The Times April 22, 2006
Making sense of Britain's great mystery
By Roger Boyes
YE HARTE and Garter had not seen such a flurry of activity since Shakespeare’s day. Then it was the Windsor hostelry where a drunken Falstaff recovered from his dunking in the Thames. Yesterday it was the place where the world’s television network tried to make sober sense of the mysterious British royalty.
Hundreds of millions of viewers around the world watched the Queen stroll down Windsor High Street. “The Brazilians love her hat,” said Ilse Scamparini, of Globo television. She is its Vatican correspondent but the network seem to regard the task as broadly similar. “Both the Queen and the Pope have become fashion statements,” she said.
The state German network, ZDF, dedicated three hours of live coverage to the walkabout and work ground to a halt as people clustered in front of their sets. For them the central theme was the Queen’s longevity; not surprising, perhaps, in a country where the hottest political issue is the decision to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.
“Many English people have known no other monarch,” said Karin Webb, the presenter. “She is their equivalent of Helmut Kohl.”
A panel of experts shook their heads at the comparison and moved the discussion on swiftly to even higher levels of devotion.
“The Queen is a supernatural being,” said Norbert Loh, royal-watcher for the magazine Die Aktuelle. “Elizabeth has this unbelievable sense of mystery.”
This was the key to the international interest. Stories about royalty sell better in republics than in monarchies. The camera team sent by the European Broadcasting Union fed their footage across Europe but not to the monarchies of Sweden, Norway or Spain, where there appears to be little television interest.
So the teams that piled into Windsor came from South America, Germany and the United States. Their fascination was endless. Even a shop offering “Elegant Hats for Hire” became a focus of interest, an apparent sign that the Queen’s influence delved deep into British society.
Agnes Reau, a producer for the CBS network of the United States, admitted that fashion was a prime concern of her viewers. “There is always a bit of suspense about what the Queen is going to wear,” she said.
But the huge news budget was at least partly justified by the discussion on air about the royal succession. “New York wants to know — what's going to happen next? Is this the beginning of something new?”
Loh opined that the day could yet go down in history as more than a birthday stroll. “It could mark the beginning of the post-Elizabethan era,” he said. His point was not that there was a plot against the Queen — the police checked the hotel rooms of all television reporters — but that a serious discussion was under way in Britain about the monarchy’s future (even though there is NO such debate).
Scamparini conveyed a similar message to her Brazilian viewers.
She said: “They want to know about the succession, so I told them Camilla enjoys 1 per cent support in the nation, Charles 4 per cent and that William is very sexy indeed
thetimesonline.co.uk
Making sense of Britain's great mystery
By Roger Boyes
YE HARTE and Garter had not seen such a flurry of activity since Shakespeare’s day. Then it was the Windsor hostelry where a drunken Falstaff recovered from his dunking in the Thames. Yesterday it was the place where the world’s television network tried to make sober sense of the mysterious British royalty.
Hundreds of millions of viewers around the world watched the Queen stroll down Windsor High Street. “The Brazilians love her hat,” said Ilse Scamparini, of Globo television. She is its Vatican correspondent but the network seem to regard the task as broadly similar. “Both the Queen and the Pope have become fashion statements,” she said.
The state German network, ZDF, dedicated three hours of live coverage to the walkabout and work ground to a halt as people clustered in front of their sets. For them the central theme was the Queen’s longevity; not surprising, perhaps, in a country where the hottest political issue is the decision to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.
“Many English people have known no other monarch,” said Karin Webb, the presenter. “She is their equivalent of Helmut Kohl.”
A panel of experts shook their heads at the comparison and moved the discussion on swiftly to even higher levels of devotion.
“The Queen is a supernatural being,” said Norbert Loh, royal-watcher for the magazine Die Aktuelle. “Elizabeth has this unbelievable sense of mystery.”
This was the key to the international interest. Stories about royalty sell better in republics than in monarchies. The camera team sent by the European Broadcasting Union fed their footage across Europe but not to the monarchies of Sweden, Norway or Spain, where there appears to be little television interest.
So the teams that piled into Windsor came from South America, Germany and the United States. Their fascination was endless. Even a shop offering “Elegant Hats for Hire” became a focus of interest, an apparent sign that the Queen’s influence delved deep into British society.
Agnes Reau, a producer for the CBS network of the United States, admitted that fashion was a prime concern of her viewers. “There is always a bit of suspense about what the Queen is going to wear,” she said.
But the huge news budget was at least partly justified by the discussion on air about the royal succession. “New York wants to know — what's going to happen next? Is this the beginning of something new?”
Loh opined that the day could yet go down in history as more than a birthday stroll. “It could mark the beginning of the post-Elizabethan era,” he said. His point was not that there was a plot against the Queen — the police checked the hotel rooms of all television reporters — but that a serious discussion was under way in Britain about the monarchy’s future (even though there is NO such debate).
Scamparini conveyed a similar message to her Brazilian viewers.
She said: “They want to know about the succession, so I told them Camilla enjoys 1 per cent support in the nation, Charles 4 per cent and that William is very sexy indeed
thetimesonline.co.uk