Sort of Rabbit Review - The Royals

As regular readers will know, the rabbit is of republican opinion (in the British sense as in being in favour of a republic as opposed to a monarchy). Purely for reasons of research - he has a literary project in mind - the rabbit has just read Kitty Kelley's The Royals. Nothing else would drive him to read a book about the Royal family but it has to be said that Kitty does a good scurrilous read - this is after all her stock in trade. The book - which is now of some age (you get reviews when the rabbit reads them, not when they are published!) but with an update taking the reader to last year - can be irritating to the British reader as despite a claimed four years of research, Kitty hasn't quite got the hang of a number of aspects of British life and the British constitution. She also does a lot of 'translating' for an American readership - for example the utterly superfluous (to British eyes) information that a budgie is a budgerigar parrot (sic). Nonetheless, she seems a reasonably reliable historian - when a rumour is unsubstantiated, she still passes it on but says that it is unsubstantiated..

Here is everything you need to know about the British royal family. Okay, more than you need to know. I start with generalities and will come on to individuals next. I would have said - all things being equal - that republicanism is not personal. It's a matter of principle and not an attack on the personalities of the Royal family. I'm trying to hold on to that thought even if - if a tenth of what is said about them is true - they are the most dreadful shower.



Generally:

Despite their enormous wealth, the Royal family have obsessive financial meanness as a common characteristic.

They hate children and farm them out to hired help to bring up.

They are unintelligent with severely limited cultural horizons. all in all, a very bad advertisement for inbreeding. Have a look at the other stuff on the eILLUMINATI blog where the rabbit found this link by the way. We are in deep planet bonkers territory, but I digress.

An odd theme is how Germanic they are - and not in a good way. I don't know if Kelley overplays this but it is a constant subtext.



Specifically:

George VI - His speech difficulties are now an international obsession after the film The King's Speech. Kelley claims scurrilously but less well knownly (as it were) that the accidental monarch had - erm - certain difficulties in achieving elevation and the the present Queen and Princess Margaret were conceived by then cutting edge artificial insemination technology. I've absolutely no idea about this but it's weird enough to be true.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - Known as 'Cookie' due to her fondness for stuffing her face. Had fiftysomething inch waist. Downed copious amounts of gin. Showed her devotion to George VI by having an affair with Surgeon Rear Admiral 'Chippy' White en route to South Africa by ship in the late 1940s. Oh and the title Queen Mother was an invented one to massage her vanity.

Queen Elizabeth II - Recipient of conspicuously successful personality bypass. Next to nothing worth reporting about her. Cold and indifferent mother, financially mean (see general stuff), spiteful when perceives herself to have been crossed. In fairness to her probably has some delusive sense of duty as opposed to the out and out freeloaders. Suits her purpose to be married to...

Prince Philip - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour. Got a result by marrying Princess Elizabeth as she then was, he being stoneybroke at the time. Thereafter put it about rather a lot.

Princess Margaret - Dreadful woman and appalling snob. Drunken chainsmoking dwarf and very partial to pornography. Married and divorced...

Anthony Armstrong-Jones aka Earl of Snowdon. Drunken chainsmoking dwarf and very partial to pornography. Despite these obvious compatibilities disillusion set in quickly and the warring couple spent most of their waking hours insulting each other. Some of the insults are very funny.

Prince Charles - Oh dear... Now in sixties and still waiting for the big job - which he only gets when his mother dies. Married Diana for her alleged virginity (which may apparently have been exaggerated) and breeding potential and treated her dreadfully, starting with sleeping with Camilla Parker-Bowles the night before his wedding (his wedding to Diana that is).

Camilla Parker-Bowles - Good ole girl. Looks like a horse.

Diana, Princess of Wales - Not playing with a full deck. Serial vomiter. 'She had bad breath and wanted sex all the time' (the bounder James Hewitt). Always took a vibrator on her travels. As you do. Put it about a lot.

