his face.  He could not do it.  He asked what it meant to forgive.  The course leader said it was to let go off the hate, and more to wish the perpetrator well.  Even more, it required verbalisation.  To give it real power, it had to become real: the course leader asked the man to call his "friend" and tell him this is how he felt.

Not *THE* fireman, just a good excuse for a hot pic

The course runs over 4 days.  This sounds so revoltingly cheesy, but on the last day a man came in whom we hardly recognised.  The fireman looked like he had had the weight of a mountain lifted off him.  His energy was full of brightness, happiness, empowerment.  You know what I mean: you've felt like this at times before and you've seen it in other people.  He'd called his friend and told him that he was sad their friendship had ended, but that he wished him no ill: in fact he wished him all good things in the world.  The friend of course couldn't believe what he was hearing: shit like this doesn't happen.  People just don't behave like that.  I saw the fireman again some months later (on another Landmark course).  He'd been acquitted and was back in his job.  I've no small doubt the way he conducted himself as a witness was a huge factor in that.

Selfish and Individual

The above story hopefully demonstrates that even in an extreme situation, forgiveness can be a very powerful, life-changing thing.  It is also an inherently selfish concept.  I don't think there's the slightest thing wrong in that.  The problem with the Lord's Prayer "you must forgive" version is you're not taught *why* - like many desperately valuable religious messages.  You're just told to do it - essentially because we tell you to, because we know best.  The fireman was forgiving for his own sake, not because he's a "good man" or any other reason.  It's about making the best, for him, of a terrible situation.  That makes far more sense to my analytical way of thinking that the "it's an inherently good thing, don't ask questions" approach.

Another problem with the Christian "forgive everyone, forgive everything" approach is that, for me, it's way too broad-brushed and unfocused.  It therefore loses its power to me: it's just a mantra.  I read a fascinating book that brought this home to me: Simon Wiesenthal's Sunflower.  The first half is Wiesenthal's account of his time in Lemberg concentration camp in Poland (he lost 88 members of his extended family in the Holocaust).  He describes how a young dying Catholic Nazi officer asks for a Jew - any Jew - to forgive him for the crime of having burnt 300 Jews to death in a house.  He does not give the forgiveness and asks the reader what he should have done.  The second half of the book is made up of 53 short essays giving responses from former Nazis, survivors, leading theologians (including Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama), lawyers, human rights activists and philosophers.

An outstanding read: recommended

You can divide the responses into two broad categories: those influenced by the general Christian "you must forgive" attitude and the much more analytical and legalistic approach that typifies the Jewish response.  The latter resonates far more strongly with me.  It says that you can only forgive what has been done to you individually.  Wiesenthal was not being asked to forgive a wrong the German had done to him personally, but rather to forgive on behalf of the Jewish people  How can he forgive on behalf of a murdered 3 year old in that house?  It is simply not his place to: the act of forgiving becomes devalued, meaningless and he has simply no locus or right to do so.

This for me hits the nail on the head for the reason people are just turned off by the cliché of the need to forgive everything and everyone that is so often banded about.  Forgiveness is hugely powerful, but for me it is a personal, individual thing, it has to be directed at the wrongdoer and relate to a specific wrong done to you, yourself.

Forgiveness of Self

Forgiveness frequently of course does not relate to such extreme situations.  Let's face it, few of us are put up on fabricated arson charges or asked to forgive the murder of our people in the holocaust.  We do however frequently insist, at all costs, on making ourselves right and others wrong - frequently holding grudges that last years and that harm no one but ourselves.  I'm no saint: I of course fall into this myself, but do at least work on acknowledging it and trying to let go.  When I understand the rationale and how to do it, it is so much easier.

The last aspect about forgiveness that is often forgotten is the need to forgive oneself.  This is enormous and is at least as powerful as forgiving those who have wronged you.  It is not, for me as an atheist, about seeking forgiveness by going along to a confessional box or praying to a spirit in the sky.

