{"id":1524,"date":"2009-08-13T16:23:50","date_gmt":"2009-08-13T15:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2009-08-13T16:23:50","modified_gmt":"2009-08-13T15:23:50","slug":"my-visit-to-the-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=1524","title":{"rendered":"My visit to the palace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I may have lived in London almost 40 years but, until today, I&#8217;d never visited <a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalcollection.org.uk\/default.asp?action=article&#038;ID=30\">Buckingham Palace<\/a>. This is partly because the state rooms have only been open to the public for about a decade and they are still only open for a few months a year. It&#8217;s partly because we always neglect places on our doorstep and some uncomfortableness about someone with my republican sentiments visiting the home of a hereditary monarch.<br \/>\nIt took a good Slovak friend to get me to the palace, but I&#8217;m glad I went. Of course, I&#8217;ve visited any palaces around the world but what makes Buckingham Palace different is that it&#8217;s still very much a place in use where many people live and work. So many palaces have a dusty, anachronistic feel about them, but every room that one can visit in Buckingham Palace sparkles and shines and impresses. In particular, I had no idea that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalcollection.org.uk\/default.asp?action=article&#038;ID=16\">art collection<\/a> was so outstanding.<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalcollection.org.uk\/default.asp?action=article&#038;ID=30#special\">special exhibition<\/a> on this summer focusing on the Queen&#8217;s many trips to Commonwealth countries and displaying dresses she wore and gifts she receives. Of course, there&#8217;s a propaganda sub-text here: look how busy the Queen is on our behalf and these gifts are as much yours as hers.<\/p>\n<p>\n<center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/BH.jpg\"  border=3><br \/><font size=\"-2\">In the groungs of Buckingham Palace<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I may have lived in London almost 40 years but, until today, I&#8217;d never visited Buckingham Palace. This is partly because the state rooms have only been open to the public for about a decade and they are still only open for a few months a year. It&#8217;s partly because we always neglect places on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}