Tag Archives: The Queen

Serfing on a Wave of Royal Jubilation

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What is everyone doing to celebrate the Jubilee? Painting a Union Jack on your pet dog’s face and then sending it to attack foreigners? Donning an Armani cap then fanning wads of cash at your economically disenfranchised neighbours as they die from scurvy before your very eyes? Having a family meal at Pizza Express in Woking? Sending warships to the Falkland Islands? However you choose to celebrate it, just remember – as you stand there snuffling your face into a bowl of Eton Mess or quaffing strawberry-bobbed flutes of Prosecco – that you’re perpetuating an archaic, deeply unfair system of class privilege that’s prevailed for millennia. You’re also teaching children everywhere to venerate wealth and hereditary titles above all else. But still. Wave your wee flag, eh?

Never mind the offensive ridiculousness of subsidising such an obscene occasion from the public purse when many millions have just been thumped below the poverty line like a crooked tent peg: why is the Royal Family still a thing, here in the supposedly enlightened 21st century? The Royal Family is like a sick old farm-dog that no-one quite has the heart to take out into the backyard and blow away with a 12-bore shotgun – which would almost certainly have happened if the owners had been French.

Gawd bless ya, mam

The Queen and I in happier times

I’ve listened to various vox pops and dispatches about the Queen over the last few weeks, and I’ve heard the usual sickening platitudes. Apparently she’s worked hard. She’s a grafter. As if she’d spent 70 years slaving down a mine with a pick-axe and a pit-canary, instead of travelling the world waving at people, and reading out an annual Christmas message to the nation with all the warmth and sincerity of a hostage reading their kidnappers’ demands. I guess, in a way, she is a hostage, trapped inside a high gilded cage, simultaneously looking down upon the stinking masses with a sneer of contempt on her face, as we in turn look up at her and her family like they’re sad, exotic animals in a zoo. It’s tempting to say that we’re all losers in this game, except they’re losers with scores of palaces and a multi-million pound fortune. If the Queen was really struggling with her gas bills they’d probably just let her burn Peckham to the ground.

Apparently the Queen is also like a mother to us all. Someone who’s spent 70 years ‘looking after us’. The people who say these things never cite specifics, mainly because they can’t. They’re just spewing out the sort of candied, bum-tonguing nonsense they feel is expected of them when asked questions about their ‘betters’. I’m being unfair here, though, because Auld Liz has reputedly got the common touch as well. So they say. Although quite what Simon the salt-of-the-earth scaffolder from the East End of London thinks he’s got in common with a nonagenarian who wears a million-pound hat on her head, and spends the year flitting between seven castles, is beyond me. What does he imagine they’d talk about over a few jars down The Queen’s Head?

“Ayl tell you one theeng, Simon. One is ebsolootlee fucked. One’s spent all morning auditioning butlers for Sunday’s dinner with the Danish Royal Family.”

“Bladdy tell me abaht it. We’ve ‘ad it up to eer wiv that showra mugs. Yoo wan’ anuver pint, sweet’art?”

“Meek it a treble vodka. And one has some ching in the Range Rover.”

“Phwoar! Must be amazin’ to snort some Colombian froo your own rolled-up face. Two’s up, darlin’!”

Ah, but I’m forgetting everything the Queen does for tourism, amn’t I? Clearly the UK would be an urban wasteland reminiscent of a deserted North Korean super-city if not for the Queen bringing in those visitors, who absolutely insist on a living Royal Family to complement their sight-seeing trips. After all, since the French murdered their Royal Family not a single foreigner has ever visited Paris. The Grand Canyon, too, suffered a severe drop in foot-fall when prospective visitors discovered that there were precisely zero monarchs living at the bottom of it. And they had to close Edinburgh Castle, because it just wasn’t the same being in a castle without the tantalising prospect of an old woman waving at you from a balcony.

“Do you know, I stood outside that bloody Buckingham Palace for eight hours, EIGHT HOURS, and that snobby old bitch never ONCE came to the window. My mate Kev said he saw her doing juggling and show-tunes over the balcony when he was down here last year, and in 2018 my mate Bruce got a glimpse of her silhouette through the bathroom window as she was nudging out a shit.”