It is about realising that we are all imperfect, make mistakes in life, and can carry round the guilt of that for years in a way which harms us.  Again we come back to a purely "self" or "selfish" (if you like) motivation.  There are things that have happened to me that I could beat myself up about forever.  What I cannot do is turn the clock back.  Shit happens: through my own fault, or through no fault of my own.  Contracting HIV almost 11 years ago now is a perfect example of this for me: life throws us some real challenges.  We either learn from them or carry the pain with us to our deaths.  This wasn't "my fault" but I could beat myself up forever about it.  Why did I go out that night? Why did I take the guy home with me? Etc.  It serves nothing.  I also hold absolutely no ill-will to the guy involved: what is the point?  Instead for me, I genuinely have forgiven the whole situation and instead concentrated on a massive learning and personal growth opportunity in it all.

One Last Recommendation

I've read so many "personal development" books both before, and especially since,   The Landmark courses helped me enormously through the whole thing.  Another one that did is Louise L Hay's "You Can Heal Your Life".  Here is someone who is frankly utterly bat-shit crazy, but who actually talks so much sense.  Forgiveness and love, of others and of the self, are absolutely key again to her message.  It's completely non-religious and I guess says nothing the great religions don't.  It is however presented in a way that resonated strongly with me.

No I'm not getting a commission

If you don't fancy going on a course like Landmark, and anything I have said has touched you, buy Louise's book.  It's available on Amazon and it too has the potential to change your life, if you read it with an open mind and put her suggestions into effect.  It is extremely practical, and I really do recommend it.  If you choose to ignore my recommendation, I do however of course also forgive you.  IDIOT ;-)

I was going to write this blog anyway, but after a DM conversation late last night with a friend on Twitter, this blog is dedicated to you.  You know who you are.

PME x




[Post Script: I've also had this strongly recommended to me by a friend who went through a deeply traumatic experience, forgave, and says it profoundly changed her.  Note the strap line: "Holding a Grudge is Hazardous to Your Health".  On that basis, let's add it to the list!]

Loves that Might Have Been

[Original posted on 29 April 2012]

It's 29 April. I'm such a sad old brush that I woke up and thought "Oh my god, it's TC's birthday".  (Let's keep this semi-anonymous as there's a very slight and utter mortifyingly chance that someone sees this who knows who he is.)

"TC" was my first big crush.  I'd fancied Gawaine at school when I was 15 - he had pale skin, dark hair, puppy dog eyes and possessed the best bum in Christendom - but despite being in all my classes I considered him way too cool/ beautiful to actually talk to.  During sixth-form I was going through a majorly self-repressive phase and can't remember liking anyone specific.

But then at university TC appeared.  TC is half-French and half-Danish.  He was studying law, the same as I.  He was the captain of the college water polo team.  He was about 5'8 or 5'9, had dirty blond hair, loved dogs, was a vegetarian and a Europhile.    His eyes, eyebrows and jaw line put him in the movie star category of looks, no exaggeration.  Think River Pheonix meets a young Tom Cruise.  He had a slight doziness about him (gawd I hope he doesn't read this :s) and the most ridiculously endearing American accent from his time in Washington as a kid.  He invented the word "Twink".

I fancied TC so much it hurt.  I was only out to very close friends but after about 18 months of complete torment I went round, knocked on his door, and asked him if I could talk to him.  I told him how I felt.  He listened to it all and apologised "I'm so sorry" he said a couple of times - he just wasn't gay.  He took out a photo album with his dog and asked me to stay for a coffee and look at them.  I melted even further.  How could the bastard be SO NICE on top of everything?

The next few months became steadily worse: TC became an actual friend rather than an object of lust from afar.  He invited me to his birthday picnic on the Backs with a small group of his closest pals (all girls, I recall).  We went down to London together.  He answered his door a couple of times dressed only with a towel wrapped round his waist.  I went on to law school, but attended his graduation.  Momma TC was there: a stunning, slender chic, French woman with an amaze Chanel handbag.  It was obvious where TC had got his looks and style from.

FAST FORWARD some ten years later.  I'd just split up with my boyfriend of 5 years.  It must have been 2002.  I was at my fave gay hangout, the Shadow Lounge in Soho, and who is there, but TC.  I nearly vomited. I actually had to run and hide in the loos to compose myself.  I went back: yup, it was him.  No one looks like TC.  At nearly 30 he was as beautiful as at 20.  I went up and said hello: "Peeeder! [remember the slightly dumb but massively endearing American accent]" he said... "I guess I was gay after all!"  Cue spontaneous human internal combustion.

