From: tim@physics.orst.edu (Tim Mefford)
Subject: Re: Fergiegate
Keywords: Losers
Reply-To: tim@physics.orst.edu
Organization: Up the,
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 20:34:54 GMT

In article <25128@castle.ed.ac.uk>, fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
|> 
|> What we really need to do is to privatise the Royal Family. I'm amazed
|> that the guvmint haven't thought of this one yet. Think of it, all these
|> braindead folks who line the streets for "the Changing of the Guard" and
|> Royal Weddings could buy shares in their favourite Royal. The guvmint
|> would make a small fortune to offset the growing-as-predicted budget
|> deficit and the Sun could print stuff That-Shareholders-Should-Be-Told.
|> 
|> Back to The Privatisation Plan since this has fermented even further in
|> my fetid imagination. Privatisation means competition right? Not that
|> the guvmint has noticed. Still, competing Royal Families. We could have
|> a Scottish one, even an English one to compete with the current German
|> one. Folks could go to events of the Royal Family of their choice. The
|> inefficient ones would simply go to the wall (literally ;-) through
|> dearth of tourist income. Of course they could give The Royal Seal of
|> Approval to various products (at a price). The Prince Charles
|> Environmental Royal Seal or The Prince Charles Good Architects Award may
|> or may not become sought after items. It may depend on whether Prince
|> Charles gets remarried, to a palm tree.
|> 
|> Of course this would mean that all of Christmas afternoon was taken up
|> by Queens' speeches. Still it's only James Bond on the other channel
|> anyway.
|> 

       Not a bad idea.  Put that way, maybe it's time we in America
got a "Royal Family" of our own.  It would be great for the tourist
trade and we could put all the royalties, so to speak, from marketing
them into paying off the national debt.  The T-shirts, action figures,
HBO specials, and theme park would probably put the US into the black.

       You see, Royalty in this country would have a very different 
flavor to it than across the pond.   Our expectations on our monarch
would differ from those in Britain.  There, the majestic one is expected
to be benign, doddering, and quaint.  They open a few roads, take photo
ops gardening, complain in a curmudgeonly way about change and modernization,
and generally suck up resources like a revered, but useless family grandparent
       
        I think the choice for Queen would be an obvious one, Madonna.  She
would rake in far more cash than anyone else.  She certainly has a big enough
ego to accept.  And, if we kiss her ass by making her Queen, maybe she would
quit breaking our balls and actually hire a songwriter before inundating the
airwaves with crap.  For King, who better than Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He's
from Austria, they have a tradition of exporting royalty in the teutonic
region.  I think it would be fitting for America to have a leader who could
beat the crap out of other dignataries who forgot their place.  Why would
someone seemingly moderately intelligent like Arnie accept such an elitist
position?  Hell! He's a Republican, he's half way there!

       In Britain, the Royal improprieties cause a huge scandal and cause
people to call for their elimination.  "Why don't they just open roads?"
people say.  Here, we would expect our royalty to be involved in impropriety.
If we heard about them opening a road, we would be outraged.  "What? Opening
a road?  Why the hell aren't you out making a dirty movie to entertain us
and bring in some cash?  Why aren't you screwing Helmut Kohl to get us trade
concessions?  Threaten to behead those weasel like Presidential candidates
if they don't get in gear,"  the people would say.

ObPeeve: The Ashley Wilkes and Victor Laszlos of the world.

ObBob: Bruce, (the)    -For you Royal subjects out there.


-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"The ripples of sand at his feet suddenly looked like the motionless
 crests of waves.  Supposing they were sound waves, what kind of 
 music would they give? he wondered.  Maybe even a human being could
 sing such a song ... if tongs were driven into his nose and slimy
 blood stopped up his ears ... if his teeth were broken one by one 
 with hammer blows, and splinters jammed into his urethra ... if a
 vulva were cut away and sewn onto his eyelids.  It might resemble
 cruelty, and then again it might be a little different."
				  -Kobo Abe _The Woman_in_the_Dunes_	
------Tim Mefford  tim@physics.orst.edu-----------------------------