I’ll concede that the Queen does a lot for tourism when I see her handing out flyers for Pirate Island on Blackpool promenade.

Why does one give a shit?

I can understand the fawning obeisance towards the Royals exhibited by the masses back in the middle ages. If they hadn’t cheered for their King or Queen’s birthday they would have had their head lopped from their neck and kicked into a shrubbery. That’s a pretty strong incentive to celebrate. But now? The Royals may have a woolly, wholly symbolic constitutional role in our society, but their days of guillotining are over. For instance, I could dress a hyper-realistic Japanese sex doll up like the Queen and have it greedily fellate me as I sat on a throne made of burning fifty-pound notes, and the worst that would happen to me is that I’d probably get my own Netflix special. So why do people still behave as if they’re 13th century serfs?

I think I get it. I was scrolling through a megaton of flags and Jubilee articles on Facebook when I spied an online commenter, his profile-picture more flag than human, throwing his patriotic weight behind the Queen by charging forth with the rousing comment: ‘May she reign over us for another 50 years!’ I asked him to explain in what manner she reigned over us, and what precisely that reign entailed. Rather than engage with my question, he said: ‘Like her or not she is still your Queen so just be grateful your British.’ (The grammatical error, dear reader, was Mr Flag Face’s) This, I think, strikes at the heart of why so many people seem to deify the Queen. In their minds and hearts her reign is as immutable as it is unquestionable. It’s just something that is, was, and always will be: a holy trinity of traditionalism that fuels the wet dreams of conservatives with a small ‘c’ everywhere, not to mention Conservatives with a big ‘C’ – or C***s as they’re sometimes simply known.

All the pomp and pageantry of the Royal Family is absorbed into the soul of the flag-shagger like Sunday school psalms, or verses from the Quran, and defended just as unblinkingly. Their brain is a swirl of triggers, rituals and symbols, recalled and relayed by rote. For those of us who aren’t Royalists, an occasion such as this can make you feel as though you’ve woken up inside a 1950s sci-fi film, and everyone has been possessed by the tendrils of sinister space pods. What the fuck is everyone doing? Why can’t they see that their passion is misplaced to the point of absurdity; that they’re taking up metaphorical arms for a family who literally wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire?

It’s all so mad, so arbitrary. Like religion. Brain-washing. In some bizarre parallel universe there are crowds of middle-aged men being whipped into a violent frenzy by the unfurling of a giant banner with a picture of a carrot on it. Our universe is no less ridiculous for its grown men and women singing loudly and defiantly at scraps of cloth.

Childhood is where this eerie group-think begins. To paraphrase Aristotle – and indeed that, em, sage philosopher Adolph Hitler – you can inculcate anyone, anywhere, into any mode of thought imaginable, so long as you start them young. That’s why the government has spent £12m securing a boot-licking book on the Queen for every primary-age child, and why most of your kids have spent the last few weeks eating strawberries and colouring in pictures of the Queen’s million-pound crown with a one-pence pencil.

Know One’s Place

The Royal Family, much like death and taxes, appears to be a constant. In a rapidly changing world they’re an anchor to the imagined past, a world where everyone knew their place. You remember the hierarchy. It goes: The Queen; rich white men; rich white women; poor white men; dogs; cats; seahorses; cockroaches; anal warts; poor white women; AIDS; cancer, and, lastly, everyone everywhere else. And then brown and black people.

It’s about time we removed our white-lilly-tinted spectacles, and started to think – really, genuinely think – about the sort of world in which we want to live. The people we want to be, and the things we want to prioritise. Do we want a kinder, fairer society in which we all work to help those less fortunate than ourselves, or do we want to wave flags and throw money at the feet of a family who have enjoyed entitled and protected status since their ancestors first made a career out of executing peasants and looting the nation’s wealth? And who even now think nothing of withdrawing from the Bank of Peasantry to pay-off the victim of an underage sex scandal perpetrated by one of its members?

Happy Platty Joob Joobs everybody.

Remembrance of Brexit Days Past

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I think Brexit Day always seems a lot more magical when you’re a child. You know, it’s a real family occasion: the celebrations, the procession, the executions, all of that.