TC told me he'd been flattered, interested, but scared when I had come round to see him.  I told him what an absurd crush I'd had on him: how much bike rides back to college and lunches together had meant to me.  He said I looked just the same as I had then, and how great it was to see me.  It was all agony, mixed with "oh my god, but now what?!".  Then he introduced me to his  boyfriend who was also there with him listening to the whole thing.

TC

TC is 38 today.  I know the firm he's working at.  First loves are the worst, especially if they are unrequited.  I've not been back in touch: I'm sure I'd make a total arse of myself and he's probably still with the boyfriend, all nicely civil partnered - with a dog.  I've still got a couple of little handwritten notes he wrote me: I *do* have enough dignity not to post them though, don't worry.

I'm such a soft old bastard I've actually got a bit teary writing this.  Leave a comment, don't leave me thinking I'm the only tragic soul who still remembers their first love?

Mad King Ludwig

I like to bore people regularly with pictures of my study tours with young Americans around Europe.  It seems that King Ludwig II of Bavaria (or Mad King Ludwig as he's sometimes called) and his castles provoked some interest, so this blog is dedicated to him: a Queen amongst Kings.  Also the 125th anniversary of finding him face down in shallow water in Lake Starnberg was last summer, so he deserves a blog on that basis too.

Variously called "Mad, Swan or Fairy Tale King"

Ludwig II was born in the mid 1800s.  He came from a somewhat eccentric family: the Royal Wittelsbach dynasty of Bavaria, who ruled over the country without a break from 1180 to 1918.  During this time they frequently married their close blood relatives: Christmas must have been an absolute nightmare: what to put on the card - dear erm Mother/Aunty/Cousin etc.?  As I tell my groups, anyone who has been to West Virginia will be familiar with the effects of such habits: the family were just a tad eccentric after several centuries of it.  Ludwig's grandfather, Ludwig I, had caused a revolution by shacking up with an exotic dancer called Lola Montez (real name Eliza Gilbert of County Sligo in Ireland) whose party piece was a dance where she looked for a spider in her knickers. The elderly King apparently liked to lick her toes: the good conservative burghers of Munich were having none of that

Young Ludwig grew up very distant from his parents, although he did like his toe-licking Grandpa.  He apparently referred to his Prussian mother as my "predecessor's consort".  He was born in a time at the dawn of the modern era: railways were crossing the continent, iron clad warships were coming on the scene, Facebook and MySpace were still popular.  Ludwig instead spent his childhood days dreaming of a time of knights, courtly legends, castles and a long gone era.  He spent most of his youth in a castle in the Bavarian Alps riding and reading poetry with his young aide de camp, Paul von Thurn und Taxis.  Ahem, more of that later.

On the Throne and his Failed Engagement

Just after turning 18, the dashing Crown Prince Ludwig was thrust into kingship.  His father died suddenly and he ascended the throne in 1864.  His reign got off to a bit of a crap start when he backed Austria in a war against Prussia.  Everyone knows Austria always lost any war it *ever* got involved in; moreover you never pick a fight with a Prussian brandishing a currywurst and a pointed helmet.  Ludwig backed away from public affairs and instead lost himself in the music of Richard Wagner.  They were a perfect match: the schmaltzy, over the top romantic story lines of Wagner's operas were clangy music to the young king's ears.  The people of Munich disliked Wagner and Ludwig disliked them back in turn. He backed the composer and it is quite likely that without his generous patronage that many of his works would never have been written.

The Pumpkin Wedding Coach. Oh My.

Ludwig became engaged to his cousin (*surprise*) in 1867 at the age of 21.  He broke the engagement off nine months later claiming if "this is how much the wedding coach was, how much will the bride cost me?"  I think any reasonable person looking at the splendid golden pumpkin coach (his personal design) <might> guess that someone with these tastes wasn't that into marrying a young lady.  In a fit of pique, Ludwig personally supervised the smashing of all the Nymphenburg souvenir porcelain plates that had been produced for the occasion.  Ooooh, bitter.  From that point Ludwig hung round with a series of young men, apparently tormented in his conscience between his Roman Catholic faith and his liking of Glee.

