MADRID: When the English monarch in Alan Bennett's novella "The Uncommon Reader" decides to write her memoirs, she takes the prudent step of abdicating first. Queen Sofia of Spain may be wondering whether she, too, should have waited for her husband, King Juan Carlos, to leave office before granting a Spanish journalist a series of uncharacteristically candid interviews. The resulting book, "The Queen Up Close," has provided Spaniards an uncomfortably close look at their queen's conservative views. Her comments on homosexuality, gay marriage, euthanasia and religious education have outraged liberal Spaniards and tarnished an image of discretion that she had carefully tended for decades. In the most notorious gaffe in the book, the queen said that she respected people's different sexual tendencies but did not understand why "they should feel proud to be gay." "That they get up on floats and parade in the streets? If all of us who are not gay were to parade in the streets, we'd halt the traffic in every city," she said. She then added that while gay people had a right to unions, they should not be permitted to call them marriages.
MADRID: When the English monarch in Alan Bennett's novella "The Uncommon Reader" decides to write her memoirs, she takes the prudent step of abdicating first. Queen Sofia of Spain may be wondering whether she, too, should have waited for her husband, King Juan Carlos, to leave office before granting a Spanish journalist a series of uncharacteristically candid interviews.
The resulting book, "The Queen Up Close," has provided Spaniards an uncomfortably close look at their queen's conservative views. Her comments on homosexuality, gay marriage, euthanasia and religious education have outraged liberal Spaniards and tarnished an image of discretion that she had carefully tended for decades.
In the most notorious gaffe in the book, the queen said that she respected people's different sexual tendencies but did not understand why "they should feel proud to be gay."
"That they get up on floats and parade in the streets? If all of us who are not gay were to parade in the streets, we'd halt the traffic in every city," she said. She then added that while gay people had a right to unions, they should not be permitted to call them marriages.
with skin samples surely we can be recreating them in a few years time. keep to the Fen Causeway
Jeremy Clarkson has shown his feelings towards speed cameras by blowing one up with a rocket in his new DVD Thriller. The Top Gear presenter declares "photograph this" before hitting the Fire button on his specially adapted Porsche 944 Turbo and blasting the camera to bits. Clarkson mounted a rocket launcher onto the side of the car for the stunt, which features on a promotional advert for the DVD. A double-decker bus, bearing the sign 'Wasting Space And Causing Jams In Your Community', is also the focus of Clarkson's rocket rage. The DVD is not part of the BBC series, which recently featured a stunt in which Clarkson was left in 'screaming agony' after driving a lorry into a brick wall.
The Top Gear presenter declares "photograph this" before hitting the Fire button on his specially adapted Porsche 944 Turbo and blasting the camera to bits. Clarkson mounted a rocket launcher onto the side of the car for the stunt, which features on a promotional advert for the DVD.
A double-decker bus, bearing the sign 'Wasting Space And Causing Jams In Your Community', is also the focus of Clarkson's rocket rage.
The DVD is not part of the BBC series, which recently featured a stunt in which Clarkson was left in 'screaming agony' after driving a lorry into a brick wall.
He's not as dangerous as the rabble rousers in the Daily Mail whose targets are the vulnerable. keep to the Fen Causeway