I remember one of the early ones, I must have been seven, eight. Can’t remember precisely, but it was the first Brexit Day my parents thought I was old enough to take part in the ‘After Dinner Death Match’. The prize that year was the last chocolate in the box, well, the only chocolate in the box. And it wasn’t a box, it was a piece of toilet paper. And it wasn’t a chocolate, it was some rat shit. But anyway, it was my turn to fight that year, and I drew my gran’s name out of the hat. Sounds like an easy win, but it wasn’t. She was tough as old boots, my gran. As a fighter and as a meal. Food was scarce, you see, so whoever lost got eaten.

Mum made gran into a curry, or maybe it was a Balti – it was definitely something hot and spicy – to mask the taste of that leathery old skin of hers. Dad wasn’t happy. ‘A curry?’ he said. ‘A bloody curry? What’s wrong with good old British faggots, or a fry up? You’ll get us marched off by the Lizzie Lynch Mob yet, Cynthia!’

Even with all the spices, gran tasted worse than my cousin Bill, and that’s saying something, because Bill was a big old fat guy with hundreds of moles and welts and psoriasis and smegma and everything. Still, waste not, want not, and each to their own. I think smegma is vile, but my mum always said it was an acquired taste, like blue cheese – whatever that is.

My gran on the campaign trail for UKIP, in happier times

Gran’s last words to me as she bled out under the dining room table were, ‘I hope you choke on my tough old tits, you weak little shit-bag.’ For some reason those words have always stuck with me… There was a funny little moment too, just as she slipped away, when my Dad shouted back at her, ‘Brexit MEANS Brexit, Brenda,’ and we all laughed. Even gran cracked a smile. Gran was like that, though, always up for the banter.

I remember being very sad that day. Very, very sad. Not because of gran, you see. My dad was right, Brexit DOES mean Brexit, that’s just the way it is. No, because my pet – and best pal – Russell, had died the day before. Oh, I was devastated. Absolutely devastated. You look at any picture from my childhood, and it’s me and Russell. I’d take him walks, we’d sleep in the same bed, we’d stay up late and watch movies together. Mum tried to console me as best she could on Brexit Day morning, because she could see how upset I was. She said: ‘We’ll get you another carrier bag, son, maybe a John Lewis one this time,’ and I just lost it, because Russell wasn’t just any old carrier bag. He was an M&S carrier bag.

Mum and dad told me about the times just before I was born, before Brexit, when people kept cats and dogs and things like that as pets; my parents had a pet, too. A little Bichon Frize called Steven. But when the economy crashed that first time, and money didn’t exist anymore, nobody could buy food, so they rounded up everybody’s pets and ate them. It went into law, actually. There were big barbecues and cook-outs in the street. Dad said it really brought communities together and it was like the Royal Jubilee, only with more of an emphasis on dog eating. My parents said it was hard to eat Steven, but only because he was so dry. ‘A little bowl of smegma,’ mum said, ‘That’s the secret.’

Dad loved flame-grilled spaniels best, but mum always had dangerously exotic tastes, so she preferred things like spicy cat-arse kebabs. One time a next-door neighbour of theirs brought some garden snails to a cook-out, and they shot him, because snails were too French, you see. He should’ve known better. The rules were clear. You weren’t even allowed to call small things ‘wee’ anymore, just in case anyone thought you were  a French agent.

A few Brexit Days after that – I can’t remember the year exactly, but it was around about the time they moved the capital city to Bolton, and dissolved Wales… not the assembly or anything, they just dissolved the whole country – I lost an uncle. What was his name? Ah, Uncle Simon, that’s right. It was good riddance anyway.  He’d had a bit too much to drink, and I remember him sitting there, wearing his Union Jack paper-hat , and he just shook his head with a little smile and said, ‘Ah, Brexit. What was that all about, eh?’ My mum snuck off to the kitchen to use the phone. I could see my Dad was trying hard not to lose his temper.  Ten minutes later these six big guys, all dressed like the Queen – with matching handbags and everything – marched in and carted him off. Uncle Simon was terrified, you know, he was screaming and everything. ‘I’m a loyal subject! I’m a loyal subject! No! No!!! Listen to me, just listen: send ‘em back; too bloody cold for ‘em; they tried to straighten our bananas. See??? I’m one of you!! I’M ONE OF YOU! I’M A BREXITEEEEEERRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr!’

