Vive le Commonwealth!

31 October 2008

Hey Amber darls,

Thanks for the ringlet tip! I love looking heaps younger than my rival Marie, as you suggested. Curly hair fetchingly coiled down the side of the face! That’s all it takes! And you’re so right – a burgundy rinse evokes his classic home terroir for Henrik and is sure to improve relations on that front. Marie, of course, is brune de sorcière. Fred says I gotta learn French, make sure we get Caïx. I wouldn’t bother, but Papa Half-Mast has his heart set on living there as soon as Dame Henri kicks on. Shudder – hate the thought of going through H’s papers. No children’s home in the Channel Isles will have anything on Cayx for creepy tales to tell.

Anyway, French is easier than Danish. I’m holding my own on that front – gave three syllables to a journo unscripted the other day! That’s one whole impromptu Danish syllable learnt every three years! I have to become trilingual partly because Jokke married his wildcat. God, the headaches I get when the whole gang’s together and only French is spoken. It’s worse than the headaches I get from not eating properly. More mots are creeping into my brain, though, than nourriture into my stomach. Fred won’t tell me what putain de merde means. He is so noble – he obviously doesn’t want to turn my head.

I wore that Jewish Messianic wig I had made the other day too; my friend Pernille told me about it. It’s so nice and thick – but AFTER the event there was a very unkind comment about it being a brunette mullet. So nice of Fred to collect the hair while he was in Mongolia after the Olympics. I just hope it wasn’t fistfuls from Fred’s notorious moments of passion with a local, but rather, neatly clipped from peasant heads. There’s still a bit of a whiff of fumigant about it. Somehow, though, I don’t think Fred was up for l’amour avec une paysanne chinoise (as opposed to l’amour avec une paysanne de Siam) after we endured that screeching opera singer at the embassy in Beijing. Fred said I was being paranoid when I complained that they were having a lend of me by mimicking my makeup. I’m HEBRIDEAN for gawwsakes. I have near-transparent, delicate white princess skin. Well, OK, I would’ve, if ma and pa hadn’t taken us to be irradiated Down Under. Anyway, I know a cruel joke when I’m the butt of one. They used my exact blusher on that opera woman. And this, in addition to scalding me with tea!

So anyway, business as usual around this way. I’m fighting with the in-laws hard because of the DRINKS ONLY invite for Charles’s birthday and not the real sit-down dinner deal. What an insult! And they won’t do a thing about it. They actually DON’T GIVE A. Either they can’t see that it’s a direct insult to me, aimed just at me, or (more likely) they WANT me to be humiliated.

But as you know Ambs darling, I am the mistress of strategy, and I have a cunning plan. The Queen of England is SURE to be impressed by my Scottish credentials. She LOVED her nanny - Bobo MacDonald. I am researching Bobo. Actually, I foresaw this EXACT problem ages ago. Remember my barefaced lies about us all eating porridge? Target audience was the Brits all along, not those potato-mouth, rollmop-eating, faux-vikings I am forced to share a country with!

So. The Queen is fully aware that I am of the Bobo persuasion. 100 per cent whisky-soaked Scot. Heather, moors, haggis, tartan, bagpipes, porridge and … frugality! The holes in Izzy’s shoes were a brilliant trick don’t you think? I assure you, Her Majesty reads Woman’s Day. You just wait – I’m the only Danish royal who will score a seat at the big table. Now I’m just working on being seated Above the Salt. I don’t want to just have a sherry and talk with the director of the Royal Association for Cell Biology or what not. That’s what I have to do HERE.

I’ve been working on this for so long my head hurts. Uganda … can you imagine how hard it was to get a gig in a Commonwealth country without alerting the Chimneys-in-law? I had to practically move an entire refugee camp across a border into one of the pink patches on the old map. Thank God for the frigging Commonwealth – it’s saving my social bacon.

I fine-tuned the whole campaign. What do you think of my tactic of wearing a Commonwealth Pink frock, 1950s style, and little peep-toe shoes a la Princess Margaret? It was un hommage to Her Majesty at age 23, when she received the tragic news of her papa’s death … oh, Amber, I’m quite overcome! I was just seeing myself receiving the news of mon papa’s demise – I practise from time to time. Cuz when it really happens I’ll be dancing on the old freak’s grave.

