The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II has already gone down in history as a once-in-a-lifetime event, with kudos for both the organizers and the tireless broadcasters who coordinate and broadcast the event around the world. All except.
Two Australian commentators, Tracey Grimshaw and Peter Overton, who work for the Channel Nine network, were apparently caught off guard when tasked with naming the high-profile arrivals at Westminster Abbey for Her Majesty’s state funeral.
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After the announcement by US President Joe Biden, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and other world dignitaries, they probably thought their job was done until a couple got out of their vehicle in front of the abbey and made their way inside.
Grimshaw asked, “Who is that?”
“Hard to identify,” Overton replied. “Maybe, uh, little royals… I can’t identify them at this point.”
“We can’t recognize everyone,” Grimshaw said.
You must have been surprised when Truss went to the lectern to give a reading in her capacity as Prime Minister, but to be fair to commentators, Truss had only been in power for two days at the time of the Queen’s death on September 8th In fact, the Queen’s meeting with Truss in Balmoral, Scotland, was her last public engagement after 70 years as monarch. And the more familiar figure of Boris Johnson, now ex-UK Prime Minister, had already walked through the door.
The BBC, in turn, didn’t quite make the same mistake. When the fairly new Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, arrived at the same door, they didn’t get his name wrong, they just said nothing.
And given the scale of the event, which was attended by thousands of guests, mourners, military personnel and security forces throughout the day at three locations with processions between them, that was a pretty minor flaw in the scheme of things.
The story goes on
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