The introduction into the Australian election of an "after the Queen's death" scenario is tacky and tasteless. Either republicanism in Australia has the courage of its convictions or not, but such wishy-washy hypotheticals as this simply are rude and meaningless.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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I think it's a very sensible way of going about things. Why should some multimillionaire aristocrat be the head of state of a country 12000 miles away?
When she is dead, the monarchy should just retire from public life. They are not needed and the original Labour principle was to abolish the house of lords, but the sell-out kids and grandkids of the founding socialists, don't have the same principles and would rather fawn over pple born with a silver spoon and subsidised by the taxpayer.
Why should the Windsors be the biggest welfare recipients in the UK? It isn't fair.