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Last week,
a reader from Williamstown, John Taylor -- while acknowledging that he and
I are “generally on the same wavelength” -- complained in Seven Days’ letters column
that he was tired of my “rants about Dubya and California.”
He thinks I “need to get back to skewering the idiots amongst
us,” mentioning as examples people who “think they can get real
news from Fox, MSNBC or CNN” or “the couple that brings their
sniveling kid to a concert because a ticket is cheaper than a
sitter.”
Well, Mr. Taylor, I couldn’t agree more. I’m as tired as you
are of Dubya and his ilk. Unfortunately, I don’t watch the TV
channels you mention — I only read their Web sites. I don’t go
to concerts, either, don’t have kids and never need a sitter —
a keeper, maybe, but not a sitter. So I’m sort of at a loss
Mr.
Taylor is a bit warmer when he suggests, “A rant about the dickless
wonders who buy an H2 and pretend they are `Ahnold'
or are cruising for Osama would also be welcome.” But even here I
fall short, since I don’t know what an H2 is. I assume it’s
some kind of “vehicle,” what they used to call a car, and, if
so, I’m all for it — that is, the rant.
In
fact, the choking road traffic in Vermont
and the not just dickless but spineless, offensive, selfish, wasteful,
slaughterous and pea-brained creatures who cause
it with their Hummers, Hindenbergs and Leviathans are the only things I get
really exercised about at the local level. As everyone knows, however, this
isn’t a local problem. It’s national, and I’m afraid it
leads right back to Dubya and the Republican Party. And these, if only to please Mr. Taylor,
are off limits to me this week
So,
bear with me while I think of a few topics that don’t have anything
to do with that worm in the White House.
Hmm…
OK,
there’s Prince Charles, who last week admitted to being the
“senior royal” in the British royal family who was never
observed committing a terrible offense that didn’t take place.
Are
you with me? This all goes back to the allegation of a dismissed servant,
George Smith, a man we’re urged to regard as “formerly
alcoholic and mentally unstable,” who says he was “homosexually
raped” by a “senior member” of this “senior royal’s”
staff.
Moreover,
this same “senior royal” was once spotted in bed with another
male servant, canoodling or whatever royals do once they’re finished
bonking the help. Only none of it happened, as Prince Charles has now
assured us
I
know, it’s complicated — even more when you realize that these
allegations only came to light because of a taped conversation between the
late Diana, Princess of Wales, and her former butler, Paul Burrell. Mr. Burrell insists that if Diana’s
two sons, William and Harry, had called him on the phone “even once”
after he was acquitted of stealing her things from Kensington
Palace, he would never have
written his current best-selling book about her.
In
the meantime, no one knows where the tape is.
Whoops!
The “staff member” who never raped anybody recently went to
court and obtained an injunction preventing London’s
Mail on Sunday from naming him in
connection with the non-crime. Whereupon The Guardian, not to be outdone, went to court and obtained
permission to name him anyway — without, however, being allowed to
repeat the details of the incident that never happened.
The man
The Guardian named is Michael
Fawcett, who used to squeeze Prince Charles’ toothpaste onto his
brush and is now out of royal service, having accepted a rather large house
but not, apparently, actual money, in exchange for not blabbing anything
else.
Sir
Michael Peat, the man who advised Prince Charles to sack Mr. Fawcett, is
also the man who urged the Prince to come forward last week and admit that
he is, indeed, the senior royal who never — whatever. The charges against
Charles are not only “completely untrue” but
“risible,” according to Sir Michael, which means, according to
the dictionary, that they are “ludicrous, relating to laughter or
used in eliciting laughter.”
Indeed,
these charges are so risible that they have caused “great
distress” at Clarence House, where the Prince of Wales now resides in
London. They are so risible
that “all speculation needs to be brought to an end.”
That’s how risible they are! Camilla
– Mrs. Parker-Bowles, the Prince’s official mistress –
has even had to go downstairs and thank the kitchen help for their loyalty.
And both the Queen and Prince Charles’ sons are said “fully to
support” him in his courageous decision to come forward and name
himself as the Man Who Never Did It.
Well,
that took up a lot of space, didn’t it?
In
other foreign news, the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris has
announced plans to give private strip-teasing lessons to women who want to
buy sexy lingerie, but aren’t sure “how to achieve the best
effect with their purchases.”
“It’s
completely serious,” says a spokeswoman for the store. “When a
woman buys underwear it’s to show it off, and you have to know how to
do that. It isn’t easy to take a pair of trousers off without looking
ridiculous, I can tell you.” (Just ask Prince Charles, who never
did.)
And
next time, Mr. Taylor, be glad I rant about Dubya only twice a month,
instead of every week — capisce?
www.peterkurth.com
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