Nothing says Christmas 2018 like a billionaire sitting in front of a gold piano telling us all to pull together through this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/uQ2G9ao1iS
— Saint Guff Of Stellamas (@gavmacn) December 24, 2018
The Queen’s gold piano became a big talking point over Christmas. [Jezebel]
Emma Stone’s year-in-Louis-Vuitton was a mixed bag, but at least she’s getting paid the big money for wearing these terrible clothes. [Go Fug Yourself]
Here are some of the political stories I’m trying to ignore. [Pajiba]
There’s video evidence of one of Kevin Spacey’s crimes. [Towleroad]
Sofia Vergara & Nick Loeb’s lawsuit shenanigans are still happening. [Dlisted]
Rihanna has been with Hassan Jameel for two years?! [LaineyGossip]
There’s always drama on RHOA. [Reality Tea]
Beautiful photos of beautiful foxes in the snow. [OMG Blog]
Best-dressed ladies of 2018, and I disagree with most of these! [Red Carpet Fashion Awards]
Privileged wealthy hereditary monarch bunged £76m a year, sitting in front of a golden piano in the palace she's billing taxpayers £369m to tart up, kills satire by lecturing the nation to pull together https://t.co/28ft4GGL3q
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) December 26, 2018
Nothing says British quite like an unelected head of state telling us to overcome our differences while sat in a palace in front of a gold piano. Merry Christmas, all! pic.twitter.com/L5FBtQIOeI
— Miriam Brett (@MiriamBrett) December 25, 2018
The Queen quietly hints that all she wants for Christmas is a solid gold piano stool to go with her solid gold piano pic.twitter.com/fe12O7AmXi
— Alistair Coleman (@alistaircoleman) December 24, 2018
“So sad all those people going to foodbanks and sleeping on the streets. So to cheer them up I suggest we gather round my gold piano with a rendition of My Old Man’s a Dustman. That’ll take their mind off the cold and hunger for a while. Do you see how hard being Queen is now?” pic.twitter.com/k42Rt1PsJ8
— James Dornan SNP (@glasgowcathcart) December 26, 2018
Just wait until they find out that she lives in castles…
Right. And has other property she lives on as well.
Shocking I tell you, shocking !!!!
The irony is that the people/ state own the palace, the piano, the important jewels. Sri that’s not her piano, the people allow her to have it.
If the royals were no longer in power the palaces could be more open to the public (in days and in square footage) and they could get more tourists…. and more money for charging to get to different locations/ gardens. Keeping them there for tourism doesn’t make sense. Head of state consistency i get (ish), but Charles and William? Both are so petty in their own ways.
Nancy London is a fantastic city without looking at a single royal affiliated building, that’s a pretty sad outlook you have there
The criticism about the gold piano is so stupid. First of all it is gilt, and it is like most of the stuff in the palace of historic and cultural value, which the RF has been a wonderful custodian of for so many centuries.
Anyway the ‘gold’ piano looks pretty awful, I would not want to have to look at the every day, poor HM!
The British Museum is also a wonderful custodian, we don’t need to support a family of inbred halfwits to look after cultural heritage.
My goodness. Wait until they find out the Queen lives in a palace 🙄
Best response! 😉
And let us not forget the crown jewels! Heaven help them when they hear how much they’re worth!
Its more the paternalistic tone of ‘pull together peasants’ while they sit up there in their embarrassment of riches.
My takeaway from the speech was more if everyone could stop being assholes to each other that would be great, thanks.
I inherited a ton of furniture from my grandfather, who MADE furniture. With the perspective of the bitter people who wrote these tweets, I too would be considered undeserving of what was passed to me.
But it wasn’t gilded furniture, and you don’t lecture people on how to fix the world by being nice. Sell that sh*t off, get rid of the monarchy, and tax the f*cking churches!
That harpsichord and just about everything in “her” palaces belongs to the government. Even if she sold off these things, it would just be someone else with obscene amounts of money owning it so…? Ate we supposed to tear apart and melt down historic artifacts because no one is allowed to own valuable items? It’s absurd. As are all the calls to abolish the monarchy over a musical instrument (hi, our president has a solid gold toilet). Once the BRF stops raking in tons of tourism revenue, maybe they’ll consider tossing the group out on their behinds.
as much as i loathe the dotard, he didn’t use taxpayer money for his gold toilet.
