The Royal Family
‘HOW the Queen must wish that, like Pam Ewing in Dallas, she could wake up to the noise of Prince Philip in the shower and the realisation that this year had been a bad dream!
| Bull’s eye |
In its role as the nations favourite soap opera, The Royal Family provided its subjects with many moments of both high and low drama over the course of 2003.
But when the family gather at Balmoral this Christmas for their traditional festive sing-a-long and game of darts, there is no doubt whose face will adorn the board (even if, given the form Prince Charles demonstrated on the oche during a visit to a Cambridgeshire pub, that is probably the safest place in the room).
Paul Burrell proved that revenge is a dish best served cold and by a man with years of experience as a butler when he revealed lots of juicy titbits about his former employers, first in court and then inevitably in a book.
As well as exposing a healthy black market in unwanted Royal gifts, we learnt that Prince Charless staff included someone whose duty it was to squeeze exactly the right amount of toothpaste onto the royal brush as well as to hold the Royal sceptre when the heir to the throne wanted to have a pee.
Later on in the year, we were also to hear that said member of the Royal households duties included hand-delivering a wake-up call to the Prince Of Wales (or was it by mouth?)
Burrell, who had been accused of stealing from Princess Dianas estate, was only acquitted in the case of Regina v Burrell when Regina herself remembered that he was innocent.
Either that or she realised the embarrassment he could cause her family if the case went on any longer.
As it was, Burrell was soon spilling his guts to the Mirror, which we imagine is not exactly newspaper of choice in the Palace these days.
Not content with hearing Burrells stories of how Diana once had nine men on the go at the same time, the paper sent a journalist into the Palace to sniff out some gossip for himself.
Nominally sent undercover to expose lapses in Royal security, Ryan Parrys main scoop was the revelation that the Queen likes to eat her breakfast surrounded by Tupperware and her dinner in front of her favourite TV programmes – EastEnders, The Bill and Kirstys Home Videos.
However, that wasnt even the most serious breach of Royal security comedy terrorist Aaron Barschak dressed up as Osama Bin Laden in drag and managed to gatecrash Prince Williams 21st birthday party.
The police promised an investigation and said procedures would be tightened up just as they were to do a couple of months later after the Ryan Parry episode.
However, the papers were quick to point out that had Barschak been a real terrorist he could have taken out the whole Royal family bar Prince Edward.
The thought of Edward The Bald or The Actor King ascending the throne was enough to send a shiver down the nations spine and Prince Harry was immediately despatched to Australia for safe keeping.
There he spent a miserable few months watching rugby, cavorting in the surf with young Australian girls and generally having all the fun deprived to his brother.
William couldnt talk to a girl without the papers getting into a frenzy of excitement at the prospect of a new life to ruin.
But if we failed to discover the lucky recipient of Wills last Rolo, we did learn the identity of his favourite sweets Maltesers and Milky Ways.
All of which came as a bit of a disappointment to his dad hes more of a sherbert fountain man.’
Posted: 23rd, December 2003 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
