> The ultimate example may be All Souls College, which has a ritual, the Mallard Song, that occurs once a century.
You can't walk for more than five minutes in the UK without tripping over some nonsense like this. History is very important, and traditon has its place, but really? As a brit I find it all kind of tediously performative sometimes.
And yeah, I knew about the Ceremony of the Keys, but not the details. Didn't know it really has that kind of scripted dialogue that Pratchett parodied there.
It is truly strange how my country can create a political and cultural operating system that allows this stuff to just go on and on for almost 800 years, right up to now.
> The King's Remembrancer swears in a jury of 26 Goldsmiths who then count, weigh and otherwise measure a sample of 88,000 gold coins produced by the Royal Mint.
You can't walk for more than five minutes in the UK without tripping over some nonsense like this. History is very important, and traditon has its place, but really? As a brit I find it all kind of tediously performative sometimes.