I don’t think I can do justice to the amazing atmosphere at the Brexit Day processions. You know, there would be the big bus with the ‘£350 million’ sticker on it, and it would go past and peep and everyone would wave; there would be people dressed in top-hats and monocles carrying gilded canes around, just like King Rees-Mogg (peace-be-upon-him). There would be a guy dressed as Churchill kicking blacked-up homeless people up and down the street as someone played God Save the Queen on a lute. Sometimes Nigel Farage would drop in and stoat about with a pint of piss, grinning at everyone. Oh, it was wonderful.

One Brexit Day, though – I think it was around about the year that King Rees-Mogg first announced the building of the sea-wall in the ocean between Dover and Calais – they had to evacuate our street because one of the kids in the neighbourhood found an old time capsule someone had buried in 2006, and there were apparently pictures of people smiling and eating food and going to hospital and stuff like that, so they did a controlled explosion of the time capsule. And of the little kid who found it, just to be safe.

The procession always ended with a big bonfire in the village green, where they’d do the ‘Burning of the Obama’ –  he was a French muslim, you know – and they’d round up anyone who looked a bit like Jeremy Corbyn and hurl them in, too. That was how they got my other gran. We warned her to use the Remington.

I really liked the arena combat, where people fought against horses, but my favourite was always the ‘Annual Execution of a Remainer’. There was always so much excitement around it. They’d choose the executioner from one of the local primary schools. They picked Graham McPhail from my class one year, I was so bloody jealous. I think that was the year they finally abolished Scotland and renamed it ‘England the Second.’ Anyway, for weeks afterwards people would run up to Graham in the playground, and ask to touch his strong and stable trigger-finger.

Graham went on to become a member of the Lizzy Lynch Squad, you know, those guys that dress up as the Queen and take people away to be shot for treason. Years later, he was the one who killed my mum. Someone had overheard her saying that she liked ‘smegma pasta’, and of course Italian food is unpatriotic, so off she went. That was that. I didn’t hold a grudge against Graham, I really didn’t. He was just doing his job. Brexit means Brexit, after all.

Anyway. What did you say the half-life of nuclear radiation was? It’s a bit stuffy in this bunker. I’d like to get out for some fresh air, maybe wave a few flags around for old time’s sake. Actually, there’s a thought. I could use my Union Jack to waft away the radiation… What a great idea. That’ll definitely work. It is the most powerful flag in the world, after all. BRITAIN SAVES THE DAY AGAIN! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! GOD SAVE THE UNITED KINGDOM!

An Interview with Queen Elizabeth II

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Name? The Queen

Occupation? Being queen

What’s that like? It’s a lot like not being the Queen, except with hundreds of millions in inherited wealth and a strong sense of class superiority over everyone else in the country.

What brings you the greatest joy? Eating swans. Who’s going to fucking stop me?

What would be the title of your autobiography? I’m on the Money.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given? “Make it look like an accident.”

Prince Phillip is famous for his gaffes, usually involving race. What’s been your favourite one? When he shot our African gardener.

[silence]

It’s okay. He wasn’t hurt. He was absolutely fine. Well, he staved his finger a little, but it didn’t stop him from going out shooting the next day.

Moving on… If you had a tattoo, where would it be? [puzzled look] I do have a tattoo. It’s at Edinburgh castle.

Some would say that your answer to the previous question reeks of privilege. Some should be more mindful of the ‘dark forces’ I keep telling everyone about.

[PHILLIP SHOUTS FROM THE OTHER ROOM] ‘You mean the Indian Army?’

Do fuck off, Phillip!

Who do you miss most? Definitely Camilla. She’s always standing just a little bit too far away when the blunderbuss goes off.

What makes you smile? Nothing. Literally nothing. [thinks] Cows? I guess cows are alright.

