MEETING HER MAJESTY
If I needed any reminder how modern technology has made blindly obedient servants of us all, it was
watching the YouTube video of Her Majesty The Queen - in her 96th year - visiting a hospice near her
Windsor Castle residence in the company of her daughter HRH The Princess Royal.
Her Majesty had barely shaken hands when meeting the male carer of a patient when his mobile
'phone rang. Now you might think that anyone knowing they were to meet this venerable Head of State
would have left their phone elsewhere - or at least made sure it was switched off. Not a bit of it.
To add insult to embarrasment, the man immediately turned away from Her Majesty and fumbled inside
his jacket for the 'phone, leaving HM to talk to his female chairbound companion while he dealt with the
call. I didn't even see any sign of him muttering an apology to HM for his inability to exclude them both
plus his chairbound companion from the electronic intrusion. Just why he couldn't have ignored the call,
or better still, pulled the instrument from its hiding place, to discard it with a flourish and a suitably abashed
expression of regret illustrates the reasons why I am convinced we have now become unthinking servants of
our invasive impertinent inventions. And just WHO chose that moment and that place to MAKE that call
needs to be spoken to about matters of judgement in their life!! ..
M.C. Newberry
Mon 18th Jul 2022 10:02
Greg/Clare - thanks for taking the trouble to comment.
Greg - Your point about being a republican is taken, but begs
the question, why agree to meet the Head fo State, a person
who personifies a sytem you have no time for?
Clare - the hospice has had visits from HM before and she is
clearly very welcome there.
My point about technology achieving superior attention over even the most distinguised visitor can be readily experienced
by ordinary folk in any office or business premises to which a
person makes a personal effort to visit. .How many times is a
face to face meeting underway interrupted by the ringing 'phone that suddenly becomes more important to staff than your physical presence - and you are suddenly left staring into the
space that the person you were talking to has suddenly vacated
to converse instead with the intrusive impersonal demands of technology?
Common courtesy is immediately dispensed with - as if
your personal attendance rates second best by a long way
to someone who decided to make a call instead of making the
effort to be there in person - like you?
The Queen (she could always have chosen "Lady Protector" in
a diplomatic nod to the republican sympathies in her Realm!)
became a high profile victim of this egregious discourteous conduct.