You never know what you’ll find at a flea market … like a 4,000-year-old piece of pottery. That’s what a guy in England discovered, though he didn’t realize what he had until later, after he’d repurposed the jar as a toothbrush holder.
The pottery vessel, adorned with the painting of an antelope, caught the eye of Karl Martin while he was browsing a yard sale five years ago. He picked the jar up, along with another pot, for about $5 (4 pounds).
“I liked it straight away,” Martin said in a statement from Hansons Auctioneers, where he now works and where the pottery was auctioned — selling for about $100 (80 pounds) in November.
The jar dates to the Indus Valley Harappan civilization, which thrived in the northwestern regions of South Asia during the Bronze Age, according to James Brenchley, head of antiquities at Hansons Auctioneers. Read more.
You can’t escape from Brexit anywhere these days. Fans of The Crown might have thought that season 3 of the story of the House of Windsor under Elizabeth II would be a safe haven from Euro talk, but they’re in for a shock. The third instalment will include the moment that The Queen watched the UK enter the Common Market.
That political milestone is just one of the major historical events which…
If you watched President George H.W. Bush’s casket arrive in Maryland on Monday and are British, you might have been confused as to why “God Save The Queen” was being played. If you are American like me, you would think nothing of it. You would recognise it as the song “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” that you sang in many school events growing up.
Former President George Bush Snr’s casket arrives in…
Hm. Perhaps it’s the possibility of it being revoked easier? I don’t really get it either. But there have always been visa issues around her ever since the engagement was announced.
I assume she’s on that kind of visa currently because they’re working on her becoming a British citizen. Otherwise, I don’t really know since I’m not familiar with the UK visa system.
“What a striking way to mark Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. People living in an English village have been knitting poppies to display outside their church in Suffolk to remember the nation’s war dead. They set out to make 40 flowers to cover two crosses, but have ended up with more than 5,500”. #poppy #armisticeday #remembranceday#lestweforget #amazing
The Picts, a fierce group of people who lived in Scotland during ancient and medieval times, may have developed their own written language about 1,700 years ago, according to results from new excavations.
The Picts (which means “Painted People” for their distinctive tattoos and war paint) are part of the reason the Roman Empire was never able to conquer Scotland. Every time the Romans tried to invade, the Picts and other Scotland inhabitants drove the would-be conquerors back. At times the Picts went on the offensive, attacking Roman-controlled England, forcing the Romans to send legions to try to beat attackers back. Roman accounts of the Picts sometimes describe them as a fierce people who had numerous tattoos and practiced polyamory.
However, while the Picts were often in conflict with the Romans, new research published today (Oct. 26) in the journal Antiquity, suggests that these people may have gotten the idea for a written language from the Romans. Read more.
Queen Elizabeth II receives Dutch King Willem-Alexander I and Queen Maxima at the ceremonial welcome at Horse Guards Parade, London. Oct. 23, 2018
I always forget that State Visits will bring Theresa May out of whatever cave she lives in when she’s not trying to convince the public she’s not a robot
I’ve heard of those, but I don’t think Megs cares all that much for the legalities. She can get it done outside the UK and Harry’s pretty far down the line of succession.
That being said, I’m in the minority about the surrogacy. The Talking Tarot blog, for example, is pretty sure it’s not surrogacy.
I’ll say it again. Surrogacy contracts are NOT legally enforceable in the UK.
And the kid needs to be born in the UK as part of the royal family.
The difference between having a surrogate carry her baby (because Megs can’t do it) and her merching & pr extravaganza is HUGE. Like, how would they hide it? Megs wouldn’t be pregnant and people would notice. Do you really think she would be able to gain that much weight to convince people she’s pregnant? She’s tiny. If she were truly pregnant, then it would be obvious. Then what are you going to do with the surrogate? Like, no one she knows would notice that she had a baby and doesn’t have it? Like, people wouldn’t possibly talk and then go to the tabloids? This would be a HUGE firestorm in the UK.
Look at that last line there: “Surrogacy contracts aren’t enforced by UK law, even if you’ve signed a deal with your surrogate and have paid for her expenses.” It is NOT a legally enforceable contract. Surrogate is legally able to keep the kid if she wants.
NO WAY would Charles or the Queen give the okay for this to be done. What do you think would happen if the surrogate mother decided she wanted to keep the baby? SCANDAL!! And one that would get maximum visibility.
No he wouldn’t. The royal family is about blood. Perhaps when he married they could grant him a title, maybe, but he wouldn’t be given anything. That’s just not how it works. The royal family have a lot of titles because they have a lot of people but they’re actually very strict about who can get what.
