Mary advises Amber

Newport, USA
06 September 2006

Miss Amber Petty,

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH YOU?

I wanted to be able to confide in you and tell you MY news and what happens? You get further out there in the public eye and I’m having to counsel YOU instead. I tell you, Amber, I’m starting to almost regret making you my best friend. I can recall Beatrice Tarnawski, you know. I mean, she was indiscreet, but she’s starting to look deaf and dumb compared to you.

Do I have to remind you where to draw the line? NO MENTION OF YEHUDI GELDSTEIN even if you’re as pissed as a newt and leaning up against a pub wall. You are really out on a psychic bender these days – did you catch malaria or yellow fever on Celebrity Survivor island or something? Or is this the mood your new beau puts you in (LOVELY!)? What’s with this crud about him being a Maori king or something. I watched coverage of the funeral of the Maori queen Te Arikinui in New Zealand and he was nowhere to be seen. So next thing the press is going to get hold of you for claiming a close association with yet another royal family. Do you mind thinking about me before you choose your boyfriends?

Whatever it is, GET A FREAKING GRIP ON YOURSELF, because I need you to strike a better balance between being a decoy in the press for me and a foil. You know the drill, must I remind you? You are to look just slightly less beautiful and classy than me. NOT like a crack whore. At least they’ve done me a favour with my LIW. God she’s ugly compared to me. No class.

I know you think you’re trying, but can’t you see that I have a MILLION things going on right now? You don’t understand. When you’re kept in cotton wool like me, you get really, really sensitive to things like the smell of ordinary people. It’s awful. It’s like a DISABILITY. Can you not get a whiff all the way over there of the falafel that has clung to me like desperate ladies on deposed royalty since I had to go over to this freaking TERROR CELL outside of Odense and pretend to like them and their bloody awful food and immigration issues? (Must warn you, Ambs, when you next come to Denmark you will HAVE to pay very close attention to your personal hygiene when you are close to me unless we’re outdoors together. Even then you might be a bit whiffy.)

And that damn Vollsmose visit was all for nothing. I mean, really, they arrest nine terror suspects like a week after I leave, washing away all of the PR, and all the good, kind and decent hardcore humanitarian work I did there in the course of an afternoon. Medecins sans fronts have NOTHING on me, I tell you. I really really worked so hard to care and smile at them and pretend that the headscarf thing is not just the WORST fashion statement one could make – HELLO, it makes your hair FLAT. And people were behaving like I’m new to reffos. We had a family of Afghanis in Tasmania before I left, and their rellos kept being released from detention and heading for Tasmania. Ha! Turns out their credentials were all fake and they got sent packing back to where they came from. Come to think of it, let’s NOT GO THERE. Seen the latest New Idea? “Mary To Be Sent Packing From Denmark”. The Australian Embassy had to quickly counter that with a puff piece. The press wouldn’t do it for us. So the Secretary to the Ambassador invented some crap about Frederik and me arriving with a bottle of wine and behaving like a relaxed middle-class couple.

Anyway, back to my travails with the great unwashed. If I relive the day and tell you about it maybe I’ll be detraumatised and process the trauma a little. Do these people realise how little their boat journey stacks up against my trauma? Really, Amb, you should have seen me, I really was ALL SMILES and made sure everyone got a wave. Per was saying that it is really important to make these people bask in my royal glow. Maybe they’re right. I really think that is exactly what they needed, a role model about dealing graciously with adversity and smiling through it - so whatever I guess Daisy’s peeps were right to send me there. I am just the ray of sunshine they need. It’s just such a gloomy place and totally depressing and they’re really poor – ugh, such LOW ceilings - and think that no one likes them which must SUCK, so I tried to pretend I was back at the king of Sweden’s 60th birthday party when I was all totally not feeling it and had to put up with all those crazy blond bimbos STEALING MY THUNDER. Yes, that horse-toothed Marie-Chantal was there! So there I was trying to be, what’s the word, inpathetic, and remember how I felt in Stockholm and realize that these poor people must have felt a thousand times worse. At least I was ROCKING my aquamarines. By the way, remind me to remind that husband of mine that my BUBBLE GUM MACHINE TIARA that his stupid parents gave me is completely, totally, one million percent INSUFFICIENT! Goddamn happy relaxed Maxima! GRRRR.

And so there I was just bubbly, wonderful and so pretty (I wore that fake Chanel suit that Malene whipped up for me that I wore to the American Ambassador’s wife’s breast cancer lunch – I’ll tell you one day about what Pops is up to with them. Ohmygod!) and I just strode into this house where Caroline and I were supposed to eat lunch and just plopped myself down without being invited to, like I was just so eager to eat what they’d given me, and they all were so happy and just couldn’t get enough of me. I made myself try at least a bite of everything so they wouldn’t get upset and try to shoot down an SAS flight in retaliation, and it wasn’t really all that bad. I was worried when we were about 10 metres away from the front door and it was like smelling the lamb kebabs at the Ali Baba franchises around Surry Hills on the way back to Bondi Junction from the Stone Wall and I was so worried that I’d have to breath through my mouth but it was cool. I didn’t finish everything because HELLO I’ve got a figure to keep up – and they don’t have extra bathrooms to deal with butt leak from a gallbladder op (I’m starting to regret that as a weight loss regime) - but Caroline hoovered the yellow rice stuff like it was going out of style. Sometimes, she just REALLY embarrasses me. And we talked about Christian of course and how great a baby he is and how cute they think he is (FAT) and I just kept wondering to myself why they are so bloody depressed about immigrant status. It’s not like it’s hard or anything, and they all speak the language, so big whoop. Now, if they’re depressed about having to live in this country now, well JOIN THE CLUB. But of course I ran out of there like a bat out of hell when it was over, though I was a master and kept smiling and waving like a pro! My image makeover as the new Diana is totally going to work. I may just have to apologise to the chimney-in-laws’ court for setting this up for me, but I guess they were on to something and could see my inner light and how it could help others and make them feel SOOOO much better about themselves.

