You Just Can't Win

While the rest of the world looks on admiringly, the stalwart British public
turns out in the hundreds of thousands to pay their respects to the Queen
and show how much they care about their Royal Family.

As a public service, your Head Trucker would like to present the following items to illustrate the fickleness of crowds and the treachery of human nature:

(1)  Prince Charles: At ease with himself and the nation
The Diamond Jubilee celebrations have revealed a new and more loveable Prince of Wales who caught the public mood brilliantly. . . .

(2)  Prince of Wales presents a real danger to the monarchy
We know far too much about the Prince's foibles and past errors to revere him as we revere his mother. . . .


Both articles appeared in the same goddamn newspaper - the Telegraph - in the last 24 hours, with the last echoes of "God Save the Queen" still reverberating in the air over Britain. 

Which just goes to prove the truth of the utterance by the first Queen Elizabeth:  All affection is false.  And she knew what she was talking about.

I won't bother to analyze each article for you - you guys can read, can't you? - only to observe in passing that the first is based on an utterly false premise (i.e., that Charles has somehow had a magical change of personality in the last week, when this distant and disinterested observer can discern no change whatever in the way he's always been these last forty years or more).

The second, at bottom, is based on the unremitting woman-scorned attitude that utterly refuses to let Diana rest in peace.  The writer asks if she can be the only one who wondered "what that woman was doing in the Queen's carriage."  Which tells you all you need to know about the writer, who has spent the last few days turning out breathless encomiums on all the Queen's saintly virtues - and does not understand a single one of them.

To which I would only add, if Diana's own sons don't hold a grudge, who the hell are you to do so?  And just what kind of hell and high water has your own stumbling family been through?  And why don't 60 million of your fellow countrymen get to gossip all to hell and back about every single sin you've committed, in minute and intimate detail? World without end, amen.

Without saying a word, seems to me, the Queen made things perfectly clear this weekend what the programme is.  Just for the record, and to reassure all my British and Commonwealth truckbuddies, here is how it's all going down.  There is no point pissing and moaning about it, because there's just no point:

1.  No, the Queen will never abdicate.
2.  No, the succession will not skip a generation.
3.  Yes, Charles will be the next King and
4.  Yes, Camilla will be Queen - not Princess, not Duchess, but Queen.
5.  Barring unforeseen calamity, Wills and Kate will not reach the throne until they are a boring middle-aged couple that your kids will see no relevance in, until they get to be certified antiques too.

And that's it.  If you British bitches don't like it, well then - change it and be done with it, for fuck's sake.  God knows we Americans have amply proven that a monarchy is not a necessary thing, and so have the French.  Go ahead and get it over with:  pension the Queen off, give her a council flat in Bayswater, a commemorative tea cosy, and a nice thank-you card.  Then turn all the royal palaces into museums, or better yet, pull them down and build some nice, new football arenas and shopping malls.  Or, ooh, casinos! Screw Monte Carlo, just think what a shot in the arm that would be for your economy.

And maybe reserve some flats for various sheiklets willing to pay top dollar to live like Real English Gentlemen while their sons are at Eton and Harrow. It's all about having the right address, isn't it? And a golden statue of Diana and Dodi, together forever atop the former Victoria Monument. I mean, the Exchequer could use the cash, couldn't it? Then you could really tell Brussels to bugger off, and mean it.

Or consider long-term leases to multinational corporations. Wouldn't it be, like, totally cool to see a pair of Golden Arches stretching across what used to be Buckingham Palace? Or a giant KFC bucket rotating over Windsor Castle? Just think of the ad money and tax money your Inland Revenue could squeeze out of those deals. You could balance the budget in a trice, kit out the whole Fleet with new rowboats, and still have enough left over to pay poor little Princess Samantha the million quid she's owed as compensation for all the emotional pain and suffering of having to lower herself and wear an actual hat in public.

The Queen will be very disappointed, of course, but you know the old girl will buck up and obey your bidding as dutifully as she always has. I'm sure that nice Julian ("I-want-my-wife's-grandfather's-peerage") Fellowes could be prevailed upon to give her a bit part in Downton Abbey, to keep her occupied and feeling useful. Head housekeeper, perhaps, with Philip as the crusty old head gardener. (Wouldn't the Guardian pee all over itself?) And wouldn't it be kinder to let her know how you really feel, now, instead of giving her false hope for the continuing loyalty of her so-called subjects to her family and dynasty?

She won't try to stop you, you know.  As far back as 1969, Philip said in a famous American interview (maybe you didn't catch that one):  "We'll go quietly." And they would, too. They'd have no choice. Ever since 1689, you've been pulling the strings on the monarchy, and not the other way round. They did teach you that in school, didn't they?

While you're at it, you might as well go ahead and dismantle the Church of England too - and that will be such fun, gobbling up all that lovely, centrally-located property and repurposing it for pubs and betting offices and nail salons, etc. - Henry VIII would tell you that.  And for good measure, why not just go whole hog and rebrand the entire country - or what's left to you after the Scots and the Welsh and the Cornish and who knows who else, maybe Manchester United, get done carving it up.  Also, stop saying "British" this and "British" that - it's so old-fashioned, isn't it now?  And really rather racist too, when you stop and think about it.  I'm sure I heard Ed Miliband say that just the other day.

While you're at it, why not come up with a whole new name and logo for the country?  (I mean, lions and unicorns, seriously?  So last-millennium, isn't it?)  Utopia's been done, and Cool Britannia was a flop, but I'm sure if you all put your heads together, say at your next big karaoke party, you can come up with something really flash.  And then won't life be grand?  With no sodding monarchy to hold you back, exorting that crushing 77 pence a year from each and every one of you, why, England could become as great as . . . mmm . . . Alabama, maybe!   With nukes.  I can't wait to hear that phrase roll off President Blair's lips.

Or if you don't want to do all that - at least quit bitching about your own Royal Family.  Just as with your own relations that you didn't get to choose either, you get what you get, and that's life.  Deal with it.  It's like the wife who always runs down her husband, or the husband who always criticizes his wife in public.  It reveals so much more about the speaker than the object of the whining.  And what it reveals is really ugly.  You want a divorce, go get one, and more power to you.  But while you're together, don't advertise how unhappy you are:  it just makes you look fucking rude. Not to mention really rather dim.

Oh, and I forgot to add the last item on the list:

(6)  Yes, the Queen will be received straight into Heaven when she dies.  Because nobody else, and I mean nobody, would have put up with all you moaning bitches for half as long.  Oh yes, you saw the fireworks and the rock stars and the miles of bunting, and squealed with delight like teenage groupies - but this is the one essential thing that you lot, in the media at least, still haven't seen.

A life of heroic virtue, indeed.  You couldn't pay me enough to take the job.  Not even.