Nothing is good enough for some people lol
Sure Trump did use taxpayers money. NYC real estate is full of incentives paid by the taxpayers, and apparently Trump Tower received some of the largest. This is why the people who will finally get him will probably be the state of NY.
I think it’s adding insult to injury considering she addessed self sacrafice. Of course she is WEALTHY, RICH. We all know this. I get what they are saying and the gold piano was a bit much in the background. Lesson learned.
Maybe if she televised from one of the holding rooms in the Towe of London her message would have been better recieced 🤪
Too funny.
Homeless people do eat. Sometimes they get food from food banks or from shelters. Sometimes they buy food. There is a VAT tax on food.
That means that when a homeless person buys some food his taxes do finance the Queen as she gets about Pounds 40 Mio each year from the taxpayer. All the while nobody knows how rich the Queen is. Because she doesn’t have to hand in her tax report to the tax office. ALLEGEDLY she pays some taxes (some certain tax she pays) but nobody knows if she pays all of that certain tax because nobody knows how much she owns or earns each year.
It is perverse. Homeless peoples’ taxes on food finance one of the richest families in Europe.
I can’t disagree.
👏👏👏
homeless people get taxed whilst the queen gets to choose the amount she pays for tax.
I thought the US was bad (and it IS!) but at least we don’t tax food.
So a queen can have a whole gold piano but my gold spray paint knobs are “tacky”? I see.
Too funny.
😂😂😂
That’s just utterly appalling. I mean, basically she’s wearing a white gown AFTER Labor Day.
Ha! Good one.
hahaha
They’re not wrong about the optics. It’s not a good look and people around the world are utterly fed up with the ultra rich as inequality continues to soar. The Guardian had an article a few days ago about homelessness skyrocketing in Britain. I like Queenie quite a lot, both the real life version and the Claire Foy version, but I can like her and still understand where they’re coming from.
I read a post on another site about the unconscionably lavish, gluttonous and wasteful Kardashian Christmas party and comments of “haters are bitter” proliferated. Excuse those of us who don’t drool with admiring approval and envy each time the ultra rich rub their wealth in our faces. Consumption is literally killing our planet. (Yes, I understand these are different situations; my point was that the “haters are jealous” theme comes up any time the ultra rich are criticized or scrutinized.)
(Replying to myself): that said, it’s likely many of the people calling this out are small ‘r’ republicans (like the SNP person) and anti-monarchists so if you want to say ‘of course a Queen has a gold piano, what do you expect,’ then you also should expect that British people who are opposed to the Royal Family as an institution are going to criticize that institution and the things they dislike about it.
I agree about the optics and her people should be more aware of them. They moved the piano bench so they could have moved the piano too. However, there is also the aspect of people want the Queen to be queenly, which means surrounding her with all the treasures of that go with being Queen, which would include that piano, that probably was there before she was.
And I do see a difference with the Kardashian Christmas Eve party. The Queen posing with a gold piano while talking about Brexit is not a good visual but the piano pretty much goes with the territory of being Queen. Kim had people cover her trees and lawn with snow and built a mountain for sledding in her yard in CALIFORNIA. That’s excess for the purpose of being excessive.
People who support the Queen want the Queen to be queenly. Most of the tweets are likely from British anti-monarchists, which is a perfectly fine principle to have even if people think they’re just “sensitive”. There’s a bit more to it than that.
The Queen could have chosen a different approach in her speech. How about saying that ALL people have to contribute and not just the average Joe and Jane? How about saying that some people have a much much harder life and that something needs to be done to make it more equal.
Nope, she didn’t say anything along those lines. She said that everybody should be nicer. And that simply won’t work.
@NancyLD, and yet why do I think Kim will have the snow used as a tax write-off for the show?
@Jessica—well said. My thoughts exactly.
People really are just insanely mind bogglingly over sensitive these days – about everything. I’m sorry she’s the Queen if England. Of course she has a gold piano; I bet you she’s had it her whole life. It’s not as though she just went out and bought it.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to go through life being constantly outraged about everything. Twenty bucks says while none of the people have gold pianos, they probably engage in conspicuous consumption too but are too daft to connect the dots.