Norway doesn’t have titles anymore beyond the immediate royal family. Nobility titles were done away with through legislation in the 19th century.
You’ve misunderstood the question. It relates to an earlier discussion about titles in Britain if Meghan had a child. No one is saying Marius will get a title, we’re talking about the imaginary British title. That’s why it’s tagged with British royal family and not Norwegian royal family
I understood the question quite well thank you. I stated what I had to say because Norway no longer has nobility like Sweden or Denmark. And it’s been that way for a longtime.
I said what I had to say earlier because using Norway in the question regardless of Marius’s status doesn’t make any sense. Marius cannot have a title not just because he’s not born from the royal line, but because Norway does not have nobility at all. There are no earls or duchesses in Norway. Nobility was abolished in the 19th century. King Harald cannot make Marius an earl even if he wanted to. It’s against the law. Literally. Huge difference compared to Sweden and Denmark where Carl Gustaf and Margrethe can bestow titles.
So, OF COUSE, the UK is more title heavy than Norway. The UK gives out honorary titles to those who are not even citizens, e.g. Angelina Jolie. The only people in Norway allowed to have titles are those born into the royal family. Sweden or Denmark would have made a more suitable mention in the question.
No he wouldn’t. The royal family is about blood. Perhaps when he married they could grant him a title, maybe, but he wouldn’t be given anything. That’s just not how it works. The royal family have a lot of titles because they have a lot of people but they’re actually very strict about who can get what.
Norway doesn’t have titles anymore beyond the immediate royal family. Nobility titles were done away with through legislation in the 19th century.
so royals get money through basically 2 main ways.. the Sovereign Grant and a Duchy
Sovereign Grant is a percentage given back to HM from the earnings of the Crown Estate from a previous year. This money goes to fund the majority of the royal family. This next year that money will be going up due to major reno work at Buckingham Palace
The Duchy of Lancaster is a private portfolio of land that was set aside to fund the monarch and his/her family
The Duchy of Cornwall is a private portfolio of land that was set aside to fund the Heir and his/her family. This is the main source of funds for Prince Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Harry and Meghan. This funds the CH and KP households.
Note: this funding does not include the cost/source for the security/rpos. that is a whole different thing
Note #2: Royals are not allowed to take freebies and any gifts received while on “duty” are theirs to use for life but are property of the crown.
Note #3: Contrary to recent popular belief, no Meghan is not buying her own clothes, as a working, senior royals all of her expenses are covered by the Duchy of Cornwall.
if anyone wants to correct or add on, please do so
To add on a couple of points as Rosie graciously said we could:
– Rosie mentioned security isn’t included. Neither are the costs of away days or tours. When they go overseas the host country pays. When they go for a whole day to a specific area of the country- an away day as it’s called- the trip is paid for by the local council and can be very pricey (upwards of five figures).
– Also not included in the official figures the royals mention is the cost of the monarchy in the Commonwealth. The Queen is head of state in several countries but doesn’t live there so she has representatives who act on her behalf on a daily basis. These costs are met by the Commonwealth nation and are never included in figures regarding the cost of the monarchy. In previous years Canada have actually spent more on the monarchy than Brits have!
– The Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall are legally considered private sources of income but should the monarchy be removed, they would return to the public and the income would go to the nation
– If the Crown Estate’s profits decrease the queen’s income is not allowed to decrease. She is not allowed to have her pay cut, essentially, and her income has risen at a rate higher than inflation. This is quite controversial against a backdrop where public sector workers are having their pay slashed by the government or where pay is increasing below the rate of inflation
Opinion: U.S. And U.K. Remain United, Not Divided, By Their Common Language
“Great Britain and the United States are two nations separated by a common language.”
That’s the stock witticism, but if you ask me, it gets things backwards. Great Britain and the U.S. are more like two nations united by a divided language — or more precisely, by their mutual obsession with their linguistic differences. For 200 years now, writers from each nation have been tirelessly picking over the language of the other, with a mix of amusement, condescension, derision and horror.
if you didn’t believe that England hates Donald Trump already: the most recent news of his visit today is that the mayor of London approved protestors releasing a £16,000 Trump in-a-diaper balloon to fly 98ft above ground when he visits, and literally no British person is surprised. Welcome to London.
I’m literally not kidding
the people who are managing the balloon are called trump babysitters. I’ve never loved my country more.
i fucking love this country. Trust us to make the president feel welcome
the best part about this is that trump expected to have a royally welcome visit but as soon as he made an appearance, thousands of angry British people started chanting “fuck trump!” on repreat for hours.
