I have written
on this blog before what I think of the British Royal family.
Today marks the end of the
four-day long jubilee to celebrate a woman, whose only achievement, insofar as
I can see, is that she did not do the decent thing and died in time. She lives;
she breathes; and has been doing it for the last 86 years, 60 as a queen.
Let me make
this clear: I am not ideologically a Republican (anti-monarchist). I do not have a principled view on the
matter; indeed I believe that no principle is worth holding unless it is elastic
enough to be bent any which way as the situation demands. I just don’t like the
British Royal family.
The kindest thing I can say about the queen is that she
is not as irritating and stupid as her son and not as racially insensitive as
her husband.
Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, has a made a career out of making
insulting, racist remarks about other cultures and races, which, we are urged
to consider, somehow make him a quaint, eccentric man, instead of what he
probably is: an arrogant, ignorant, unpleasant, racist man.
Let me even not
start on Charles. He is a meddlesome fool without a single intelligent idea in
his head and tons of worthless opinion on matters he is incapable of
understanding. He is totally lacking in
insight and will not take temperate advice from anyone.
Last
weekend I went with some friends to a sea-side town where street parties were
in full progress: fat people with collective IQ slightly above that of farmyard
animals eating unhealthy food and getting drunk on cheap alcohol.
Mervyn
King, the governor of Bank of England, I read somewhere, is not happy about the
public holidays to celebrate the Jubilee, which, he apparently believes, is bad
for the economy (presumably because the City of London will be closed). Great!
We are in the middle of the worst recession since the last worst recession and
we are closed for business for two days. That should help.
* * * *
Here is a
joke. A woman buys a new Mercedes and drives off the show-room to her house.
Halfway home she attempts to change radio stations, and is annoyed to discover
that the radio is playing only one station. She drives back to the showroom
where the salesman tells her that the car-radio is voice-activated and she
needs to only state aloud what she wants, and the car will find it. The woman
gets into her car and starts driving it back to her house. After a while she
says ‘country’, and the radio changes to a station playing a Johny Cash song. The
woman is happy. After some time she says ‘rock ‘n roll’, and, sure enough, the
station is changed again and a Rolling Stone song comes from the speakers. The
woman is very happy and carries on driving. After some time another driver
suddenly joins the road from a side-lane forcing her to slam on her brakes to
avoid a collision. ‘Idiot!’ the woman screams. Immediately the radio changes
over to a David Cameron press conference.
What is the
prime-minister of Britain like? We know already that he (through no fault of
his own) was born in a multi-millionaire family and is married to a woman (who
looks like a prize Shetland pony) who is also stinking rich (and, thanks to her
family’s connection, does some Mickey Mouse job that pays her, like, half a
million pounds a year). We also know that he does not read and his method of
relaxing is watch inane American programmes and playing fruit-ninja on his
mobile. And he is a hypocrite of the first order—so baroness Warsi (a
thoroughly unpleasant woman) is promptly referred to the advisor on ministerial
interests, but his mate Jeremy Hunt (a thoroughly unpleasant man) is given a clean chit (probably because
the inquiry into Hunt’s dealings with BSkyB will be too close for comfort). And
he has friends who are facing criminal charges. And he talks as if he has taken
elocution lessons in how to speak like a patronizing t**t. Country is in safe hands.
* * * *
I shouldn't forget that this primarily a book blog. I am currently reading Stephen Fry’s The
Fry Chronicles, which could have been, going by what I have read so
far, also titled: confessions of an incurable narcissist. And it is all done with such mendacious humility
it will turn all healthy stomachs. Fry seems to have been driven by a desire when he wrote his memoir to attract
reviews that would describe it as ‘searingly honest’, ‘painfully candid’
etcetera. There is rather a lot in the first few pages about Fry’s so-called
addictions, lying (like his so called mental illness) etcetera. (How do we know he is not lying now?)
A few years
ago Fry declared that he suffers from Bipolar Disorder. Somebody should tell this overrated, overhyped
man of meagre talents that he is just unstable, not bipolar.
And now, at the Hay festival, Fry is whining about his ‘personal experience’ of depression and
how he wanted to die while making QI (a thoroughly boring programme on British
television). Good! Perhaps he can now empathize with the viewers who would have
preferred painful death to watching Fry read out prepared witty remarks and
inconsequential trivia on this programme.
This is what Fry said, according to Daily Telegraph, in the festival:
‘It is unreasonable for me
to be unhappy. I have had one of the luckiest careers of my generation. There
is no one I have not met, nothing I have not done. I am overpraised and
overpaid. I have no reason to be unsatisfied with my life and all it has given me,
indeed most of the time I am happy – but there are times when I want to slash
my throat.’
Do
you see the faux-humility? Fry is overpaid (and overpraised). OK, I suppose he
can’t do anything about being overpraised. If he really thinks he is overpaid, why
does he accept the money? Fry’s statement above could be interpreted as
follows:
Stephen
Fry is an overrated (and overpaid and overpraised) British actor. Seems like he
accepts these facts. Most of the time he is not bothered by them (because he is
impervious to shame). Occasionally however he wants to slash his throat. Why doesn’t he
do it then (slash his throat)? I shall tell you why. He doesn't (and won't ever) because he has
no intention to. And he has no intention to because he is not f**king depressed
in the first place. He is just a brazen publicity-hogger, who, like the ‘disease of depression’
he claims to be suffering from, just won’t go away.
