Could someone please make this attention w***e of a woman go away? Her series on CBC was an utter bore, she set new spending records during her term as GG and she still won't shut up. Sheesh.

I dreamt about the Queen last night. She was not only nice and friendly, but a lot of fun too.

Oh ye gods Magnum.. What an utter annoyance she was/is/waswas. Does anyone really care what she thinks? I think not.

What are guys talking about - this is great stuff!!

If the GG's office is accountable to anyone it's the Kween. If she continues to piss off her royalness or those who like to polish their noses on the royal arese, maybe an end will come to the farcical and irrelevant waste of time, money and space that is the GG's office, residence and portfolio of provincial pseudo-pomp and schmooze.

We need more of this - not just from the has been GGs but also from the one currently in the trough.

The whole thing would be laughable if it didn't cost as much as good bridge or three every year!

The engineer speaks: 'cost as much as a good bridge or three every year', or in layman's terms, a whole lotta beers.

I wouldn't mind being Governor General. Not only would I let HRH powder her nose at the table, I'd also let her use the knife as a mirror.

That should be HM, not HRH. Oopsy.

Her Excellency the former Governor-General misses the point about the exercise of manners and gentility. There are all sorts of apocryphal stories about the Queen (or one of her ancestors) being at a state dinner with some foreign dignitary who is not familiar with every formality of British manners and customs. The dignitary does something that would be considered horribly <i>gauche</i> (like say using the salad fork for the entree) and the Queen, without missing a beat, repeats the behaviour, thus signalling it's okay to the attending crowd.

The point in these stories (true or not) is that good manners are not a club with which to exclude and belittle the <i>hoi polloi</i>; good manners are merely a means of making as many people as possible feel comfortable and as few people as possible feel uncomfortable. I am not at all surprised to learn that Her Former Excellency Adrienne is all about finding fault rather than making people comfortable.

Mr Taylor has discerned that while I am not a fan of form or of the GG, it is that third lack of care of mine which fails to take into account how the Queen - who has no choice - can seek to use the rules around her for the good. As for the Queen mum choice in favour of variety, I shall take her example and make it my own. And fancy hats, too.

What the hell are you people talking about anyway???

(Oh, Governor General, some strange remnant of empire and a thin thread connecting Canada to the mother ship. Canada and US are more different sometimes than a person realizes.)

We're amongst some rare company up here, Gary. A former colony that was granted independence after <i>asking nicely</i>. :-)

Well, errr... you fellas are the rarity, to be truthful. <i>Most</i> of the former colonies left after asking nicely. There are only a few [ahem] that bolted early and failed to pick up their drink tab.

I cared enough to post about it a day or two ago. You obviously cared enough to make your own post, too, Alan.

I just found it funny that Clarkson is so uptight about these things that even the Queen wasn't good enough for her. That's a level of priggishness that a person couldn't make up...

I should read my history. I have no idea how you people do things. And who is that lady on the money and stamps and why is she there?

SHould I care about this? I thought it was "a constitutional thing."

Again, you cared enough to point to it. I think that says it all. :-)

But ... well, somebody's breaking the conventions there.