People are indeed overly sensitive about the atrocities of the past, aren’t they?
And you can always blame Joe Average for drinking beer while letting George Upperclass get away with million-pounds tax fraud. Right?
/cynicism off/
YEs, me overspending at Sephora is exactly like the queen asserting to her right and the right of her descendants to lavish, gratuitous lifestyles.
Thank goodness someone is defending the billionaires. I’m sure they’d do the same for you.
LOL
I’ve enjoyed all her albums, personally.
You’re in good company, they’ve all gone gold.
Lol!
1. The piano is most likely gold plated, not solid gold.
2. It’s probably older than the Queen and she inherited it.
3. She hasn’t wasted taxpayer funds on it. It may even have been a gift from a foreign leader to one of her ancestors.
4. She does waste taxpayer funds on other things.
5. She should consider optics.
6. Haters should find something more appropriate to be mad about.
I would say “gilded” might be the correct term. It’s a great photo in my mind because of the hilarious tweets it’s generated!
I think it was Queen Victoria’s piano.
The piano is gilded, and was made in the 1850’s for Victoria and Albert, who both loved playing piano. And if anyone wanted to gild theirs, they can bop on over to Hobby Lobby and pick up a kit. Given the age of the piano, I’m sure the keys are also ivory, so good thing William didn’t get his hands on it.
OMG TeamAwesome – loooove both of your comments! Hahaha!
Point 1
Solid gold or gold-plated doesn’t really matter as it is the look of that thing in combination with the Queen’s soapy speech about everybody be nicer.
Point 2
Inheriting massive amounts of wealth without paying inheritance taxes is part of the problem.
Points 3,4
The Queen has wasted taxpayer funds on that piano to keep it in shape: Pianos need to be cleaned and tuned and after decades and centuries that plated gold needs to be re-applied as well. And that is what the taxpayer paid for.
The Queen has wasted a massive amount of taxpayer funds. She was given millions to keep Buckingham Palace in good conditions. The money is gone but no improvements have been made and there are no bills to prove where the money went. Any employee would have gone to jail for wasting such an amount of taxpayer’s money.
Point 5
She should consider a different content in her speech. She can keep the piano and the glasses but please, do a better speech. That is what Queenie gets paid for.
Point 6
Bashing every critic as “haters” leads to the end of free speech via censorship.
Her speeches are infamously out of touch. I remember when she praised her insufferable racist husband’s “unique sense of humour” in her Christmas speech a few years ago. Ridiculous old woman.
Isn’t pure gold very soft? A solid gold piano would be very impractical, lol.
A solid gold piano would crash through the floor under its own weight.
Yes, haters, who work hard to pay for the RF lavish lifestyle, should moan about something else instead. Millionsss were earmarked for the renovation of BP – where on earth did that money go? The Queen and her family will never be held accountable, but she can always dip into the state welfare fund to heat up Buckingham palace as she did before. Smh.
I mean, if the queen of England cant own a golden piano then who can?
Elton John?
Lol, please lord, don’t let me say it
Just keep in mind that its someone actual job to go thru and dust/clean every damn thing in the palace. Not exactly brain surgery interesting but it beats being the cleaning person to a grubby bi-level. 🙂
Yeah, are folks just now learning that she’s The Queen? It a family hand me down, she didn’t buy it herself.
This isn’t actual news.. The BRF have been among the wealthiest people on the planet forever.
And? We Brits are allowed to criticise the Royals whenever we want to – especially when it comes down to money.
The gold piano on the right is counter-balanced by the common-as-folks blotter with obligatory Mont Blanc pen on the left. I guess the props people couldn’t commit totally to the Liberace look, hence the CEO circa 1988 touch.
I’m sorry but this is just internet b!tching bull$hit! What idiot did not realize she had money before this picture? Besides the fact that a lot of it is not her personal property but belongs to the country. Grow up and find something productive to do with your time. First try moving out of Mom’s basement.
Has no one heard of gold leaf? Is this conversation even real?
The fact that no one from the cast of Black Panther is on that best dressed list is a travesty..
I read somewhere that the piano belonged to Queen Victoria.
The Queen looks wonderful. I should look that good when I’m her age.
