We also saw the Queen

Queenie, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

And while we were out in town, we also went to see 'The Queen'.

The Queen being a film about the relationship between the Queen and Tony Blair at the time of the tragic death of Diana. Helen Mirren who played the Queen and Stephen Frears who directed are both up for Oscars this weekend. An interesting and entertaining and sometimes quite funny film, but it definietly had its weaknesses, the most glaring of which was the near lack of portrayal of the relationship between the Queen and Prince Charles, which one can have imagined to have been quite tempestuous at the time..

The pity of it is, is that the Queen DID come to visit us in Amsterdam about two weeks ao, to celebrate 300 years of Anglo-Dutch relationship. She stayed for a day but her visit passed without much fanfare. This was quite different to her last visit in 1988 to celebrate the Glorious Revolution, whereby the authorities here made a London Park, with grass lawns and flower beds in Dam Square, and when we were encouraged to demonstrate against Thatcher's Clause 28.

And now, even Mrs Thatcher is being re-habilitated with a bronze statue of her being unveiled during the week in the House of Commons, whereby it is almost acceptable to praise her achievements in polite society, because despite being the destroyer of communities, wager of teh Falklands War and the collector of the Poll Tax, she also helped reverse the economic decline of the UK, North Sea oil, no doubt being a considerable help.