So after that nonsense, then I had to jump a flight to Newport ASAP since one of Fred’s crew members I’ve hired as a spy emailed me that there were some pretty hot American girls around and even though THAT is hard to imagine among the sailing crowd, I got Fred’s Lego friend to get his private jet fueled up to take me and the bub over to the regatta. What a nerve baby boy has! So since I was never supposed to come, they’re all stumbling over themselves to put together an ID badge for me and get a room upgrade so that the baby and I can spread out. The food’s not bad here, but it’s mostly a liquid lunch these types enjoy. I’m going to start smelling like the QUEEN MOTHER if I’m around anymore gin, for god’s sake. And by the way, can I have a cracker THAT ISN’T STALE, PLEASE? Wasps! What is it about stupid rich people and not spending money!? I will NEVER understand that. They all look at me sometimes it seems as if I don’t belong and I KNOW that’s not true. Like I revealed in my pre-wedding Ninka MEnterview (haha I just made that up!), I am absolutely convinced that even though I never sailed before I met Fred that if we hadn’t met at the Slip Inn, we would have met in Hobart at a regatta. Even though I was living in Sydney to get away from that crazy backwater. Some things, Amber, you just KNOW. I was BORN to be royal.

So anyway I had to read Freddo the riot act once the kid and I got to the docks. What a look on his face! Did I ever tell you how I had to bite his freaking HEAD off (not that kind, Amb, although it’s a good idea) during the honeymoon in Kenya or Tanzania, wherever the hell we were, after he got furious that we were missing Felipe’s wedding to that skinny LOOKER ME witch who thinks she’s all that and some Rioja, too? We just had it out and I laid down the law with him. You should have heard his pathetic arguments to make me make concessions. I DON’T THINK SO, BABYCAKES! WHO was the one who gave up the most beautiful country in the world for a cold piece of Siberia and slow residents? HUH? WHO was the one who gave up cool, hip friends for his hangers-on? I was like THAT with Siimon Reynolds donchaknow. WHO was the one who had to get fat because of her pregnancy? WHO was the one who had to learn a new, stupid, impossible language? WHO was the one who had to endure his indecision and waffling while waiting in stupid Paris teaching stupid idiot French people English? ME, big boy! Me me me me ME! Not him. Me. He’s had to do NOTHING. So I’m just evening the score. Plus, if he cuts into my clothing budget anymore with his liquor bills someone’s going to have to report to HRH Mary Anonymous and say, “hi, I’m Fred, and I’m a scotch-aholic and afraid of both my mummy and my Mor!” I swear he has totally hijacked that stuffed polar bear toy I gave the baby for Christmas and sleeps with it like it’s a damn body pillow. GROW UP, KIDDO AND MEET YOUR DADDY, er, MAMA!

Listen, do NOT tell this to anyone, but I think I should have gone with an American accent at my public debut. I really like it a lot and think it fits. Which is ok, because Judy Davis does, too, and she is totally smart and respected. I’m serious, I cannot keep this Euristocratic tra-la-la bullshit up much longer. I’m NOT talking about bogan versions like from the stupid southern part, but the Newport accent is KILLER. You should hear people here, it’s like their lower jaw is frozen and it just OOOOOOZES class. It almost sounds as if people are putting me - I mean one - down, which of course can come in handy, but it also makes you look like you might have tetanus. It’s kinda English accent-y but it’s not nearly as hard. You just need to tense your muscles – which I do more and more these days – and strain to get the words out, preferably with your chin held up – which I ALSO ALREADY DO! Did you know Alistair Cook from “Letter from America” was acksherly English? And his real name was ALFRED? He was as much of a come-lately as YOU Amber! Maybe I can just make a smooth transition to Newport-speak in a really methodical and imperceptible way in my future public appearances in front of the Slow Ones. They’d never realize it, anyway. Like, remember the time when that asshole actually asked what I thought of the Tasmanian Devils at the zoo and I had to remind him, HELLO, DINGDONG, could you maybe next time listen to my speech that I just gave, cause I kinda lay it all out in there. GOD!

But I’ve mostly just made an appearance here to scare Fred into staying in line. I’m heading over to New York as soon as the club babysitter arrives. I’ve confirmed with them that she must be ugly and fat even if that’s an extra charge. I have GOT to get out of here and get some clothes and chat with Yehudi – he has NOT been returning my calls or emails. He’s slinking around thinking he can get away with inserting rejigged Kate Fischer genes into my baby. I checked out her rellos and they’re at least as scary as Dad’s teeth. OK, maybe they have similar genes. Her mum Pru Goward has been sleeping with the Prime Minister for decades. Some feminist. I NEED Yehudi unfortunately. He’s the only unethical enough geneticist I can locate outside the Balkans. And I’m not risking unwashed Albanian or Romanian genes in my next baby.

So Amber whose genes should I get the Danish Secret Service to steal for the next bub? I was thinking Maori royalty. What do you think? Give Daisy a fright!! I’d love that.

Keeping it real,
ME