Ok, she owns the Cullinan diamonds, which are 9 stones cut from the largest diamond ever found. She just wore diamonds III and IV (“Granny’s Chips”) at the Netherlands state dinner and nobody squawked (that I saw). That brooch is worth hundreds of millions of dollars/pounds. Don’t get me started on her art collections. Who cares about a tacky gilded piano her great-grandma left her? The picture was nice.
Because she sat in front of it lecturing people about putting on a brave face during tough times to come.
Its tasteless, and poor optics.
I don’t know why the Brits still put up with them. They’re useless grifters. In Australia recently we had a case where an academic (Jenny Hocking, unsuccessfully) took the government / National Archives to court to release the “palace letters” in order to find out how much Charles and the Queen knew in advance about Gough Whitlam’s sacking (Whitlam’s son acted as her barrister), which was Australia’s biggest constitutional crisis in history. From the evidence already available it’s pretty clear they knew and at least let it happen if not actively encouraged the governor general to do the sacking. So why? The most convincing argument is because Whitlam was not only a staunch republican (as in in favour of getting rid of the monarchy) but also planning to nationalise Australia’s mineral resources, to “buy back the farm.” And who’s the biggest private shareholder of Rio Tinto, among other mining companies? You guessed it. Don’t forget the Queen also gets regular top secret briefings by MI5 and 6 with incredible insights into what’s happening and going to happen in other countries and different industries. She can use this knowledge for insider trading, easily, and no one would be the wiser. They also have veto power over the UK parliament’s legislation, and mainstream news has reported they HAVE exercised this power in recent decades. There’s no place for any monarchy in our day and age. And with the younger royals it’s looking like they’re playing the celebrity, fan base, or personality angle to justify their relevance. I enjoyed watching M&H and Eugenie’s weddings like anyone else. But that doesn’t mean I think they should still be allowed such incredible privileges and no oversight to their power.
I generally agree with you, but I promise that the royals have not exercised veto power over Parliament’s legislation in recent decades.
Tina, they most definitely have. See 2013 article in the Guardian, ‘Secret papers show extent of senior royals’ veto over bills’. One particular one they completely vetoed was in 1999, on authority to order strikes against Iraq.
They have been consulted on the bills, yes. But they haven’t vetoed anything that they weren’t asked to veto by government ministers. The Iraq bill you speak of was a private member’s bill and the government asked the Queen to veto it. I don’t love this aspect of the system, but the royals are not going rogue. They’re doing what the government of the day asks them to do.
it’s not that people are surprised that the queen has a gold piano, it’s just that the optics are bad. it also brings to min all the funds she mismanaged with regards to buckingham palace. and remember that time she wanted to use funds from the state poverty fund to pay for buckingham’s electric bill?
Personally, I would really enjoy an article highlighting the Royal Jewelry.
I’m a huge fan of Liz jewels and all rest of the BRF jewelry stash.
Good old whatshername that married David the Abdicator had the most over the top jewelry. Leopards, lizards, flamingos all made of jewels.
Goodness, my apologies I cannot think of her name. I can see her in my mindeye, tall, fairly harsh looking…you know, A woman can never be too rich or too thin….argh! All I can think of is Winnie. I know that’s not it. Too much Christmas stuff still in my head. 🙂
You should check out The Royal Order of Splendor and its sister site, The Jewel Vault.
If they tell the queen people believe the royal family is out of touch and obnoxiously spending others money and gloating about it by showing it off with their prized possessions, while people are homeless and hungry, she may just say…
‘Let them eat cake.’
Of course the Queen has a gold piano. She’s the f’ing Queen FFS. Did this person just parachute in or what?
She’s basically a classier-seeming Trump. Won’t release tax details, shady financial deals, and a messed up family.
She just has an accent so we like her better.
She isn’t trying to build a wall, scrap free health care or cause major problems between large nations. So, no, nothing like Trump.
And she served during the war unlike draft dodger cadet bone spurs
What with the Queen’s gold (gilded/painted?) piano and Macron’s gold (gilded/painted?) desk what is the world coming to?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/11/macron-president-of-the-rich-speech-elysee-palace-gilets-jaunes
As one social media user said: “A big year for puzzled people in gold rooms asking why we can’t all get along.”