National team? Then sing the National Anthem!

POGS It seems that if you have logged in but don't post fairly quickly, you are automatically logged out! There must be a time limit thingummy.
I found this incredibly frustrating in the early days, as I had a tendency to write very long winded posts. I would log in specifically to write a reply, and by the time I'd written it and clicked 'post message' I'd been logged out and my well-constructed and thoughtfully composed long-winded reply would have disappeared. Gone forever!
It has meant I don't bother to even get started on a lot of threads (Probably a good thing!)
I now copy before sending, so if it has disappeared into the ether, I just have to log on again and paste it
Note to Admin I do think the automatic log-out time is unreasonably short, for those of us with a tendency towards verbosity. Any chance we could stay logged in a little bit longer?

Annabel why are they privileged to be at the Olympics. They train incredibly hard and make sacrifices in their private lives to give the time required.

They're not privileged to be there .....they've earned the right.

I watch Rugby. When they play the Welsh national anthem at the start of the rugby, some players sing and some don't. Doesn't mean they are not burstingly proud to play for Wales. They just choose not to sing at that precise (emotional) moment.
Likewise those on the podium. The anthem is played. Some sing. I don't think this just applies to Brits - you see it in all nations. I think it is an unreasonable requirement. Whatever the anthem (and however dire, as it is in our case - dirge like even if you did want to save the queen) I think the podium moment is the athletes moment, not ours to impose values on.
Don't know what you scots are complaining about - Wales does not even figure on the flag!

Oh, I see, POGS, how strange! I don't think I've logged out or been logged out since I joined, but obviously it isn't just you as NannaAnna has the same problem. Lets hope GNHQ/Tech department can sort it out - it must be very frustrating.

Love Granny23's verion

version, I mean.

On the podium some will be too emotional to sing. Some people just cannae sing (like me) so perhaps they think it wiser to keep quiet. I generally do my goldfish act when public singing is required.

For the coronation, our school had learned the Te Deum for a special assembly. Then we went to visit posh friends with a telly to see the ceremony and on the Sunday were at church with them, seated in the front row the better to observe our posh friend singing in the choir. When they broke into the Te Deum, I joined in - well I had learnt it hadn't I? Apparently I put several valuable choir members completely off tune.

That was when I learned to keep schtumm.

Years ago in the cinema when the National Anthem was played at the end of the film, I seem to remember a huge rush to get out before it started, thus avoiding having to stand there being bored!

It was quite funny sometimes, to watch the people who'd just got up and were halfway down the row on their way out when the National Anthem started. Some of them would hover, not knowing whether to stay or go, and others would just carry on, pushing past those stalwarts who were standing to attention!
In the latter years, though, it seemed more people than not just ignored the National Anthem and left anyway.

Jess my reply to POGS would have been as you have written. I don't equate national pride with being the subject of a queen, nor do I believe athletes will not commit to the task and their team because they do not identify with the words of a song. There are many republics represented at the games, and some will take home gold medals, having stood on the podium and been able to join in singing an anthem they feel belongs to them.

We aren't going to agree on this, so let's agree to differ

POGS Just for the record and in spite of media misuse, Great Britain and the United Kingdom are not interchangeable terms.

I just looked for this thread and it wasn't there (again!)
The BBC Olympic coverage is/was alsy missing.
No change on the Disappearing Threads front, then!

absent, I have often thought that the title 'Team GB' was unfair to Northern Ireland. The country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Team GB ignores the existence of our NI citizens.

I don't think you have to sing the National athem just because you are in the team. The atheletes are playing for the nation and may not be particularly monarchist. as long as they respect others by standing quietly, there is no problem. It is the same as going to a church wedding or meeting where there may be prayers.. You may not be a beliver so you just sit and wait.

Can I have a quiet chuckle, without causing any offence, please?

.......the amazing Bradley Wiggins didn't join in with the national anthem when others were singing as he was presented his gold medal. tee hee

Annobel

Forgetting who may or may not agree with me, I have to say I have learnt something.

I was totally oblivious to the fact Northern Ireland was not included in Team G.B. I am astonished to know that, thanks. I genuinely thought they were.

Do you know why?

Northern Ireland competitors are in Team GB, but the name of the nation is the UK of GB and NI. Really should be Team UK.

Gold medal winners - including Bradley Wiggins - are often too emotionally choked up to sing the anthem. In the interview after his win, he didn't seem to know where he was, referring to Hampton Court Palace as 'a castle'. After the last few weeks, that's perhaps not surprising.

ANNOBEL.

O.K. I understand I read your comment in the wrong way. Thanks. I agree should be Team U.K. Have I got that right?.

I think there's a big difference between lining up with a team in a stadium full (or not) of people singing their heads off and not wanting to sing as a solitary soul on the podium, choked with emotion with a camera up your nose.

Yes. POGS. You've got my drift!

Agreed, merlot.

Agreed merlot.
There is a huge difference between e.g. a team not singing the National Anthem before a match and for a winner to stand on a podium.

If that was me on that podium I would be so proud and may be feel that the Anthem was played in honor of my achievement.

And be totally overcome with emotion.

merlot Spot on!

When the National Anthem is played watch out for a very loud clash of symbols on the penultimate chord. I heard an interview with the man who orchestrated all 205 anthems with I think the London Philharmonic. He recorded them at Abbey Road Studios and after standing on the podium conducting for 55 hours got Jonathan Edwards who had really been on the gold podium to clash the cymbals ...........he did it overenthusiastically and you can hear it in the result

Thought that floated through my mind - do they know the words? When I was a child, you couldn't avoid learning the first verse because we sang it at every event, public or private. How often do people hear it nowadays? This doesn't apply to the athletes who let it be known that they weren't singing as a deliberate statement.

We learnt it at school - or perhaps we just absorbed it. We also had to learn it - and sing it - to get some badge or other at Brownies. It was just a part of life back then. But now I am sure they don't learn the anthem anywhere and look a bit bamboozled when they hear it - well, my GC haven't a clue about it and I assume they are typical.