Vain, beautiful Sisi: only pictures of her as a young woman exist

His only really close friendship was with his gorgeous other cousin, the stunning Empress Sisi of Austria.  She was the Princess Diana of her age: trapped in a loveless marriage, she suffered from an eating disorder, refused to be photographed after the age of 30 and ended up being stabbed on a boat on Lake Geneva by an Italian anarchist.  She has been merchandised to death and back by the tourism industry of Vienna in recent years.

Despite being all sniffy about the people of Munich, Ludwig was tremendously popular with the ordinary folk of Bavaria.  He would stop and talk to farm workers, stable hands and labourers (oh yes) and is still known as "Unser Kini" which I'm told means "Our dear King" in that odd throat disease called Bavarian German.  He also liked going to the theatre (mainly he insisted on private performances) and took a keen interest in the careers of the actors.  Here's one of them: a comely young Hungarian actor called Josef Kainz, the son of a railway worker. 

HAND ON ROYAL SHOULDER SCANDAL

A picture of the two on a private holiday together in Switzerland caused an absolute scandal because of 23 year old Josef's casual hand on the royal shoulder.  It was (no joke) effectively photoshopped out of a modified version.  The King had by this stage lost his youthful looks and clearly been at the Bier and the Pretzels.

The modified "decent" version of the photograph

As one of my followers so perfectly put it:

The Royal Castles

Of course the reason  Ludwig is so well known are his castles.  Linderhof was his first.  It cost 8.5 million Gold Marks, or roughly £42 million in Victorian money: bear in mind a house in suburban London cost around £300 at this time.  Let's say Linderhof is quite flamboyant.  It's the palace he lived in most: a perfect little bling Rococo gem surrounded by the Alps.  One of the most expensive features was an artificial Venus grotto he had built in the hillside, which was accessed by a giant fake rock that split open (as in Ali Baba and "Open Sesame").  Once inside the King could sit in his giant sea shell, feeding his pet swans and listening to Wagner's Operas from his private orchestras, who were conveniently hidden from view.

Linderhof Castle: the King's main real home

Another feature of the park was the Moorish pavilion where the King would dress up like the Sultan of Turkey and sit round on cushions wearing slippers and robes.  Linderhof feels like it belongs to Ludwig: less lonely, more homely and less artificial than his other creations.  His bedroom here had heavy black out curtains and a giant blue ball at the end of his bed.  He liked to sleep during the day and be comforted by the appearance of moon light.  The whole place occurs as utterly bat-shit crazy, but that's its whole charm.

Giant Sea Shell and Artifical Lake/ Grotto

Next came Neuschwanstein: the one on every bloody tourism poster ever put out by the German Tourist Board.  It's hugely famous: it was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Walt Disney copied it for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland, Tchaikovsky was apparently inspired to write Swan Lake after a visit (the swan was the King's favourite animal and there are swans everywhere in the castle including a beak for his private wash basin).  The castle is Neo-Romanesque: he was inspired by the real thing of the Wartburg near Eisenach and had a copy of this 600 year old style built on on a hill, which was a massive engineering feat.  The plans were drawn up by a stage designer, not an architect.

It *really* does look exactly like this. Amazing.

The King's bedroom is worthy of note: his bed represents the cathedrals of Germany.  14 carpenters worked for 4 years on this piece of furniture alone.  Off the bedroom is another artifical grotto.  The whole place had central heating, running water and an early iPhone 1, which was connected to the Post Office in the nearby town of Füssen.  The castle was completed on the outside, but only part finished inside.  The interior feels dark, museum like and sad to me.  He spent 172 days here in total: a little under 6 months.

The King's Bedroom. Check out the Bed.

Last was Herrenchiemsee: a copy of the baroque palace of Versailles.  The King worshipped Louis XIV of France and the fact he was an absolute monarch, not constrained by constitutions and parliaments.  This place is actually weird: it is set on a stunning island in the middle of the Chiemsee lake (also called the Bavarian Ocean).  It is an actual copy of the central part of Versailles (there were plans for the side wings, but one partially erected one was torn down after the King's death) - except for example the breathtaking Hall of Mirrors is longer than the one at the original.

