Thought for today:
"Have you ever thought what Queen Elizabeth would look like if she lives on to the grand old age of 110 as she's likely to; especially if she can manage to stop putting butter on her crackers and give up the fags and the booze?"
She started her reign on the 6th February, 1952 after the death of her father, King George VI and was crowned on the 2nd June 1953. When King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand died on the 13th October, 2016, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest- living serving monarch. For such a small person in height, our queen has the constitution of the fittest filly in her royal stables and looks like she will outstay all of the present royal family. Born on 21st April, 1926, she is currently 92 years old, and yet despite looking more like a creaky gate with the passing of every day, her husband, Prince Philip, who has always been accustomed to eyeing the rear end of an attractive filly finds himself out in front at 97 years old, and is pipping Her Majesty by a red nose.
When one thinks about the difference in lifestyle, between aristocrat and commoner, it is little wonder that monarchs tend to reign longer than any one of us common folk is ever likely to live. Indeed, I'd go so far as to include the vast majority of British aristocrats in this longevity of life's honour roll. We'd live twenty and thirty years longer also if, like Prince Charles, we never rose before 11.00am and had one man servant available to dress us and another to cook us six boiled eggs, and top them and taste them for poison content and temperature before being spoonfed by his wife, Camilla.
Meanwhile, Camilla may become the only woman in history who married to a King-to-be, and who will never wear the title of 'Queen'. She and Prince Charles ruined this opportunity of their marriage ever receiving universal acceptance by the British after their infamous bedtime conversations of 1989 were picked up by a radio ham in his garden shed. The intimacy of their 'private conversation' reveals that even royals having affairs speak in images that require no explanation to either man or woman. Still, being the wife of a King, should Prince Charles ever succeed his mother, Camilla will continue living a life of privilege to which she has always been accustomed. For anyone who prefers riding horses and princes and hates housework, the wife of a future King is as good as any to be stuck with.
Other Queens that have made their mark on history is the indomitable Dolly Parton, the unquestionable Queen of Country Music. I swear that Dolly doesn't look a day older now than she did when I first saw her in the 1970s. She admits to being an age of 72, and I'd love to see her the first thing on a morning or the last thing at night without any make-up or her wig on. She once remarked that it was lucky she'd been born a girl or she would have become a Drag Queen. She has often publicly commented on how expensive it is to maintain her image and 'to keep her looking like white trash from the wrong side of the tracks' (her words, not mine).
And then there was the Queen of all 'Queens', Quentin Crisp, writer, raconteur and actor. From a conventional suburban background, Quentin Crisp was a proud advocate of being 'Gay' when homosexuality was an imprisonable offence and behaving queer in public was to invite almost certain assault and arrest. Quentin refused to knuckle down to the expectations of the moral, straight community by not being himself. He would wear make-up in public and flaunt his painted nails at any person who showed disdain. He worked as a rent-boy in his teens and died in 1999, one month short of his 91st birthday. His birthday was on December 25th; the same day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Quentin wrote 'The Naked Civil Servant' which was made into an acclaimed film starring John Hurt. A very witty and intelligent man, Quentin never suffered the indignity of having to live up to the misfortune of his birth name, 'Pratt' before he changed it. A born wit, I could happily quote him for hours, but my favourite quote of this lovable 'Queen' was when he said, 'If love means anything at all, it means extending your hand to the unlovable''. Despite professing his atheism to a northern Irish audience, I feel sure that the Almighty himself (the King of Kings) would have shared this sentiment with Quentin and that the King of Heaven would never have sought to make this queen anything other than a good person. "William Forde: August 24th, 2018.
"Have you ever thought what Queen Elizabeth would look like if she lives on to the grand old age of 110 as she's likely to; especially if she can manage to stop putting butter on her crackers and give up the fags and the booze?"
She started her reign on the 6th February, 1952 after the death of her father, King George VI and was crowned on the 2nd June 1953. When King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand died on the 13th October, 2016, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest- living serving monarch. For such a small person in height, our queen has the constitution of the fittest filly in her royal stables and looks like she will outstay all of the present royal family. Born on 21st April, 1926, she is currently 92 years old, and yet despite looking more like a creaky gate with the passing of every day, her husband, Prince Philip, who has always been accustomed to eyeing the rear end of an attractive filly finds himself out in front at 97 years old, and is pipping Her Majesty by a red nose.
When one thinks about the difference in lifestyle, between aristocrat and commoner, it is little wonder that monarchs tend to reign longer than any one of us common folk is ever likely to live. Indeed, I'd go so far as to include the vast majority of British aristocrats in this longevity of life's honour roll. We'd live twenty and thirty years longer also if, like Prince Charles, we never rose before 11.00am and had one man servant available to dress us and another to cook us six boiled eggs, and top them and taste them for poison content and temperature before being spoonfed by his wife, Camilla.
Meanwhile, Camilla may become the only woman in history who married to a King-to-be, and who will never wear the title of 'Queen'. She and Prince Charles ruined this opportunity of their marriage ever receiving universal acceptance by the British after their infamous bedtime conversations of 1989 were picked up by a radio ham in his garden shed. The intimacy of their 'private conversation' reveals that even royals having affairs speak in images that require no explanation to either man or woman. Still, being the wife of a King, should Prince Charles ever succeed his mother, Camilla will continue living a life of privilege to which she has always been accustomed. For anyone who prefers riding horses and princes and hates housework, the wife of a future King is as good as any to be stuck with.
Other Queens that have made their mark on history is the indomitable Dolly Parton, the unquestionable Queen of Country Music. I swear that Dolly doesn't look a day older now than she did when I first saw her in the 1970s. She admits to being an age of 72, and I'd love to see her the first thing on a morning or the last thing at night without any make-up or her wig on. She once remarked that it was lucky she'd been born a girl or she would have become a Drag Queen. She has often publicly commented on how expensive it is to maintain her image and 'to keep her looking like white trash from the wrong side of the tracks' (her words, not mine).
And then there was the Queen of all 'Queens', Quentin Crisp, writer, raconteur and actor. From a conventional suburban background, Quentin Crisp was a proud advocate of being 'Gay' when homosexuality was an imprisonable offence and behaving queer in public was to invite almost certain assault and arrest. Quentin refused to knuckle down to the expectations of the moral, straight community by not being himself. He would wear make-up in public and flaunt his painted nails at any person who showed disdain. He worked as a rent-boy in his teens and died in 1999, one month short of his 91st birthday. His birthday was on December 25th; the same day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Quentin wrote 'The Naked Civil Servant' which was made into an acclaimed film starring John Hurt. A very witty and intelligent man, Quentin never suffered the indignity of having to live up to the misfortune of his birth name, 'Pratt' before he changed it. A born wit, I could happily quote him for hours, but my favourite quote of this lovable 'Queen' was when he said, 'If love means anything at all, it means extending your hand to the unlovable''. Despite professing his atheism to a northern Irish audience, I feel sure that the Almighty himself (the King of Kings) would have shared this sentiment with Quentin and that the King of Heaven would never have sought to make this queen anything other than a good person. "William Forde: August 24th, 2018.