Princess Anne - Looks like a horse. Rude, graceless woman. Obsessed with horses 'If it doesn't eat hay or fart she's not interested' (Prince Philip). Only female competitor in 1976 Olympics not to be subjected to sex test. Hmmm. Married and divorced...

Mark Phillips - Stupefying dim and clueless individual. 'Princess Anne's grinning, speechless husband who if you whistle at him wets himself' (the late, great Auberon Waugh with the best quote in the book).

Prince Andrew, Duke of York - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour, was married to...

Sarah (Ferguson) Duchess of York - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour. Jaw dropping capacity to spend money. Puts it about a bit. Okay a lot.

Prince Edward, Duke of Wessex - Wet nonentity. Rumoured to be gay - the case against this: an annoying wife.

Enough of this. Roll on the republic.

Apologies and more dreadful album covers...

The rabbit has been very busy and has also been sent all over the country and so apologies are due for lack of postings of late and for not visiting your blogs to comment as much as I would wish. By way of compensation, here are some more dreadful album covers. Above is Thank You for the Dove by Mike Adkins. You're very welcome, Mike. Side A Track 3 is called What's Wrong With My Children?

Ermmmm.... Don't know, Mike.

I have no idea who Deerhof are or why the milk man is bleeding from injuries apparently caused by a strawberry (head) and bananas (armpit and per anum as we classicists say).

All very odd but no doubt there is an explanation.

The above gem is The Reverend in Rhythm by Father Robert White. There's something vaguely disturbing about the reverend gentleman. It's probably the way he holds his pipe.

the Handsome Beasts with Beastiality. I was actually going to post this on a previous occasion and decided not to on grounds of good taste and discernment. No such inhibitions this time! So squirm...

How Are Things in Your Town? by Ken Nordine - whoever he is. I'm told the above red thing is an enema bag.

How nasty is that? No, don't answer. It's a rhetorical question. And finally to lift the spirits, the latest in a series of wac-coe's. From Leeds United v QPR 18.12.10. 2-0 as you ask. Best supporters in the universe..

Belated Valentines Day message from the rabbit...

...actually that isn't me. I've got far more hair (he typed smugly) Hat Tip to Michael. Oh, and the message inside?

Dildo, dog, Marianne and farting revisited...

The chappie whose picture the rabbit has totally failed to upload despite devoting far too much time to trying, the rabbit has to report, is named Jure Skumavc and is an architect from Darwin, Australia. It would be noted if the bloody photo would upload has sustained a minor injury to his forehead. How so? I hear the rabbit's devoted readership cry.

The answer is that he was hit by a flying dildo at a stag night.

Those familiar with Priscilla Queen of the Desert will no doubt be familiar with the scene involving projecting ping pong balls out of - erm - a certain part of the anatomy. Something similar happened here involving an exotic dancer and the offending dildo. Mr Skumavc helpfully explained that the pink projectile flew an impressive 7m across the room and looping about 2m high.

'It wasn't a strong shot (when it hit me in the head)' he explained showing commendable tolerance. 'It probably just landed on an awkward sort of angle'.

Quite so. Mr Skumavc added 'I don't have a massive experience with dildos'.

Quite so again.

Apologies to anyone to whom this is stale news but it is new to the rabbit. A US woman has been charged with felony animal cruelty, saying she hanged her nephew's pit bull from a tree with an electrical cord and burned its body because the dog chewed on her Bible. Animal control officers said 65-year-old Miriam Smith of Spartanburg County, South Carolina told them she killed a female dog named Diamond because it was a 'devil dog' and she worried it could harm neighbourhood children.

Only in America...

It was interesting to note that the posting on historic events in Egypt attracted 4 comments and a piece on - erm - farting attracted 12. One of which from Mahal (who is also to blame for the rubbish above) relates to Sarah Palin - just follow the link.

On a better note, the rabbit was pleased to see the great survivor Marianne Faithfull on breakfast Tv this morning. She has a new album coming out called Horses and High Heels. Go buy. She's a class act and has paid her dues - from stardom to drug addiction, lost years and homelessness and back again. Here she is from the sixties with a rabbit favourite, Come and Stay With Me.

