This morning I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw an old man looking back at me…
An old man with no money being worked into the ground, rather than laying upon it’s lush green grass, hands linked behind his head, bathing in smashing Sussex sunshine and staring at little fluffy clouds.
And it isn’t just knackered old me, I see photos of good friends on facebook and they have grey in their beards, creased crow’s feet, pot bellies and some of them have even lost their hair.
"They look fucked" I laugh to myself……. just like I do.
Looking in horror at the cartoon rictus grin of the Goth Grim Reaper over my shoulder in the bathroom this morning was however cheerfully buoyed by the hysteria wafting in from the radio in the kitchen. A new future King of Britain is born! Hurrah!
And time is relentlessly passing arse over elbow as though it is falling down the stairs. History is carrying on regardless of how unfoxy I am becoming without so much as a by your leave. From the first celebrity chef King Alfred to anagram of the year Cnut, from everyone’s favourite little sister Elizabeth I, through batshit insane George III to nympho Victoria and so onto King Whatsisname, who is at the moment ensconced in a hospital in Paddington with the world camped outside waiting to unleash a shit storm of flashes and cat calls.
Poor little bugger.
Now I am no fan of the Royal family at all. No sir! I am a British republican with absolutely no interest in what is going on all those miles away in England, none what so ever, but it does make you think doesn’t it?
Actually I would have been one of the million witnesses to have seen his debut if the gushing and panting gusset of journalism hadn’t driven me to turn off the television, shut the cat in the oven and chuck another pallet on the bonfire in disgust.
There it is though, the birth of a new future King. That is two that I have semi witnessed being born since I was myself hatched in a council house built for heroes all those millions of years ago just after the war.
Way back in the 60s, when God was a boy and dinosaurs dressed as hippies roamed the earth and lied and lied and lied. Christ! And here we are, a new future King. Not my King admittedly, I should hopefully be chasing big women around the happy hunting grounds long before he traipses up the aisle in Westminster Abbey weighed down by pride, ermine and hope.
Both my son’s King maybe, or their sons, but not mine. I have nothing against future King Oojimaflip at all. I hope he leads a long and happy life. I hope that all of his problems are small ones and that he realises the weight upon his shoulders is as unreasonable as it is plainly palpable, but it is his lot.
I hope he realises that when times are tough he will have to get engaged, marry, maybe have a family of his own to cheer everyone up. Let’s face it, we won’t be having the Olympics again anytime soon to paper over the cracks. Making the more easily pleased in the country happy will be down to him and his, but he won’t be a real King at all will he?
Kate and William having a littlun is just like Mickey and Minnie Mouse having a baby. I decided a while ago that perhaps the people that harp on about the Royal Family being good for Britain PLC might have a point, and although I disagree whole heartedly that such a wonderful country as the United Kingdom should have an aristocracy, the pomp and circumstance no doubt brings tossers in their droves to our downtrodden and knackered islands to have their pockets fleeced and stomachs poisoned.
It works in exactly the same way as the Mickey dynasty works in Florida, only perhaps not as efficiently. It’s good for business, is Kings. King Thingumyjig! The head of the parade in theme Park Britain. Good luck to him that is what I say.
Nothing to actually do with me at all, but my future King all the same. God Bless him and Hurrah. However, if he ever has the cheek to ask any of mine to go to war in his name I will advise my progeny to quote the excellent Ry Cooder, who, when offered an absolute fortune to play a gig at Disneyland, declined by saying "I don’t strum for the mouse."
So there you are then. A new future King, who will work hard all his life and have that one day where he looks in the mirror in the bathroom and can’t believe his ears.
“At last the wedding that we helped pay for, but didn’t get an invite to has borne fruit.” By Nigel Rush, republican with a very small R.
