In our column of 14 July, 2006, we drew subscribers attention to the web pages of Her Majesty, The Queen of Australia. This was because one of our readers drew it to our attention. Now the Royal Site has posted an exciting in novation This allows the public access to streamed audio and video clips, as well as podcasts. We are posting a hyper-link to this part of the site, as well as to the webpages of The Queen of Australia. For those who wish to access the new part of the site directly, it is at http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page5323.asp#
If you go to the site ( if your system is “dial –up”, it will be slow) you will see that the Royal Household has put together a variety of “rich media” for the public to view and listen to, including audio streaming, video streaming and podcasting. You can view streamed audio and video from this page, and you can subscribe to the ‘British Monarchy podcast’. There is a useful guide on technical help – you just click on the page entitled ‘Information about podcasting and streaming’.
The Queen’s speech during a lunch for her 80th birthday at the Mansion House, hosted by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London, is the very first in an exciting series of occasional ‘British Monarchy podcasts’. You can sign up for these, and once you have subscribed, the latest podcast will automatically be made available to you from your podcast software, and can be downloaded onto your mp3 player if you wish. Alternatively, you can listen to a streamed version, but unless you have a fast version of broadband, it will be slow. I am told the better solution for those on dial-up is to subscribe to podcasts.
Among the videos are interesting ones about Investitures, State Banquets, Garden Parties, and the Royal Household. There is also access to streamed audio. You can listen to a special piece of music written and performed by the current Queen’s Piper, as well as the British National and, as we reminded the authorities at the time of the Commonwealth Games, our Australian Royal Anthem.
I suspect that it won’t be long before we shall be able to download video of events such as Trooping The Colour. What will our short sighted national broadcaster, which has failed to show many of the events surrounding the celebration of the 80th birthday of The Queen of Australia, do then?