I’m a fan of state openings of parliament, so it might be a surprise that I’ve never been to one. I did see some of the practice run-through for the State Opening in Cape Town (which involves a delightful parade of the Cape Town Highlanders and other units from the Castle to Parliament) but unfortunately a social occasion kept me from the actual opening itself. As my luck would have it, I managed to return to live in Blighty again the one year the blasted Government decided not to have a State Opening. Roll on, 2012! Anyhow, down in the Antipodes, the New Zealanders have just had their State Opening of Parliament in the realm’s capital city of Wellington. Above, the judges process up the steps of Parliament House, two of them bedecked in the rather handsome New Zealand Order of Merit.

Since the Queen of New Zealand spends most of her time in Great Britain, she is represented by Lieutenant General Sir Jeremiah Mateparae GNZM QSO, the twentieth Te Kāwana Tianara o Aotearoa, or Governor-General of New Zealand. (We mentioned one of Sir Jerry’s predecessors in the blogpost The Would-Be King of New Zealand). Here, His Excellency is greeted in the traditional Maori manner.

He then gets to review the guard of honour…

New Zealand abolished its upper house of parliament over a half-century ago, but the former Legislative Council chamber is still used for the State Opening. The Governor-General sits on the throne and then directs Black Rod to summon the House of Representatives. Black Rod creeps backwards out of the chamber…

…and has to knock on the doors of the House of Representatives after they are slammed in his face, in accordance with tradition.

Then he give’s the Speech from the Throne outlining the legislative programme of Her Majesty’s Government for the parliamentary session he has just opened.

This summer I received an email from my friend Bruce Patterson, all-around nice guy and Deputy Chief Herald of Canada, informing me of a new historical and literary review just founded called the Dorchester Review. Intrigued, I obtained a copy and was pleasantly enthralled with what I found. The first issue of the Dorchester Review contained a variety of thoughtful articles on fascinating subjects. I spent an entire morning sitting comfortably on a café sofa and imbibing the intelligent and enlightening contents of the magazine.

The editors did issue a brief statement explaining the genesis of their new review. They had me at their Pieperian first sentence: “The Dorchester Review is founded on the belief that leisure is the basis of culture.”

Just as no one can live without pleasure, no civilized life can be sustained without recourse to that tranquillity in which critical articles and book reviews may be profitably enjoyed. The wisdom and perspective that flow from history, biography, and fiction are essential to the good life. It is not merely that “the record of what men have done in the past and how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action,” as Belloc put it. Action can be dangerous if not preceded by contemplation that begins in recollection.

The endeavour of reviewing books, the editors acknowledge, has too often been reduced either to brief puff-pieces in the Saturday insert of the local paper or more high-minded but uncritical praise of like-minded academics for one another. “There are too few critical reviews published today, particularly in Canada, and almost none translated from francophone journals for English readers.” As someone with a lifelong love of Quebec, I am relieved that finally there is a review in my own language willing to take Quebec seriously.

“At the Review,” the editors continue, “we shall praise the good books and assail the bad.”

They also forthrightly explain their rejection of the narrow nationalist perspective that has been on the ascendant in Canada throughout the past century, especially since the foundation of The Canadian Forum. The Dorchester Review effectively throws Canada’s doors open to a more reasoned understanding of the country’s relationship with Europe (Britain and France particularly), America, the Commonwealth, and the world.

But the Dorchester Review is not a publication just for Canadians. There is a great deal of Canada in it, but also a great deal of the world. The second issue (just printed) features articles with titles such as “Why Marx is Still (Mostly) Wrong”, “1789: The First Counter-Revolutionaries”, “What Sort of Autocrats Were the Popes?”, “Can Vichy France Be Defended?”, and “The Scots Fight Back” (the last in response to an article in the first issue: “How the English Invented the Scots”).

Contributing editor Chris Champion is interviewed by CBC Radio here. A number of the contributors (Conrad Black, Paul Hollander, etc.) readers of The New Criterion will already be familiar with. The latest number also includes a book review by this, your humble and obedient scribe.

Head over to dorchesterreview.ca to find out more or subscribe.

To be filed under ‘Flags I Never Knew Existed’: the Québécois heraldist Maurice Brodeur designed a flag commemorating the French explorer Jacques Cartier, founder of Quebec and Canada. The banner was designed to hang as an ex-voto in the Memorial Basilica of Christ the King in Gaspé, conceived in the 1920′s as an offering of thanks for the four-hundredth anniversary of the claiming of Canada by Cartier. The Great Depression brought the project to a halt, and the church was finally finished in 1969 as a modernist cathedral in wood — the only wooden cathedral in Catholic North America.

