Camilla Fever

There's a new disease making its way round the island since yesterday afternoon and it's called Camilla Fever.

One of the first signs of Camilla Fever is marrying some really homely looking guy with chimp ears and a complex about his lack of hair which causes him to constantly brush his comb-over back over his balding scalp with his bony, effete fingers and mutter intellectual fallacies like tut-tut.

And of course, once you have Camilla Fever it means your face begins to resemble a horse's ass only maybe a little cleaner.

And isn't it ironic that on the day the Prince marries a horse, the most famous horse race in England, The Grand National, is held a few hours later just in time for the Camilla Parker-Bowles entry to make her escape from the wedding reception and over to the track where she finished 8th and made all but one jump.

They say she has a bit of a horse face the poor old girl but personally, after the ceremony I've become convinced that she is really a man, not a woman. And she isn't even very convincing as a woman.

Can you imagine what the spawn of these two would look like? The Royal Family should be thanking Christ that Princess Diana's womb had been available to pinch out a few decent looking blokes because really, the offspring of Charles and Camilla would be like some horrific genetic experiment which produce mutations of royalty who clap their feet together and walk on their hands.

Slumped over on the sofa in the midst of a terrific hangover and staring off at the decrepit ceremonies one realises how popular hats have become. The Irish milliner who designed Camilla's hat had some interesting tales to tell:

His beloved companion was his late dog, Mr Pig, who recently died. Mr Pig treated most celebrities with disdain but was said to have developed a special affection for Mrs Parker Bowles.

He recalled one occasion when Mrs Parker Bowles was receiving a fitting and Mr Pig "lay at her feet, gazing up at her adoringly".

Hey, is he sure that wasn't Charles?

But anyway, hats were such a big thing yesterday, Camilla wore two of them: First a straw hat, overlaid with ivory French lace and trimmed with a fountain of feathers. And for the more formal blessing ceremony in the Gothic St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, Camilla switched to a feathered, semicircular headdress.

Everywhere you looked it looked as though pheasants had taken to nesting in ugly women's hair.

Not only that, but the food was crap as well.

Really, a 24-inch organic fruit wedding cake? Ugh. So you'd better not have been hungry if you were bored enough to go to the Royal Wedding reception because they were passing out stuff like Egg and cress on granary bread, Mini vegetarian pasties, Potted shrimp bridge rolls, etc. What? No Jellied Moose Nose?

And if you found the ceremony boring, you could have tried distracting yourself by doing something useful. Throne Out had lovely ideas on how to convert your Charles & Di mugs into Charles & Camilla mugs.

Personally, I found it more interesting to countdown the number of days until Prince William's receding hairline finally catches up with him and erupts into a full blown case of male pattern baldness. It appears we're almost there already. In another few months the Prince of Wales will have to teach Prince William the art of the comb-over and how to constantly flick the remaining wisps of hair on his head in a self-indulgent gesture of vanity doomed for failure, if he hasn't started already.

*****

I certainly hope there are enough Crayola colours to keep the revolutions going.

What Color For Minsk?

The author points out that "The Georgians had the Rose, the Ukrainians Orange as the symbol of their peaceful revolution. What will the Belarusians choose to symbolize their struggle for democracy, freedom and dignity? It is only a question of time to know the answer."

Citizens Unite! Interior decorators and fashion designers are giving falsified elections and the subsequent protests a bad name. Belarus says, we don't want no stinkin' freedom. Not if someone's going to colour it sepia or taupe before the placards are even dry!

*****

Don't want the week ending before noting Saul Bellow's death.

"En reléguant les rituels de la chasse, de la pêche au gros ou de la tauromachie au rayon des accessoires palliatifs de l'angoisse, Bellow refuse un code coulé dans le moule puritain du XIXe siècle et refaçonné par les blessures et les désillusions de l'après-première guerre mondiale. Par ce défi direct lancé à Ernest Hemingway, dont la stature écrase alors depuis vingt ans les lettres américaines, Saul Bellow montre sa détermination à ouvrir de nouveaux territoires à l'imaginaire."

Not only that but it appears that even a writer with as much talent as Bellow has to have his death swept under the rug by the hoopla over the Dead Pope and the Dead Prince Rainier. And then, perhaps out of jealousy, Prince Ernst August of Hanover, 51, Caroline's third husband hasn't quite gotten into the dying act yet but settled for the slightly less dramatic acute pancreatic disorder, a disease commonly associated with heavy drinking.

*****

Charles Dickens: Please, sir, I'd like a martini.
Bartender: Sure thing. Olive or twist?

James Joyce: I'll take a Guinness.
Bartender: So Charles Dickens was in here yesterday.
James Joyce: (drinks)
Bartender: And he asked for a martini and I said, "Olive or twist?"
James Joyce: (drinks)
Bartender: You see, it's funny because he wrote "Oliver Twist."
James Joyce: What a shitty joke.

Ernest Hemingway: Gin.
Bartender: So Charles Dickens was in here two days ago.
Ernest Hemingway: Joyce already told me that story. Fuck off.

Virginia Woolf: I'll take your second-best cognac and unadulterated
experience.
Bartender: We don't have that. This is a bar.
Virginia Woolf: Patriarchy! (drowns)

*****

In case you were interested: The Cheerless Junky Song