What a pleasant surprise!

What a pleasant surprise awaited the rabbit in his Inbox. An e-mail from Christine O'Donnell no less. It is nice to know that she has not forgotten me. 'Guess what the Establishment is up to now...' Christine asks. 'I don't know, dear' the rabbit murmured. 'What are they up to?' It turns out that the establishment is being horrid to Christine and smearing her in some unspecified way and no doubt not a nice one too. But - plucky girl that she is - Christine is not taking it lying down (so to speak). She has set up a PAC or political action committee she tells me. At the risk of seeming to betray a confidence, she tells me as follows...

'You have helped me come this far. You have been a true friend...You are the reason I made a stand for our cause in 2010'

Between you and me, it sounds as if Christine is carrying a bit of a torch for me. I hope this impressionable young woman doesn't get too carried away with these feelings. She does ask me for some dollars but I'm sure will understand when I tell her I have no US dollars. Not a single one...

I'm sure there must be some form of counselling for the lovesick available in Delaware.

Breaking News....

He's gone! And the heartiest 'good riddance'. It has been a wonderful thing to watch. It must have been hugely wonderful to take part in.

More cutting edge legal stuff...

Other legal blogs - or blawgs are they are sometimes vulgarly known - can eat their hearts out. The rabbit is at the cutting edge of legal blogging yet again with
a topic that has exercised the finest jurisprudential minds way back to - erm - someone or the other, namely is farting legal?

This grave and weighty question is now somewhat controversial in Malawi due to the Local Courts Bill, about to begin its majestic progress through the Malawian parliament and containing the following: 'any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the public, to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way shall be guilty of a misdemeanour'.

Um righty.

Malawian Justice Minister George Chaponda who is actually a trained lawyer opines that the new bill would criminalise flatulence to promote 'public decency'. 'Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting' our man has helpfully explained.

Um doublerighty.

This unusual construction of the clause in the bill has been contradicted by Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga, who says the reference to 'fouling the air' means pollution. 'How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalising farting in public is beyond me' he said, adding that the prohibition contained in the new law has been in place since 1929.

Speaking as a reasonable or sensible rabbit, there is no dissent from here. Mr Chaponda is warming to his theme, however. 'Would you be happy to see people farting anyhow?' he enquired on Malawi's Capital radio. Anyone with an answer to this question should drop a line forthwith to the minister at...

Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs
Private Bag 333, Lilongwe 3, MALAWI, Central Africa.
Tel : (+265) 1 788 411
Fax : (+265) 1 788 332/841
Email : justice@malawi.gov.mw

No doubt Mr Chaponda would find any feedback valuable. Best not to mention the clip below to him, though... Hat Tip to Mahal

Day 13...

The picture above is of Tahrir Square on day 13 of the protests in Egypt. What is there left to say? These guys (of both genders) are magnificent. End of.

Except it's still not the end of. Mubarak and his cronies are hugely dug in and have tried every trick they can think of to cling on to power. The army is clearly hedging its bets so the regime blocks mobile phone networks, closes down facebook(!) sends its paid goons in to attack protesters - even down to the bizarre camel charge by camel drivers who were apparently told that their licences would not be renewed unless they turned up to give the protester a hard tiome. All to no avail so far - the protesters keep coming back and coming back.But the ruling clique aren't letting go of their ill gotten booty without having their fingers prised from the levers of power. Like any tyranny, they will not give in because they see the moral force of the opposing arguments. They will give in if - and only if - they are made to.

The protesters strength may be their weakness. This is a total bottom up grassroots protest. A certain amount of paranoid rubbish has been doing the rounds in the western press from commentators of the 'Mad Mel' Phillips persuasion to the effect that that the events in Egypt carry the danger of an Islamist regime. The (small minority in Egypt) Muslim Brotherhood bogeyman is wheeled out on cue in support of this proposition. This is plain nonsense. the deminstrations overwhelmingly have a secular and non-sectarian character (see image of Muslim with Koran and Copt with cross being carried through the crowds below). Behind this narrative is the unspoken proposition that though Mubarak may have ruled through a police force which pulled people's fingernails out but he was reliably biddable as regards whatever western interests were perceived to be in the middle east.