Channeling Diana was original, don’t you think? Except that little shit Princess Victoria went and sat on MY marble bench outside the Taj Mahal within a week. Typical one-upmanship from her. She knows it was deeply hurtful to me, to produce a photo of her own parents sitting in front of the Taj Mahal 30 years before. She knows damn well my parents weren’t traveling the world. It was a calculated insult. I won’t forget it in a hurry. Ouch, my left ankle’s twitching. Does she really think that Fred will care seeing her alone on a stone bench? There’s no sailing in India. Can’t get the boats past all the people bathing. Sorry, kiddo, but I won this latest round in the Diana-Off. Eat my empathetic, caring for poor, black people dirt! And HELLO, India is a Commonwealth country. It’s mine. I’ll get around to rubbing the cricketers’ chests next time. Who’s that Paki gent that Jemima Goldsmith married? He looks like Diana’s doctor boyfriend. I’ll have to summons him, soon as I have the Brits eating out of the palm of my hand. In a fortnight!

And if that Victoria turns up in Angola defusing mines I’ll organise a live one in advance and blow the bitch up.

Did you see my tears on the news? Had to take my own French onions. For some reason ordinary produce doesn’t produce tears in me. I must have special tear ducts or something. I’m built of stern Eccosais stuff. Like Bobo. And Fred’s old Nanny MacGillicuddy.

Sweet bloody Jesus, I’ve been reading up on Bobo’s frugality. Hard act to follow. Besides rasping holes into Izzy’s shoes, I had to chuck the $700 mink jerkin the little jerkette has been wearing. Now that’s some sacrifice – we have quite a little sous-la-table arrangement with a mink slaughtering outfit. But no charity shop wanted it!

No more candids of moi outside my palais chucking out the rubbish in a black plastic rubbish bag, no-ho. How extravagant! I’ve been trundling down to the kitchen with a copy of the DAILY TELEGRAPH no less, wrapping up a couple of peelings (God, kitchens stink!) strategically so that one of the Kate Middleton headlines shows on the outside, and then going on a slow promenade around the palace garden to the bin. Eventually someone with a camera will catch on … and someone at the Palace – the REAL palace, the palace of my childhood … my cultural palace … my trope, my meme, my birthright …- is sure to see the sheer synchronicity and point it out to the Queen. She is superstitious, you know.

BUCKINGHAM Palace has pleeeeenty of bathrooms, thankyouverymuch, and much more gilt and higher ceilings than my hovels. Do you understand what an invitation here means!? That I am IN, or almost, as soon as we iron out that drinks or dinner confusion. They didn’t invite me to the stupid, small party at the house in the country, which is for losers, but to the PALACE, in LONDON, with the QUEEN. I knew she would come around to me sooner or later. I am one of hers! My family is from just down the street in Scotland from where her family lives in the summer. The houses practically butt up to each other. I mean, my Aunt Catherine could knock on the queen’s door and get a cup of sugar. We are of the same stock and breed. Just a couple of ‘those Scottish girls’ looked down upon by real royals.

I am the heir to the Queen of Hearts and there ain’t nothin’ the frigging Bicycle Monarchs can do about it but quiver in my wake and relish my glowing aura. Ha! Daisy thought she was plus royal que moi! What an old fool!

I can’t wait to have some chats with Camilla and Kate. You know, compare notes and all. Two of us have managed to get ‘in’ and we’ve got to help Kate in her quest for the golden ring. Gosh, doesn’t she remind you of me back in the day? So young and beautiful and thin and unashamedly ambitious about sealing up her future through ostensibly sincere fellatio and loads of focus and patience. I am this close to wasting a tear or two on her, it’s so reminiscent.

I’d really like to take her under my wing and help her out. Mind you, she is VERY déclassé compared to me. My papa is an academic. And Kate’s are in trade. Wills seems as dumb, hedonistic and unfocused as Fred, so I know how it can seem at times that you’re just not making ANY headway at all, even with all the head you give, so I’ve got to help Kate not feel discouraged. Hate to say it, but she really needs the queen to kick it. As you’ve witnessed, Ambs, dead royal grandmothers are unbelievably helpful in sealing the deal. Oh, and poor Scottish ones too, like mine. Those tears I dripped? Molten hypocritical gold! As disposable as the letters I ripped up and tossed out. Emotional manipulation just does not get the respect it deserves. I owe it everything I’ve got.

Amber, while I think of it – you remember you wrote in your column about your ‘cougar moment’, the um, well, you said played ‘tongue hockey’ with, but as I’m a princess I shall say embrasser some innocent lambkin a la my footballeur Ryan O’Keefe? Tell me, how old was your victim? The Swedish carny Rabbit found for you. Was he the same age as Prince William? Just une pensee…I didn’t say I’d ACTUALLY DO IT!

Au revoir, Amber. I must warn you, this may be adieu. You must understand, once I’m in with the real royals, I shall have to nobly sacrifice my declassée (some would say fricassée darling, sorry!) friend. You understand.

Later, babes,

ME