i'm goose-stepping to freedom & unity

What a shocker. The irony is it started from a queen's speech that reflected on the broad differences between age groups and ethnic and religious faiths.

Now I don't really watch the queen's speech normally. I can't imagine she has anything particularly interesting or useful to say. I'm sure her speech has been exstensively and expertly prepared by a team of PR twats and spin doctors anyway. I watch The West Wing, I know how it works.

But I was in the lounge when my grandparents gazed admiringly at the loveable old dear in her flourescant green two-piece and matching hat, and my siblings gazed pleadingly at me; asking for help with only the moisture around their eyes. I was taking a drinks order, you see.

So the Queen's speech this xmas day was orchestrated from a school. Hard done by and - to be honest - bored looking children were scattered nonchalantly about, working on collages and other such christmassy art. And there was the teacher overseeing (causing me to question the suggestion that its a live broadcast as I feel it should be*). A teacher of African origin dressed in traditional Ghanian style 'sunday best' brightly coloured and garishly patterned robe and head-dress.
To which my wonderful good christian grandma exclaimed, 'ugh, why did they have to let the blacks on it?!'

Holy.
Shit.

Did she really just say that?

Yes. She did.

The royal old dear's speech went on to talk about the growing divide between religious beliefs. Cut to some stock footage of some praying muslims.
'Oh for goodness sake!' came the little voice from the armchair in the corner of the lounge.

Disbelief flushed over the faces of my siblings and I. The room momentarily blurred. What. The. Fuck?

I don't ever remember my grandma being quite so racist before. There were always elements of it, but never loud, brash exclamations. I'm still a bit dumbfounded. Especially when you add the following:

Later that evening the entire family sat round and added ourselves to the nationwide list of families sitting around watching shite christmas TV. Hurrah!
The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special! (though Emma Bunton is welcome to... ahem... anyway...)

'where's he from?' questioned my granny about a sprightly young italian ballroom dancer.
'italy,' we replied.
'wop.'

... Silence

...

'what's a wop?' asked my brother's girlfriend.
'a racist term for italian.' says I.
'it's not racist,' explained nan, 'they are wops. theres nothing wrong with them as long as they stay in their own country. like the other foreigners.'

And so the evening went on. There were many more similar conversations. I couldn't quite believe a lot of what I was hearing. Especially as Shoelace sat next to me, my sister's husband, a notable fraction of whom is of Indian descent.

And my other grandma told of when she recently 'went down the paki shop.'

!

Seriously. I know.

It's lucky we have the older generations to pass down their wisdom isn't it? Today I also learned that Germans are untrustworthy and learning a foreign language is pointless.

We did agree on one thing though; Eastenders is pathetic.
They still watched it all the way through, though. The whole hour.

Oh well. Let the oldies be nutters I say.

Auf wiedersehen,
Dos vedenya,
Au revoir,
Bye bye.

[* she doesn't appear to do an awful lot the rest of the year unless someone dies.]