There are lots of things to remember in early November. The two-week long festival of Fire and the Dead comes down to us filtered through various traditions - the Catholic church made All Saint's Day, the Protestants All Souls Day, the Mexicans the Day of the Dead, US greeting cards companies made Halloween. Whatever it may have been in Ireland 300 years ago, Halloween is now the day of cheap toys, bad films & McCrapBurgers.
Blessed Martin, Patron saint of soldiers & pacifists, a Roman soldier who went to jail for refusing to fight, who tore his cloak in two to give to a beggar (on the grounds that he & the beggar deserved to keep warm as much each other); who spent most of his time as Bishop of Tours (after they let him out) living in a hut outside the city; and who pleaded with the Emperor to spare the life of a heretic (it was about this time that the church started burning people at the stake) - Martin (even his name means "little soldier") was buried on the 11th of November and it became Martinmas - a day for paying rent, drinking and remembering the dead. Which is maybe why they chose it to end the Great War on.
Australians remember that too. Oh heck, I'm going to have to play "And the Band played Waltzing Matilda".
In Britain, even though we keep the 11th of November as Remembrance Day (and we do - I kept my 2 minutes silence this morning and I talked to my friends about the Great War in the pub this evening - we really do try to remember) the great day is Bonfire. Once a Celtic fire festival, then the first day of Autumn, then a memorial of the Protestant Martyrs (go to Lewes - You Know it Makes Sense), then assimilated to Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the King in Parliament (if he'd been 70 years older he'd have been burning brewers at the stake - the very thing Martin tried to stop) it is now the second greatest day after Christmas in the calendar of young boys in England.
But in Australia they have another thing to remember. The 5th of Novermber - well, really the 7th of November, they take a long time to count down there - will go down in history as the day Australia, poised on the brink of the 21st century, looked over the edge, got a bit nervous and ran straight back to the 16th.
Given the chance of getting rid of the over-paid aristos as Heads of State, in the very week that Britain finally bopped the House of Lords on the head, on the very day we light fires to tell the ermine-coated loonies that we want to vote for our own "leaders", Australia voted to remain a monarchy.
But don't despair mates! In Britain the monarchy is the head and chief of all that is oppressive and elitist. However hard-working and pleasant as people the individual holders of the office might be, the institution needs to be burst like a boil before the rest of us can live as we ought.
But maybe it isn't like that in Australia. Heads of State in general are a Bad Thing - a waste of time and money and they lead to nationalism and aggression. If you have to have them they should either be the social-worker & retired lawyer sort with no real power (like presidents of India & Ireland) or completely anonymous (does Switzerland have a President? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?). Powerful presidents, like powerful kings, are dangerous. The world has had enough of strong leaders in the recent past, what we need are strong people. Governments are just functionaries we pay to manage the street-sweepers and do some central accountancy for the health service and get the trains running on time - when they can handle those basic tasks maybe they should be given some time off to play with flags and have processions.
What ought to happen in both UK and Australia is for us to abandon the monarchy & forget about Heads of State altogether. We don't need Presidents & all their hangers-on. The ability of central government to pass stupid laws has to be regulated but that is best done by strong local or regional government, constitutional courts & maybe some form of senate or second chamber (although they have to be elected by a different mechanism to the ordinary parliament to stop them just being rubber-stampers).
BUT most people don't seem to realise this yet. They want to hang on to the leading-strings of Nanny State & have a Queen or President or King or Chancellor. They want some figurehead to put in photos on office walls. In that case, the less real power such a one has, the better.
So, Australia, carry on letting the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha supply you with a head of state. You don't have to pay for their silly clothes and their horse-racing habits, you get a free speech every Christmas & every now & again an official visit & a piss-up. Keep the Queen, its the next best thing to not having a Head of State at all.
On the other hand, over here in Britain, I'm re-reading my John Milton and William Cobbett and Gerard Winstanley & Tom Paine & William Blake & the *original* Jack Straw & Cromwell & all the rest of them... it's an old cause, but it's a good old cause.