Was the flag ever actually executed? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

The thrones of the Viceroy and Vicereine of Ireland once sat on a raised dais in St. Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle. After dominion status was granted and the Irish Free State was born, the thrones had their crowns knocked off and the Victorian royal cypher removed. The harp of the Irish state arms was embroidered onto the Viceroy’s throne and it was first used as a presidential chair during the inauguration of Prof. Douglas Hyde as the first President of Ireland in 1938. The Vicereine’s throne, meanwhile, was shorn of its gold and is now employed as the chair of the Cathaoirleach, the presiding officer of Seanad Éireann.

The fabric on the thrones was originally a quite elaborate version of the British royal arms, surrounded by shamrocks. I’ll admit that the hodge-podge, two-tone blues of the throne as it is now is a bit jarring, but surely something similar to the original fabric can be commissioned, with the state arms surrounded by shamrocks, and perhaps the addition of the harp to the blank space where the royal cypher once was. Recycle, don’t replace!

William Cecil James Philip John Paul Howard, 8th Earl of Wicklow (styled Viscount Clonmore from his birth until succeeding to the earldom in 1946) was received into the Church at the age of thirty in 1932. Having attended Mass with the family’s Catholic servants, he was banished from visiting the family home on Sundays in addition to being disinherited. He later married the architect Eleanor Butler who served in Seanad Éireann from 1948-1951. Above is one of three photographs of Viscount Clonmore in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

While Afrikaans is a mild obsession of mine, I do like finding those holdouts of what they used to call “High Dutch” — in contrast to the ordinary South African spoken Dutch which, because of its differences in grammar and spelling, was eventually recognised as the language Afrikaans.

One such old Dutch holdout can be found on the statue (Af: staanbeeld; lit.: ‘standing-picture’) of Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Timson Lukin in the Company’s Garden, Cape Town. The pedestal proclaims in a very handsome font the General’s rank, name, and orders. In Dutch: Majoor-Generaal Sir Henry Timson Lukin, KCB CMG DSO, Commandeur Legioen van Eer, Orde van de Nyl.

Most of this works perfectly well as Afrikaans but for two slight differences. First: The lack of ‘i’ in de always indicates Dutch rather than Afrikaans, but because of the relative youth of Afrikaans, de can sometimes be employed as an antiquating device. For example, when translating the name of Captain Haddock’s ship in the Afrikaans translation of the Tintin book, the translators chose De Eenhorn (the Unicorn) rather than Die Eenhorn. Obviously an old-fashioned sailing ship would belong to a Dutch-speaking era rather than an Afrikaans-speaking one.

Second is the military rank. Here translated as majoor-generaal, in both Dutch and Afrikaans this evolved into generaal-majoor. Just one of those things. The South African Defence Forces has a history of experimental military ranks which did not last: Commandant-General (for General), Combat General (for Major General), Colonel-Commandant (for Brigadier), Commandant (for Lieut. Colonel), and Field Cornet (for Lieutenant).

There’s your random bit of Afrikaans arcana for the day.

November 2003

The Viennese weekly Falter interviewed Vicco von Bülow — better known as Loriot — in November of 2003. In part of the dialogue, Loriot explored the Prussianness of his family and upbringing, musing upon some aspects of what it is to be Prussian, turning away from the simplistic categorisations. Via Günter Kaindlstorfer.

…

Loriot: I am committed to my Prussian roots. I was born a Prussian, I have Prussian, so to speak, in my blood. That this defines you for yourself is not new. One is born there, so one has to accept it.

Prussian vices have caused too much harm over the past 150 years.

Loriot: That’s right, I will not deny it at all. Nevertheless, I am proud of my native town of Brandenburg; I am also proud of my country of origin. Here I will not deny, however, that I have been occasionally affected by the disaster that this country has done throughout history, time and again. Only: Which country has, over the centuries, not caused many evils? I will not have the Prussian reduced only to its negative sides.

Where do you see the positive side?

Loriot: There are also advanced aspects: Frederick the Great, for example, was the first to abolish serfdom and torture. These were big and bold reforms for its time. In addition, the Prussian State has developed an exemplary civil service. Against bribery and corruption, the Prussian officials were immune for centuries. Such a thing was not self-evident. So, the Prussian state was in some ways quite exemplary. But only now have the Prussians just gotten off the fence about war, and the legendary Prussian discipline made governance easier for the Nazis, one would have to say. If people in the Nazi era had been, attentive, critical, and aware, if they had been less obedient, then the world would have been spared much.

You can start with the soldierly virtues of the old Prussian something?

