It’s all feels like a bit much, really.
I don’t mean to detract from the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
She did about as well as you could do at a job involving an agonising amount of small talk and appearing painfully neutral on every issue possible.
It’s sad she’s gone. It’s sad for her family, it’s sad for the millions of people across the world who adored her, and it’s sad for her corgis.
Three or four days of grief began on Friday, when Australia woke to the news of her death.
I would have thought we have had our showing of grief, and now we can carry on and have adult discussions about the situation.
Apparently not.
Media coverage at a national level is a bit much, still leading every bulletin, and social media is much the same. It’s all glowing about the Queen and her empire’s legacy, which is also a bit much.
We made an effort in our coverage to point out it wasn’t all peachy when the Queen visited Shepparton, with the shameful covering of The Flats with hessian making part of our coverage.
She didn’t do it herself, no, but it’s part of her legacy — and if you want to wield the power and authority of the monarchy, I don’t reckon you get to wash your hands of what is done in your name.
Seeing people arrested for heckling royals on the streets of the UK seems to be a bit much.
Many people who decry ‘cancel culture’ are leading the charge attacking those, especially First Nations Australians, who bring up the questionable things done by the Crown, as tarnishing her legacy.
Any suggestion of discussing the republic is met with the same reaction.
We’re grown-ups. We can walk and chew gum — and if we don’t have this conversation now, when will we have it?
A public holiday mourning the Queen’s death also seems a bit much, considering the cost.
I love public holidays — not that I get them off in this line of work, mind you — and I think we should have more of them as a general rule, but a sudden one, thrust on the nation as parliaments have 15 days off and Victorian MPs have to re-swear their oaths, seems silly.
Medical appointments, booked months in advance, now have to be rescheduled months down the track, further clogging up a system that couldn’t cope before the pandemic began.
Small businesses, which have also not had a great two years, either need to cough up penalty rates or close.
Essential services such as food banks are shutting across the UK, and we’ll see a number of services here close, while some staff who desperately need a shift each week to make ends meet will now have a day off for which they might not have budgeted.
All this for someone who died two weeks beforehand?
It’s all a bit much, if I’m honest.