-TSS-

Again? They just had one recently. That meaning in 1999. The republic lost not because people would love the monarchy but they didn't want the kind of republic which was offered to them.

Life goes on. Remarkable really how fast after Monday the Queen's death has disappeared from the headlines. It's old news. Back to Ukraine and the cost of living-crisis.

If it took something like 10 minutes to queue to see the coffin it would make sense but 10 hours queueing to spend only few seconds to see the coffin sounds absolutely not a sensible thing to do at all. Yet there are tens of thousands of people who do just that.

I don't think there will ever be such advancement in the field of medicine so that 96 would be an average life-expectancy.

Jamaica and the Bahamas are considering to become republics. Perhaps it is the right choice for them. You can still be in the Commonwealth despite being republic. Not sure though whether the Commonwealth means anything these days any more.

Judging by the past week I can't help noticing that if I were a Brit and I wanted to know what else is going on in the world I would have to turn to foreign news. The British media is all about one topic only at this time.

Does the Monarch have a veto on who Canada chooses as the Governor-General? Canada, Australia, NZ etc are de facto republics anyway.

Anyone who lives in London is well advice to take a holiday and go somewhere else until Tuesday.

You complain how the government in Canada effectively chooses the GG. However, it is just the same in countries where the President is just a formal figurehead like in Germany or Italy. In those countries the President is elected by their respective Parliaments, which means that the parties in the majority at the time get their preferred choice.

As we in Finland have nothing to do with the British Empire to us the news of the Queen's death really is like an old sweet granny passing away. However, there are millions of people in this world for whom the Queen absolutely was everything else than an old sweet granny.

I was listening to the TV-commentary and I wonder is it just a question of differences between languages but how the commentary was about the Queen leaving Balmoral for the last time and the Queen making a journey across the country. I guess that doesn't sound strange in English but in my language if you speak like that about a dead person doing things it just sounds hilarious.

If I were British I would support keeping the monarchy but if I were Canadian, Australian etc I think I would prefer some boring and meaningless President if he or she is from my own country. However, I don't think this is a huge issue which people think about all the time. On the other hand, even if a President is just a nominal leader he or she is some retired politician and politicians tend to be divisive and even despised.

Strange how strong the connection between Canada and the British momarchy really is. After all, culturally speaking Canada and the UK are far more apart from each other than the UK and Australia/New Zealand are even though Canada is geographically closer to the UK than those two southern hemisphere countries.

It has been said that monarchy is a system which doesn't work in theory but works in practice- However, if constitutional monarchy didn't exist I don't think anybody would propose espousing such a system.

She did her nation proud. The Brits can be proud of having had her as their head of state. There are worse examples around the world. However, I don't believe that that there is ever going to be such a breakthrough in the field of medicine that the age of 96 would be the average life-expectancy. When the time is up it is time to go.

The Queen didn't have nominal political power but she had clout. A lot of it. I doubt Charles will have as much clout.

23 years ago in the Australian referendum the republic lost because they were offered a republic whereby the GG would just become President but that's all. People wanted a republic where the President is the real political leader like in the USA. Does anybody think the US-system is something to go for?

As far as I'm aware the arrangement whereby the British monarch is the head of state of other otherwise independent countries stems from a time when the vast majority of the populations of Canada, Australia and New Zealand consisted of people who really didn't consider the British as foreigners or Britain as a foreign country. In the following decades things have changed and demographics have changed. Large proportions of those countries include people who have no ties to Britain therefore no affinity but also the descendants of those who didn't consider Britain as a foreign country they do consider it as a foreign country. The current arrangement would be unacceptable if there had to be a decision on it today.

There are some people whose death is widely talked about even before they are dead. The Queen was one of them.

Seems as if people are surprised that even she was mortal. Her death will have implications on not only the UK but numerous other countries including Canads the nominal head of state she was.

You in Canada have very massive areas of inland water. That means fresh water which is absolutely precious. How are you managing it? We in Finland also have a lot of fresh water and our traitor politicians are giving their ownership away.

According to the news Gorbachev has died. I wonder would he have started the war against Ukraine.

I wonder is there anybody who believes both that Trump genuinely lost in 2020 and Trump genuinely won in 2016. It seems that if you think about the controversies surrounding both elections that if you think the controversy around one of the elections is a ridiculous conspiracy-theory you think at the same time that the controversy around the other election is unquestionable truth.

The Russian military might has been based on two things. First of all, bluff. They have been able to create an image of themselves as much stronger than they actually are and that bluff has been exposed in a real war. Secondly, there just are so many of them that they don't run out of men and life is cheap and everybody is expendable. Soldiers can be ordered to charge against machine-gun fire and surely some of them will survive. If they refuse they get shot by their own officers or politruks. The Russian military might has never been based on any military strategic wisdom.

Have they really thought this through? I always believed that Trump wasn't going to run but this episode changes everything. Now if he doesn't run it seems like weakness and defeat. If they really want to get rid of him perhaps they should have left him alone. Of course there's that theoretical possibility that the justice system actually is neutral and doesn't work based on how it affects politics. Anyone who believes such idealistic but hopelessly childish nonsense needs to grow up.