live courage of what exactly

Live Coverage of WHAT Exactly? by cobrunstr This evening, Channel Four promises live coverage of the reburial of Richard III.  Live coverage. I just don't get it.  The way I see it, "live coverage" should be reserved for events with a degree of indeterminacy, like general elections and Eurovision.  Monarchy, with its removal of indeterminacy is an inherently dull institution.  Weddings, funerals and coronations are hopelessly dull without accidents and bad behaviour and don't lend themselves to televisual spectacle.  If someone crashes through the church doors on a motorcycle to elope with the bride at the last moment - now that's exciting.  As is a peasant revolution preventing a coronation.  As is the sudden discovery that the guy in the coffin isn't really dead. If it turns out that Richard III isn't really dead, steps out, and hitches his way back to York from Leicester, then I'll retract this blog.  But there are no other living veterans of the Battle of Bosworth, so I'd say the chances are slim. So I'm already bored by endless coverage of an event that is likely to go off without a hitch.  Except that I'm puzzled and irritated as well.  We are, after all, talking about the chief suspect in a child murder inquiry.  Nobody would be making this much fuss about 15th century bones if they weren't the bones of a king, but he wouldn't be a king, even briefly, without the whole child murder thing.  Today's grand funeral sanctions the idea that sitting in a big chair for two years confers a sanctity upon your bones that is afforded no other kind of human. Now do I know that Richard III was responsible for the murder of those boys?  I do not.  I only know that he's the chief suspect.  If other evidence emerges that shifts the balance of probabilities, then I'll change my beliefs.  The thing about Ricardians - odd bunch - is that they know  he didn't do it.   They are unreceptive to evidence that suggests that Richard either ordered the deaths, or nodded meaningfully at someone who ordered the deaths. Of course, it was a butal and disgusting age of internecine slaughter.  Bury the bones with quiet dignity I say, but enough with the pomp and circumstance and live coverage. The whole king in a carpark saga is also, of course, a kind of insult to real history and real archaeology.  The discovery of these bones told us nothing of any real importance or interest.  In the field of archaeology,  there are more important discoveries than the excavation of Dick York being made on a daily basis.   Digging up a dead king does not tell us anything about that king - what he did or why he did it.  Rummaging around archives will tell you more.  Digging up a dead king does not tell us anything about how people lived, about the technologies and resources available to fifteenth century folk. It doesn't tell us anything about Leicester.  In fact, the whole affair has contributed nothing of any real importance to any relevant discipline. The amount of coverage this whole affair has received is a kind of insult to the idea of History, and to the idea that History is something that is still going on, something that affects us and to which we contribute.  As Leicester and Channel Four prepare to offer continued deference to the bones of a probable child murderer it would be a great thing for History in general if everyone decided to switch off their TVs and read a book instead.  Almost any book.