The game has moved on from that narrative and is up. But the danger is a fudge imposed on the Egyptians via assorted self-appointed honest brokers. Bottom up grassroots protests are wonderful but somehow an united voice needs to emerge - a voice that won't be pushed around.

The Egyptians have ownership of the movement that has swept that country. No-one else. is entitled to claim or seek to hijack it. Support the Egyptian people and be glad for them

It was pretty inevitable..

...after the last posting - and in particular Tony's efforts - that a certain song had to figure. Here it is! As to the circumstances of its recording, I report as follows from a biography of Mr Dylan...

"Late one night Bob asked the Nashville band he was playin with 'what do you guys do here?' and they replied 'beer'. Bob told them he had a new song but the refrain was 'everybody must get stoned' and he refused to record the song with straight people so he sent Ed Gazzar to Ireland's bar and he came back with a huge leprechaun cocktail for everyone in large milk shake cartons. Joints were passed arround and everyone was wiped out. On the original recording McCoy put a call through to Wayne Doc Butler who brought his trumpet down to the studio. The other musicians all swapped instruments which resulted in that raggy marching band sound. Strzelecki gave his bass to Al Kooper and he played the piano but he couldn't work the pedals with his feet so he had to lay beside the piano and push them with his hands. The voice that you can hear braying with laughter is Strzelecki on the piano. After the session in the contol room. Bob was asked 'what's the name of this song?' 'Rainy day women #12 & 35' - this recording had no rehearsals and was released as is".

With apologies to early to mid sixties stuff haters, I heard the phrase 'nose in the air' earlier today and ever since the song below has been going through my head. Can't be helped, I suppose...

So here are the Ivy League from the 1965 NME awards introduced by the best-known old boy of the rabbit's former school - erm - Jimmy Savile with Funny How Love Can Be. It's dubbed but there ya go.

A stone in weight...

Comments on the hugely overweight Dutch prisoner in the last posting had the rabbit wondering. What is the origin of stone - as in stone in weight? I really didn't know but Google means you never have to say you don't know and off went the rabbit on a voyage of exploration. References to stones usually cause much puzzlement across the North American continent - okay, you guys have pounds but not stones. A stone as mentioned below is 14 pounds and the weight (it's an Imperial weight technically) perhaps has some merit in dividing up (or something like that) large weights where the division may help get a clearer idea of what the weight represents. For example 'X weighs 13 stone 6 pounds' gives me a clearer idea of the bulk of X than 'X weighs 188 pounds' but maybe it's just a familiarity thing. Below are Imperial standards of length from Trafalgar Square (okay the topic is weight but bear with me).

Imperial Units were fixed in 1824 for use in the British Empire. Previously, English Units, a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Roman measurements, had been in use. The US Customary system derives from the English Units. Below is a baby bottle with Imperial. Metric and US Customary units marked. The UK officially went metric in 1995 but many Imperial measures survive, for example the pint measures are the only legal ones for beer but that may be about to change.

'This is all very well', I hear you cry 'but what is the origin of stone as a measure?' The answer is that originally localities had a good sized stone (as in literally a stone) which they used to measure commodities against. Of course, the stones were of variable weight from locality to locality so in the end standardisation had to come about and duly did. In the 14th century England’s exporting of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones.


So that's the answer.


Oddly some other stone weights still exist such as the glass stone of 5 pounds but effectively a stone is always 14 pounds. By way of utterly contrived link, I was going to end with Van Morrison's And It Stoned Me but every time I tried to embed, Internet Explorer crashed. I suspect foul play! I haven't commented yet on the Egypt thing but I'm totally engaged with it and full of admiration for the courage of the anti-government protesters and contempt for Mubarak's goons. The sooner he's on a plane out of there to spend more time with his no doubt stolen offshore funds the better.