Sir Tony Robinson - Walking Through History Series - Nottinghamshire


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Always enjoy these type of travel series, so last evening was very interesting as it was a 70 odd mile walk over several days starting in Nottm and finishing up in Derbyshire at Kinder scout (I think).

Sherwood forest, Chatsworth and places I never knew about ! would love to follow in his footsteps one day.

Some interesting stuff re the monarchy and the Magna charter etc. Tony obviously had access that the general public doesn't, to some sites though.

All in all an entertaining hour on tv for a change, you guys probably saw it months ago !

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We did, it was a fascinating programme and I wish that there were more like it.

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Cliff Ton you are right we should really scrap the honours system. It's elitist, pointless, undemocratic and not what a modern society should be about.

I particularly like this opinion by Tanya Gold.

“Republicans think the honours system is absurd, with the Queen the font of all honour in the land, clippety-clop, doffety-cap. The image of her three dreadful sons in their garter robes proves the point that hereditary nobility and genuine nobility are almost never the same thing, beyond the imaginings of Disney animators. But we do postcard pomp and mindless status well in Britain. It is Camelot politics – quaint yes, but hardly benevolent. It is a class board game, played three times a year, in which we mass into organised hierarchies, in the manner of gibbering toddlers. Not sure who is above you, and who below? The honours committee, like the sumptuary laws of olde, will tell..........

In history, the honours system existed simply as an expression of, and means to uphold, royal power. It was a moneyed fist, both carrot and stick. Later, it acted to subsume all talent and potential power to itself. Watching its flailing attempts to democratise, in the same way the royal family was bullied into paying tax and weeping for Diana, is almost the only fun to be had with it. But it is still a feudal beast in the gift of the sovereign, managed by the government and cut with light entertainment "heroes", because tweedy civil servants assume that were the monarchy elected, Sir Bruce Forsyth would be king. Maybe he would. Who knows? It depends how stupid you think people are and, judging on the percentage of Games tickets withheld for VIPs and VVIPs and even more malevolent and longer acronyms, that might be very stupid indeed."

I suppose there was the Baldrick thing or the Time Team ?? But he did get paid for them surely?

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A little research shows Robinson was knighted for 'public and political service' rather than merely 'entertainment' so it was not just for his TV appearances.

His biography shows he's long been active in Labour politics, having been vice-president of the actors' union Equity in which he is still very active, plus spending some years on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee.

It seems he was also active in the "Make Poverty History" campaign during early 2005, in the lead-up to the G8 summit in Scotland, and is the patron for UK-based charity Street Child Africa.

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Still hardly warrants a knighthood. It's not quite like beating the Japs in the jungle almost singlehandedly is it ?

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Me too, but the honours system seem commercialised these days I'm afraid.

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Fly2, as it has always been. Nothing's changed.

In centuries long since passed knighthoods were doled out to those who consistently raised significant revenue for the King's purse. Couldn't get more commercial than that.

As for being a royalist. Swore an oath of allegiance to Auntie Betty, her heirs and successors, fifty six years ago. Of a generation that considered oaths sworn on a Bible as something not easily ignored. Not that I would want to anyway. Not overly rapt in Charlie and Camel, but do like William, Harry and Catherine.

Alison

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I am always have been and always will be a Royalist. The alternative is scary.

What is the alternative and why is it scary? I lived in Germany for several years. They have no monarchy. I wasn't scared.

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At the risk of thread drift, the honours system is as bent as dog's hind leg.

Lord McKenzie of Framwellgate, not entirely the straightest of coppers, actually runs a totally legal company whose advertising says that for a fee they can significantly increase the likelihood of a royal honour.

Tony Robinson is a good comic actor and has done much for charity and culture, Time Team included, but a knighthood? Probably a bit much.

Time Team ended up as a bit of a joke. Digging up some real archeology and then weaving a web of fantasy about what those bits really meant. I find that Richard Holmes was far better at such history but never got a knighthood. War Walks was not an original idea as Sir John Keegan had that idea, but it was seminal television. Even Clarkson couldnt better it.

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Fell out with the Royal situation when Lady Diana Spencer perished, the Union jack wasn't flown at half mast..until the eleventh hour....The Sun paper believe it or not had a hand in this being rectified.

Mountbatten I particularly was fond of.

As regards Baldrick getting a gong..his "one lump or two" coffee's was memorable!

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Watched another Walking through History, last evening, and again thoroughly enjoyed Tony's take on it.

It was the rise of the Earl of Monmouth, how he landed from France in the West country at Lyme Regis to build an army and take down the king. Half this stuff I never knew happened, and was a very bloody affair.

The actual coastal walk was stunning, and in places I'd holidayed but never really knew.

Mind watching Tony with his "beer belly" as he was talking to his "experts" made me wonder how much actual walking he really does in the series !

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The question I always ask would-be republicans is "Who would you have preferred, President Thatcher, or President Blair?" That thought alone make me a Royalist.

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