From: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: The Duchess And The Photographer
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:08:25 GMT
Reply-To: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Organization: Penicuik People's Revolutionary Sheepdog Liberation Front

It can hardly have escaped the attention lately of anyone in the UK (and
presumably it's made the news in the US too) that Her Supreme
Parasiticness, The Duchess Of York, has been making the headlines. If you
read the tabloids, there's photos of her all over the place, if you read
the quality papers, there's commentary on how despicable the tabloid
journalists are and presumably also some of the more tasteful photos just
to illustrate the point.

The story centres around the fact that she is, allegedly, bonking a very
bald Texan whose name I tend to forget but whom I shall refer to hereafter
as The Houston Astrodome. He probably doesn't even come from Houston, but
the opportunity to tie together a link with Texas and a not particularly
funny bald joke is one I'm not about to let go by. When your material's as
weak as mine, you have to grasp at every straw you can find.

It's been fairly well known (well, rumoured) now for some time that
financial advice isn't all she's been getting from him. The photos that
have been taken (by a photographer with a truly enormous telephoto lens)
seem to confirm this, showing the Duchess and her "friend" in interestingly
entangled positions ("Is that his ear?" "Nah, can't be" "No, it must be,
look, that big round, shiny thing beside it is his head" "Well, if it isn't
his head, it's fairly obvious just what she sees in him") and also causing
a shocking revelation by showing that the Duchess, somewhat surprisingly
when you consider that she has already given birth to two children, is
apparently a woman and thus is in possession of breasts.

Where, I hear you ask, are the peeves? Well, a number of things about this
affair (no pun intended) peeve me...

For starters, there's been the inevitable trumpeting about how the
publication of these photographs is an invasion of privacy. The usual
antiquated geriatric MPs are trotted out to witter on about how nasty it is
that the character of the highly esteemed Duchess is being defamed, despite
the fact that nobody really had a very high opinion of her to start with.
To quote that oracle of popular wisdom, my mother: "Everyone knew she was a
tart before she married him, so why's everyone so surprised?" Quite true, I
suppose, since she was really brought in as a last ditch attempt to convert
the tangled cyclic graph that is the Royal lineage into something
resembling a normal family tree, and provide some new genetic material to
prevent the Royals sliding ever deeper into inbreeding and their chins from
sliding ever backwards into their necks.

So, when Prince Andrew married someone who, let's face it, looked not that
unlike one of these Bronze Age fertility goddess statues, was it *really*
such a surprise that when she discovered he was as detached from reality as
the rest of the Royal family (who, in the manner of any normal family
who've just had pictures of their daughter-in-law canoodling with a Texan
millionaire splashed across several million newspapers, spent the day out
on the moors introducing various innocent wildlife to the joys of loaded
firearms) she decided to direct her libido elsewhere?

Now where was I...oh yes, invasion of privacy. Well, I dunno about that.
Leaving aside the general bad taste of trying to match orifices and
protuding portions with a strange man while your kiddies are watching ("I
thought only His Royal Daddyness got to play Hide Mr Happy with you
mummy"), if *I* was a) a member of the Royal Family, b) my marriage was
known to be in trouble and c) I was the sort of person that the newspapers
will hire the Hubble Space Telescope in order to get intimate but blurred
pictures of, I sure as hell wouldn't spend my time rolling around in the
grass in the open air with the person I'm rumoured to be having an affair
with.  Especially just down the road from the big tree with all the ladders
up the trunk and photographers dangling from the branches.

I will resist the temptation to go into either my "Famous People Deserve
Every Invasion Of Privacy They Get Because Flaunting Their Lives Is What
Made Them Famous In The First Place" and "The Royal Families Are Parasites
Who Should Be Guillotined And Have Their Heads Placed On Spikes Outside
Buckingham Palace" rants because I've done them already, probably several
times.

