From today's Electronic Teelgraph:

The Queen said: "We can make sense of the future - if we understand the lessons of the past. Winston Churchill, my first prime minister, said that 'the further backward you look, the further forward you can see."

Despite its new look, the Queen's message ended on a traditional note. She said: "The future is not only about new gadgets, modern technology or the latest fashion, important as these may be. At the centre of all our lives - today and tomorrow - must be the message of caring for others, the message at the heart of Christianity and all the great religions.

"This message - 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' - may be for Christians two thousand years old. But it is as relevant today as it ever was. I believe it gives us the guidance and the reassurance we need as we step over the threshold into the 21st century. And I for one am looking forward to this new Millennium. May I wish you all a Merry Christmas and, in this year of all years, a very Happy New Year."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 26, 1999

Answers

'the further backward you look, the further forward you can see."

From your other post about the "1900 bug"it looks like we're not doing too well looking backwards or forwards.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 26, 1999.

We actually saw her smiling most of the time !!!

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), December 26, 1999.

Thanks for posting this, Old Git. We'll miss Elizabeth II when she goes - she's truly an outstanding monarch. Like everything else, you don't appreciate fully what you've got while you've got it and I, for one, have a great deal of affection and respect for her: she's been diligent and hard-working, and has put in a lifetime of quiet and steady service. I think that the monarchy in Canada will probably terminate with her - a fact that I'll personally regret - but I think that many Canadians who share my own feelings about this present Queen would find King Charles II [plus Consort Camilla] hard to take.

Another great link with the past probably soon to go...:(

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 26, 1999.

I think Ali G's message on Channel 4 was much more thought provoking.

-- w (q@q.q), December 26, 1999.

Ooops! That should, of course, have been "King Charles III" [and "Consort Camilla I" :)]!

I'm reminded in this, though, of the striking events which accompanied the restoration of the real 'Charles II', decades after Cromwell - on his way, unknown to himself at that point, to assuning even greater power as Lord High Protector - had pushed for the execution of his father, Charles I. On his return journey after landing, from the coast to London, he passed, drawn up on the Downs, the assembled regiments of Cromwell's fierce, highly-disciplined, and never-defeated New Model Army. Puritans and anti-monarchists to a man, they swayed forward with a rumbling murmur, witnesses said, as the King-to-be passed below them on the road. Only their superb discipline prevented them from falling upon him there and then.

Charles II saw that motion, and rightly understood it. His first act was to disband Oliver Cromwell's great army, which - unparalleled in British history up to that point - merged peacefully, industriously, and honestly back into the population from whence Cromwell had drawn it.

Parliament had learned its lesson, too. The King never again commanded the Army that his father had tried to use to oppress his own people - it remained, in the future, Parliament's alone to direct. And so, to this day, you have the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, but the British Army.

Charles, not to be outdone, formed his own "Household" regiments, both mounted and on foot. And in a final example of the genius of British compromise, these crack "Guards" regiments were ultimately absorbed into the British Army's line of battle and paid for by British taxpayers, whilst maintaining, as "troops of the royal household", a close and continuing relationship with each successive monarch and with the members of the Royal Family.

Ah, history! How we'll miss it all...

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 26, 1999.