WWI: Vienna, the day of the funeral

On Friday 3rd July, the open coffins of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie lay in state at the Court Chapel from eight in the morning til noon. It’s reported that fifty thousand people attempted to view the bodies, but most were turned away due to the short period of time allowed.

At 4pm precisely the Emperor Franz Joseph, accompanied by Habsburg Archdukes and Archduchesses, attended a short funeral ceremony in the Court Chapel, which was conducted by Cardinal Gustav Piffl, Archbishop of Vienna.

We are the Opposition

Today:

Thatcher’s funeral cost = £10 million. Latest ‘unavoidable’ cuts to Arts Council England = £11.6 million.

— Damien Walter (@damiengwalter) April 15, 2013

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral: 23 things you could pay for with £10m

Big Ben is silenced.

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

— Big Ben (@big_ben_clock) April 16, 2013

The BBC refuse to play a song from the Wizard of Oz.

Five MSPs deny the Scottish Parliament a debate on Thatcher’s legacy.

There’s a strong possibility that the Metropolitan police will pre-arrest people whom they allege are going to take part in protests at the funeral: there has been an explicit threat that anyone who does protest along the funeral route will be arrested.

Margaret Thatcher, Kermit Gosnell, & #DingDong

One of these things is not like the others? After all, Thatcher’s sole political merit was that she was pro-choice. Let me explain.

Ding Dong

Ding Dong the Wicked Old Witch is a jolly song. As Angry Women of Liverpool note in their feminist analysis of how to discuss Thatcher’s death “there are so few songs you can sing joyfully about the death of somebody thoroughly deserving”:

Tough one. The history of witch persecution is fraught with the very foundations of modern capitalist and patriarchal oppression, as anybody who’s read Silvia Federici knows. But there are so few songs you can sing joyfully about the death of somebody thoroughly deserving.
You want a proper argument in defence? Give me a minute.

Grave for Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was born in Grantham and died in the Ritz. In another world, she might have become a chemist, following in the footsteps of Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin. Instead we may owe her for Mr Whippy ice-cream. Among her other achievements, in what is still today a male-dominated party, Thatcher first stood for election in 1950, and became the MP for Finchley in 1959 – which seat she held for the next 33 years.

During that time she destroyed much of the heavy industry in the UK, especially in Scotland and Wales, primarily because she didn’t like trade unions: she set the trend to privatisation going which led to the high prices and inefficiency in our public transport, our gas and electricity, our water, our post-office, and our health service. She supported Section 28, the cold cruel legislation which made it unlawful for teachers to stand up against homophobic and transphobic bullying. She abolished the rates, fattened landlord’s pockets with the poll tax, and said bluntly that she “didn’t believe in society”. The only thing I can think of she did that I ever liked her for was voting pro-choice (and causing lots of Tory MPs to trot after her like lambs into the No lobby) whenever anti-choice legislation was proposed.