UPDATE: Trump has managed to generate a bigger crowd than Obama did, but for all the wrong reasons. The entirety of London is filled with angry anti-trump protestors, to the point where he is refusing to make an appearance due to fear for his safety.
Here are some fucking awesome protest signs being shown today. I hope we’ve made you proud!
How much would it cost to bring the Giant Baby to The States?
Or to make a few of our own?
Okay I know I just reblogged this earlier. but I just realized that thw “all in all you’re just another prick with no wall” sign is being held by Tony Robinson, known to many as Baldric from Black Adder, and a huge portion of my childhood from Saturday morning cartoons.
few comments on the IRE tour. The reason royals go to IRE (PC goes at least twice each year) is to advance the reconciliation process. It is hard for someone not familiar with the history to understand the bitterness and ambivalence towards reconciliation with the English especially. But since they share common challenges and a deeply integrated economy it is vital to both countries to move on. PC and HM are admired because they have made serious efforts with some personal cost to advance this very important process. Nothing Harry and Meghan did contributed to this effort. Harry seemed unprepared several times. Meghan seemed more interested in posing. The mistakes made were serious ones – a Brit Duchess commenting on the politics of the Republic? Harry ham fisted insensitive remarks at the Memorial. That was shocking as if none of his aides actually knew what caused almost 2 mil deaths? The extravagant cost of her clothes. Shutting down high traffic tourist sites.
The only reason for this visit seems to have been to allow Markle to march around merching. The novelty of the location perhaps getting her the media coverage that has been lagging. The notion it was an “overseas” tour is absurd – people commute between the two islands for work. It seems to me IRE got chosen cause she wanted an overseas tour and no visa issues because there is no border between the UK and IRE. A trip to the continent would have required visas for the American Duchess.
Thanks for sending this in!
Agree except on the visas for an American. Not true.
She had been a remarkable woman. She would remain a remarkable woman even in a century which produced many of great note. There were few others who rose from such beginnings to a crown, and none contributed to a revolution as far-reaching as the English Reformation. To use a description no longer in fashion, Anne Boleyn was one of the makers of history.
this BBC documentary is on royal fashion it’s surely not definitive but is interesting. One of the points made here is that a royal should be concerned with what their clothes communicate but not concerned with what is fashionable. The most fashionable royals were the least popular. Fratelli Prada who is surely the last word on the matter of fashion has said that Queen Elizabeth is the “most elegant woman on the planet”. Yet Elizabeth eschews the “fashionable”. That strikes me as being quite insightful
In 1923, famed British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas published a seminal study on Stonehenge, claiming to have found the precise spots where prehistoric people had quarried the stones.
There was just one problem with his analysis: It was wrong. And it has taken geologists about 80 years to get it right, a new study finds.
“At best, he [Thomas] was forgetful and sloppy, but at worst he was being deceptive,” said study co-researcher Rob Ixer, a geologist at the University of Leicester and an honorary senior research associate at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, in England.
In addition to debunking Thomas’ influential work, the researchers announced an additional Stonehenge discovery: Prehistoric people likely didn’t boat the stones though Bristol Channel on the way from where the stones were quarried, in western Wales, to where Stonehenge stands today, in Salisbury Plain. Read more.
Of course, it’s not too weird given the conversation about Rose and Kit. Britain is a class driven society. Imagine you leave school and you decide you want to be an actor. You’d probably have to move to London where rent is astronomically high. For the average person, they couldn’t afford rent in London on an acting salary so they have to get another job. They would probably end up on a zero hours contract or a low skilled job because they need time to do their acting. That means their focus is divided, they have less time to invest in acting, and eventually they’re likely to come to a point where they have to make a choice as the lifestyle isn’t sustainable. But for someone from the upper classes, they’re much more likely to have someone who will pay for their rent or provide a living allowance. That means they don’t have to get that second job, they can focus entirely on acting. They can stay in London for years until they make it big because there’s less worry. Does that make sense? A lot of career paths will require you to do unpaid internships or have a very low wage for various reasons and unless you have a family who can financially support you for as long as it takes to do it then it’s going to be much much harder for you.
There’s also a really interesting difference in terms of aspirations. So for example I was watching Frankie Boyle’s New World Order yesterday (it’s a satirical panel show, not important). A comedian who I love called Romesh Ranganathan was talking about how he used to be a teacher at an Outstanding school (that’s the best rating a school can be given by government inspectors) and gave it up to teach at a school that had just come out of special measures (that’s basically the worst rating a school can have). Anyway, he said that at his Outstanding school he ran a parents evening where they talked about applying for university, bursaries and loans etc etc. Then he tried to do the same thing at the special measures school and all the parents were incredibly hostile as they thought university was pointless and for snobs and that their child should get a job straight away. I’m not saying that those parents are wrong- I think that their concerns come out of a genuine place and are driven by our class based society- but it just shows you how different things can be. I went to private school and the one girl who wanted to go straight in to a job instead of uni was “persuaded” not to by the school staff. But in other schools there’s no expectation that most pupils will go to university. It’s all part of the same issue.