Loriot: I am, like everyone, influenced by my upbringing. My father came from an old Prussian military family. Prior to joining the private sector, he was a police officer. Such a thing certainly leaves some traces in the personality of a person.

What must be thought of your father? As a man who constantly banged his heels together?

Loriot: No, but he was undoubtedly a man of controlled and disciplined. One must keep his emotions under strict control he has drummed into me and my brother. I could not kiss him, for example. Men do not kiss, that was one of his maxims; he was adamant.

And your mother, you were allowed to kiss?

Loriot: My mother died when I was six years old. I grew up with my grandmother.

As you can see the character of your Father which is in retrospect?

Loriot: I’ve learned a lot from him about the vital importance of manners, for example. Through and through, he had a respectable appearance. As a virtue, self-control was central to my father. He never let himself go. I’ve rarely seen him without a tie. At the same time you could die laughing with him, he also had incredibly funny sides. However, it must be said: the time of militarism, which my father embodies in some ways — those days are over, thank God. The war doesn’t play in people’s minds the same role it once did in Germany.

Herr von Bulow, you represent your whole habitus produces the ideal type of conservative gentleman. Are you really a conservative man?

Loriot: Terms like “conservative” and “progressive” I try to avoid as a rule. Whether one likes it or not, these words are always politically connoted. I strictly keep out of party political matters.

How did you vote last time?

Loriot: One doesn’t tell.

You are a man of the center?

Loriot: Sometimes I sympathize with the political positions of a party, then again I like more the views of others. The truth is never on one side. Each direction has its positive aspects, which should be acknowledged.

I remember a Spiegel article, which must have been in the late 1980s. It said something like: “The West German intelligentsia is left-wing. Basically, there are only two right-leaning intellectuals in the country: Ernst Jünger and Loriot.”

Loriot: This can only be a joke.

It was actually printed.

Loriot: Me as “Rechtsintellektueller”? I can only laugh! So, in this attribute I fail to recognise myself yet again.

Are you addicted to harmony?

Loriot: I am convinced that most conflicts can enclose in a considerate and atmosphere characterized by mutual respect. One mustn’t shout like a madman to enforce one’s point of view.

They seem very calm, very calm. Do you know something like stress?

Loriot: In order to have stress, I have too little time. It may, so far, just not have come, that I feel stressed. If one is stressed, you have done more than you can afford. This one must not allow.

Do you suffer from the aging process?

Loriot: Yes, certainly.

How do you handle it?

I rush myself less than before. In recent years, I have occasionally been an opera director, made a few drawings, and prepared a film; such a programme I now no longer have the audacity for. That mustn’t be. At my age it is safer to take things a little more quietly, don’t you think?

It’s in five sections: here are the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.

A book recently published in Buenos Aires sheds new light on the difficult transition period between the Spanish Empire on the River Plate and the foundation of the Argentine Republic. The launch party for Bernado Lozier Almazán’s Proyectos monárquicos en el Río de la Plata 1808-1825. Los reyes que no fueron (“Monarchic projects in the River Plate 1808–1825: The kings who weren’t”) was held recently in the Quinta ‘Los Ombúes’, home of the municipal library, museum, and archives of San Isidro, the city in the Provincia de Buenos Aires known as Argentina’s ‘Rugby Capital’.

Proyectos monárquicos highlights the forgotten truth that most of the Argentine ‘patriots’ — San Martín, Belgrano, and Alvear among them — were monarchist, not republican. Proposals involving the courts of Spain, Portugal, France, and even England were proffered, and there was even an interesting proposal to marry a European prince to an Incan princess and offer him the throne of the Río de la Plata.

The author was introduced by Ignacio Bracht, the historian and fellow of the Argentine Institute of Genealogical Sciences, who pointed out the book illuminated Argentines’ roots in a way outside the ‘official’ historiography. “In the early nineteenth century,” Bracht said, “monarchs enjoyed the veneration of their subjects, who saw the king as one who granted them freedom, order, and the unity of peoples — ideals which were seriously violated in the United Provinces.” For this reason, Bracht suggests, monarchists considered the traditional system of government as more appropriate for guiding the “fledgling and hesitant nation” than republicanism. In the author’s own remarks, Lozier Almazán ruminated on what Argentina would be like had any of the projects researched in the book actually succeeded.

Among those present at the book launch were Abp. Edgardo Lisen, president of the Argentine-Urguayan Cultural Institute, Fr. Edgardo Albamonte SSPX, chaplain to the Charles VII Traditionalist Brotherhood (Argentina’s Carlist institute)

Source: Portal Uno