Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.

Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.

Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!

Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.

Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/

It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.

Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.

A royal celebration - but what lies behind the facade?

26th June 2017 - ze royal femily's true loyalties. In ze first picture below, ve see ze Kveen's 'subtle' message to ze Government about vair her true loyalties lie - somevair in Europe I sink. Ze second image is taken from a wideo I took of ze Kveen's Diamond Jubilee Royal Train at Cardiff on ze 26th April 2012. See ze logo DB on ze front of ze engine - ve all know vot zet stands for - Deutsche Bahn. Ya, ze royal train is pulled by German-owned locomotives. Unt to make sure zat zere vos space at ze platform for zis royal train, ze Arriva train vich vos standing in ze platform hed to clear off (Arriva is also owned by DB). Ze serd image below confirms our suspicions, ze Kveen does not use Royal Mail for her parcels to ze Muzzerlend - she uses Deutsche Post!

But zis vill be fixed after Brexit ven vee vill get our country back - our trains vill be British-made, British-owned unt British-operated, all our cars vill be British-made (viz no foreign help), all our utilities vill be British-owned, all our land and property vill be British-owned, all our industries vill be British-owned - Chippenham vill no longer be ze "home of Siemens Rail Automation" - ve vill tear down zeez signs. Zis is vot Europe hes done - it hes forced our governments to sell our country down ze river Rhine. No more Mercs, BMWs and Audis on our autobahns after Brexit - ve vill hef our sovereignty, unt our Morris Minors, bek.

5th January 2016 - religion, royals and a republic

Recently the Commission on religion and belief in British public life published a report calling for the religious makeup of the House of Lords and the coronation of our next monarch (King Charles?) to reflect the realities of 21st-century Britain. The report calls for the number of Church of England bishops in the House of Lords to be reduced to allow representation of other faiths and for the next coronation ceremony to reflect a more pluralist society.

The findings of the report are all well and good, but should these proposals go much further? Surely, in the 21st century fundamental changes are required  not cosmetic adjustment. Britain and Iran are the only countries in the world which reserve places in their legislatures for unelected religious clerics. But the very notion of a state religion or other religions exercising power through the legislature is incompatible with popular sovereignty and democracy. Reducing the number of bishops in the House of Lords misses this point completely.

The established church is very much bound up with the institution of the monarchy; the National Secular Society executive director Keith Porteous Wood says “Disestablishing the Church of England should be a minimum ambition for a modern Britain in the 21st century”.

Religion aside, all parliamentarians should be subject to democratic election; full reform of the House of Lords and its replacement with a fully elected upper house should be a priority in 21st-century Britain.

Moving on now to 'royals' ... in December 2015, it was revealed  that Prince Charles will only speak to broadcasters after they have signed a 15-page contract. This contract dictates which questions can be asked, allows Clarence House​ to preside over edits to programmes, and grants the right to remove Prince Charles from a programme entirely if it chooses.

Prince Charles is demanding tyrannical, undemocratic preconditions in television interviews, including advance knowledge of precise questions, the right to oversee editing and even to block a broadcast if the final product does not meet approval.

The Republic organisation's CEO Graham Smith was reported in the Independent saying that Prince Charles was trying to use broadcasters "as extensions of his PR operation". He said: "These contracts raise serious questions about the editorial independence of our national broadcasters. Any broadcaster signing these contracts should hang its head in shame. Prince Charles should be subject to the same level of scrutiny and challenge as anyone else".

But this is merely the thin end of the wedge with regard to our (the nation's) acquiesence to the demands of the royal PR machine. Why does the monarchy insist on remaining beyond the bounds of freedom of information legislation? What does it have to hide?