tdc thinks it puts every local tv station’s youtube numbers to shame.

bloody shame.

A lot of what’s on the site so far isn’t that interesting; the “Long to Reign Over Us” series doesn’t have much good footage (although part 3, I think it is, which covers the earliest years of her reign, has some neat glimpses of her in uniform, riding a stunning dun horse sidesaddle as she reviews the troops).

There’s an utterly charming very brief silent black-and-white newsreel clip from 1917 of Queen Alexandra, then widow of Edward VII, touring the West End rose-selling district, with young ladies in wonderful hats and long white dresses running beside her horse-drawn open carriage thrusting bouquets of roses at her (although you don’t really see her at all).

I hope they’ll put up some better historical stuff. The video covering her coronation is disappointing, everything way at a distance, and it doesn’t even show the crown being put on her head. (It does look as though, as the procession moves out of the cathedral, she’s holding Prince Philip’s hand, which is rather touching. That just couldn’t have been part of the official royal protocol.)

They need to include more informative descriptions of some of the older clips; they should really put captions on those videos identifying important people and explaining what’s going on.

Anyway, good on her for moving with the times and starting the channel. She’s far from perfect, but all in all, she’s quite a remarkable woman. It can’t be easy accommodating herself to the electronic age as the person responsible for upholding a medieval tradition.