Why don’t you smile more often? If you had to sit on a balcony each and every year watching as Joe Pasquale brings the cast of Casualty on stage to sing the hits of Abba dressed as air hostesses, you wouldn’t be smiling either. That, and I’m a 90-year-old woman. Most of my energy goes into not pishing myself. One careless twitch of the lips could turn me into Noel’s gunge tank.

Plus, smiling’s been selectively bred out of my genetic line over the last few hundred years. I can’t tell you how much it’s saved Princess Anne on botox. 

What charity do you support? The ‘Keeping Prince Andrew Out of Jail’ charity.

What is your greatest indulgence? Everything, bitches.

What’s your greatest regret? Fergie turning down those complimentary tickets I gave her for a weekend in Paris.

What is on your bucket list? [shakes head] One calls it a Diamante Treasure Chest list.

There’s that elitist vibe again… So what do you want to do before you die? Find another host body.

What???? I mean… em…visit the pyramids.

What are the last three items on your credit card statement? A Faberge Eggcup; professional hit-man; Canada.

What’s your favourite TV show? Game of Thrones. One loves to remember the good old days.

What’s on your nightstand? A knight. What else would one put there?

You can hear yourself, right? Next question: Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

[PHILLIP SHOUTS FROM THE OTHER ROOM] William’s wedding was definitely better!

Fuck off, Phillip!

What is one thing people would be surprised to learn about you? That I’m definitely *not* an ancient reptile from a distant planet who has come here along with hundreds of my kind to enslave the human race, breed them and eventually devour them like a pile of chicken drumsticks at one of Fergie’s barbecues.

Did you kill Diana? Ye… [wags finger] Nice try, fucko.

Any other fun facts you’d like to share? One’s real name is actually Queeny McQueen Face.

Dogs or cats? Well, one of them is subservient, and the other is cold and aloof. How can one choose between one’s favourite qualities? We’ll call it a tie.

What’s the hardest part about being a mum? Interviewing people for the position of chief nanny interviewer.

Last phone call you made? Elton John, to ask if he had one more ‘Candle in the Wind’ in him.

How do you feel about the controversy with Rolf Harris? Oh disgusting. Disgusting. I don’t know how he can live with himself.

It’s horrible, isn’t it? Of course! It was the worse portrait I’ve ever seen.

No… erm, not the… Not the painting he did of you. The… you know? [blank face] Oh, the thing with the kids? [shrugs] Meh. Yeah. I guess that was kind of bad?

Any plans to retire? [laughs, but without moving her face] When I die I’m going to make sure the staff carry my corpse around and pretend I’m still alive, like ‘Weekend at Bernies’, so that jug-eared cunt of a son of mine never gets the throne.

What’s your strongest feature? My right arm. I do so much waving I’m basically Popeye. It’s left Poor Philip’s cock looking like a crushed Flump.

Who’s your biggest celebrity crush?

[PHILLIP SHOUTS FROM THE OTHER ROOM] Diana!

Fuck off, Phillip!

What do you think when people call you and your extended family a bunch of spongers? We bring in about £55 billion pounds in tourism every year. [scratches head] Or is it £5.68? I have absolutely no concept of money. What I do know is that people will travel thousands and thousands of miles just to stand outside my expensive house waiting for a glimpse of my gloved hand at the window. I’m the Windsor’s Wacko Jacko, Sha-mone! [grabs crotch] Hee hee!

Maybe if the French hadn’t guillotined their Royal Family they’d get more tourists in Paris. Actually, I’ll give the French that. They’re awesome at helping to assassinate Royals…

What did you think of Harry’s wedding? I… eh. I… um. [Queen yanks an axe out from her jacket, spins around, and hurls it at the wall, embedding it in a promo poster for ‘Suits’] It was lovely.

Finally, are you sure you aren’t a shape-shifting reptile? I mean, it makes sense. Elizabeth = Lizard. Camilla = Chameleon. Princess Anne = Princess Anaconda. Don’t be ridiculous. [The Queen’s eye pops out of its socket, and she catches it with her lizard tongue] You should probably just ignore that.  

**DISCLAIMER – IT’S POSSIBLE THAT NONE OF THIS HAPPENED**