Thomas Markle’s interview is clearly the work of Piers Morgan. I literally do not understand why anyone would think Megs set this up.
That said, Piers probably knows all the dirt from working in the media, just like the rest of Fleet Street. Piers wasn’t going to wait for anything to happen to start instigating this shit, so he got the party started. The rest of Fleet Street is waiting for an invitation, which Harry & Megs will no doubt give sooner rather than later. Because they are that dumb.
Oh, this summer of fire is just getting started!!!
He’s not being coached. That’s satellite delay! C’mon people. The royal family would never send someone out–who was coached–on national British tv on satellite delay!
Thomas is hitting back at his daughter, who has so clearly ditched him. Why would Megs put him on Great Morning Britain if he wasn’t going to do an interview in person??
Oh, no, people freaked. There was no way of tallying because almost all her clothes were custom made, but there was a lot of controversy at first. People were used to royals who wore very uniform-looking clothes and reused things over and over again and here was Di with designer this and that, and hardly ever recycling anything. Eventually, she started re-using and altering clothes.
But Di spent tons of money. And there were no discounts back then. Charles paid for everything. The amounts didn’t really come out until after the divorce, though. This is from Diana, The Last Word.
I don’t think that’s 10X what Kate spends, though. I think it comes out to about the same when you do all the conversions.
OMG, I just pulled the old articles from Kate’s first year when people were freaking out that she spent $54k in six months. That’s less money than a pair of Meghan’s earrings!!!!
I found a historical UK inflation calculator. Basically, £1 in 1994 equals £1.94 in 2018. So, Diana’s £160,000 in 1994 would be the equivalent of £310,400 today.
If Harry wants to remarry in a few years time, then people are going to be annoyed because he’ll look like a serial marriage person. It’s just not a good look all around.
The problem I have with that is that Megs stopped being with Cory in 2016. Wedding happened in 2018. That’s a year and a half separation at a minimum. It seems really hard to justify that there’s an overlap causing a conflict with this marriage.
Does it mean that Harry was fucking Megs while she was still with Cory? I have no doubt that is the case. But Cory and Megs went their separate ways before an engagement happened.
“Hiding information about a previous marriage” isn’t on the annulment petition. I’ve looked at it. Hiding a marriage would only be relevant if someone was still married to that person while getting married to someone else, aka polygamous marriage. The voidable options are directly posted above.
I can’t even find that on the supporting notes for the petition paperwork, and you can take a look at them here:
Fewer GPs are choosing to work in poorer areas but more are joining surgeries that look after wealthier populations, new official figures reveal.
The exodus, uncovered by Labour MP Frank Field, is exacerbating the existing “under-doctoring” of deprived populations – the lack of family doctors in places where poorer people live.
Experts said the widening divide between rich and poor areas in GP numbers – which is one of England’s starkest health inequalities – would force the least well-off to wait longer for an appointment, even though they are generally sicker and die earlier than the rest of the population.
“A decade ago the country was beginning to make some serious inroads into the under-doctoring of the poorest areas. What these grim figures show is that in recent years that progress has not only stalled, but actually gone into reverse,” Field told the Observer.
“The most worrying trend here is the number of GPs ceasing to serve people towards the bottom of the pile, while at the same time people in the wealthiest areas have benefited from an even better service. Vulnerable people are having to suffer in silence without being able to see a GP.
“Here’s another example of everything going in the wrong direction if our goal is to equalise health opportunities and outcomes. It is a new appalling face of inequality in modern Britain.”
There were 8,207 GPs working in areas containing the most deprived quintile of the population in England in 2008. But by last year that number had fallen to 7,696 – a drop of 511 – according to the response to a written parliamentary question Field asked recently.
But over the same decade the number of family doctors working in the most prosperous fifth of the population increased from 4,058 to 4,192 – a rise of 134, public health minister Steve Brine told Field.
Fuck keeping affluent people alive, help us instead
The Independent getting to the heart of the matter here:
And:
“[T]o question the reliability of the royals’ communication more broadly…” LOLOLOLOLOL. KP lies people. Everyone knows what Coleman Rayner does. As soon as that tagline appeared on the pics, KP knew what Tom Markle was doing. They just chose to lie about it. It’s about time you all figured that out.
House of Brat 