There is a new book out about Queen Elizabeth and it has inspired the usual anti-monarchy response. The English Royal Family is an easy outrage that never seems to extend to the real despots of the world. More recently a financial motive has crept into the argument: Can Great Britain afford them? Diana suppressed most of the complaints but, now that she is gone and the unattractive Charles has moved to the fore, the murmuring has returned.
Years ago I was in a difficult conversation with two Koreans. I speak no Korean, they spoke no English but they had a dictionary. We were struggling over the meaning of the royal family, how they were seen by the British as symbolic of the nation and we bounced synonyms off each other while one searched his dictionary. Suddenly he straightened and pointed a word out to me in his dictionary. He pronounced it slowly.
"Mascot?" he asked. "Mascot?"
"Perfect," I replied.
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