Herrenchiemsee: more impressive inside than Versailles

The strange thing that I think many visitors do not understand is that all of the formal rooms (exact copies of Versailles, down to the artwork) were never intended to be used.  The priceless King's formal bedroom with the massive sun above the bed was not meant to be slept in by anyone.  It was all just a homage: a shrine to a King of France who had lived 200 years before.  There were also private rooms: they included a "magic table" (as at Linderhof) where food could be set out on a table in the kitchen and the entire thing wound up through the ceiling to the dining room above, so the King would not have to be disturbed by servants during his meal.  The King spent just 10 days here in the autumn of 1885.

Herrenchiemsee Hall of Mirrors: for the King's Private Use

I should probably quickly just mention that there were plans for a 4th castle: Falkenstein (it was never built) and the King also had a fantastic Winter Garden or Conservatory shoved on the roof of the existing Residenz (Winter Palace) in Munich.  It was over 200 feet long, had a painted copy of the Himalayas, and Indian bamboo fishing hut, a Moorish pavilion and a huge artificial lake.  Unfortunately it leaked and almost took the ceiling down on the whole palace.  It was dismantled in 1897 and the whole palace was in any case levelled by carpet bombing by the RAF during WW2.

An Untimely End

The King paid for all of his fantastic projects from his own money.  His family was tremendously rich, and it is often pointed out what a Keynesian stimulus type effect his expenditure had: there was massive of work generated for years.  By the end of his life he was 14 million marks in debt, however, and was reduced to asking for loans from fellow monarchs.  His ministers feared Bavaria was becoming a laughing stock with its eccentric castle building "fairy tale" monarch.  He had also "sold out" Bavaria by agreeing in 1870 to its becoming part of the new German Empire under the rule of his uncle, William, the King of Prussia, and now Kaiser of the whole of unified Germany.

A plot was hatched.  Servants were interviewed and bribed for evidence of the King's alleged insanity.  His younger brother was seriously barking mad (possibly as a result of late stage Syphilis) and facts were scraped together.  The Imperial Chancellor Bismarck dismissed them as "tittle-tattle" and "rakings from the King's waste basket and cupboards" but a panel of 4 psychiatrists ruled the King as unfit to rule.  Not one of them actually examined him, and the basis of their findings is open to serious criticism.

A commission arrived at Neuschwanstein and in true Ludwig style it was driven away by an angry Baroness friend of his at the castle gates, with the suitably Teutonic use of her umbrella.  They tried again and on 12 June 1886 went into the King's bedroom, where they informed the 40 year old Ludwig that he was no longer King.  He was moved to another castle on Lake Starnberg, where he died a day later.

Lying In State in Munich

To this date no one knows what happened.  His body was found floating in shallow water (he was an excellent swimmer) along with his personal doctor - who had heavy wounds to his head and signs of strangulation.  There are at least 5 plausible theories running from suicide to murder.  His body was returned to the place he disliked the most: Munich, and there it lies to this day in the Michaelskirche (it's close to the big H&M in the main shopping street if you want to visit).

What A Legacy

POOR Ludwig.  I really genuinely feel sorry for him.  He was a tragic, mixed up, unhappy character.  He had a life of utter luxury, sure, but this was hardly unusual for a monarch of his time.  He spent a shed load of money, none of it from the State, and created work.  He left a legacy of 3 castles (they were opened in August 1886 to the public and have raked in gazillions in tourist revenue for Germany since then) and a still unsolved mystery.  He is still Bavaria's most popular monarch: a man who tried very hard to keep his country out of war and who was a friend to the ordinary man - if he was 25, dressed in Lederhosen and had nice arms, especially.  Ahem, who can blame him?

I first visited Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee in 1981 with my parents.  I've since been back literally dozens of times with groups and enjoy each and every visit.  We call their builder Mad King Ludwig, yet we don't know if he was actually mad, or just theatrical and very eccentric.  He harmed no-one, yet we do not apply the label to Mad Hitler or Mad Stalin, both of whom undoubtedly deserve it far more.  Truly he was a Queen amongst Kings and for his utter fabulousness and heinous crimes against taste he deserves acknowledgement.  125 years dead: rest his big old Bavarian soul.