After the privacy arguments seemed to fizzle out (surprisingly early, in
fact, and presumably because of the fact that while the High And Mighty
harrumphed, the papers with the photos saw their circulation soar to
unparalleled heights i.e. the plebs, who've been getting increasingly fed
up with the Royals of late, were lapping it up) we then heard how the
newspaper editors were being hypocritical for claiming that they published
the photos because People Should Know The Truth rather than, say, because
they'd sell huge numbers of copies and make a fortune. This was, I might
not, mainly being said by Conservative MPs, most of whom seem to spend a
lot of time saying that making lots of money is our true purpose in life
(unless you're one of these common working class chappies, in which case
it's your duty to get yourself into debt as far as possible by buying
consumer goods you don't really need)

While there is no doubt substantial truth to the argument that the
newspapers are doing it largely for the money, I'm personally quite glad
that they *did* publish the truth. Had they not, the marriage of Andrew and
Fergie might well have stayed together under some sort of perverse
arrangement whereby she flew off to Texas regularly for sun and sex then
came back to open hospital wards with her husband. It would have kept the
Royal image intact (always wondered about that, since given the image the
Royals have these days I personally wouldn't want to keep it intact if I
were them) but I'd have been rather pissed off that my taxes (and yes,
Tony, before you start I have/do paid/pay taxes on occasion, despite being
a despicable student) were being used to pay for Fergie's Nookie Runs.

By making the truth known, the survival chances of their marriage are
lowered substantially. Sure, it could be tough on the kids (I've been
through it myself) but if any kids are going to stand a chance of surviving
it reasonably mentally intact (they're Royals, not a lot to damage, let's
face it) it's kids that have all the cushioning of having the richest
person in the world as their grandmother ("No more mummy? Don't worry
darling, I'll buy you a new one") and are used to the detachment of the
Royal lifestyle anyway. Given how much they've seen of their mother in the
past (not in *that* sense) they probably won't even notice the difference.

In fact, once the marriage is over, I'm sure no-one will be particularly
worried if Fergie adopts the Astrodome as her new host organism instead of
the British people. If they're happy together, that's fine with me, as long
as she's off the Civil List.

Next, the toes. Apparently some of the photos appear to demonstrate
(shocked gasp!) foot kissing. Couple this with the recent Mellor
revelations about toe jobs and it becomes apparent that the High And Mighty
are really getting into feet these days. The big question has to be...why
have standards slipped so much? It doesn't seem so long since certain MPs
and similar were allegedly into young boys, German Shepherds and being
whipped by leather-clad dominatrices. Compared to that, the standard of
fetish demonstrated in the recent scandals has been decidedly tame. Can US
scandals offer anything more interesting these days?  Probably not. "...but
I didn't inhale" is not exactly an enthralling discovery.

Getting back to the breasts though. One feature of the newspaper coverage
has struck me as rather interesting. It's pretty apparent that the papers
are holding things back, presumably to increase sales. Yesterday's "World
Exclusive - Topless Fergie" headlines sold lots of papers just to discover
that, yes, she was topless but had her arm demurely across her chest.

Today, however, the photos include a considerably more revealing side shot
of her which, while not exactly the sort of thing that anyone's going to
turn into a GIF and drool over in any of the sex newsgroups, does show a
good deal more. One has to wonder just where it's going to lead.
Presumably, since the photographer was in position for quite some time, he
*must* have got clearer photographs (if he *didn't*, I can't help but
wonder if Fergie's demure poses were due to her being aware of the presence
of the photographer, in which case why the hell did they keep fooling
around?) What will the papers be printing by the end of next week? "World
Exclusive - Fergie In Goat And Whipped Cream Sex Orgy With Woody Allen,
David Mellor And Alien"? Yeah, OK, so that's not likely but you wouldn't
find me putting any bets against more, erm, frontal shots appearing next
week.

Equally annoying is the way the more "quality" media, despite protestation
of being above it all, are in their own way spending just as much time on
the news story as the tabloids. Mind you, they've *really* got their
priorities screwed up at the moment. Numero uno news headline this morning
was George Bush's speech to the Republican convention. They went into the
contents in considerable detail, wittering on about tax cuts etc. I'm
surprised they didn't bring in their studio experts ("And what effect
exactly will these measures proposed by President Bush have on the average
British taxpayer?"  "Bugger all basically, because we don't live in the
US"). This item and the latest details of which portions of Fergie's
anatomy have popped into view today forced unimportant stuff like mass
starvation in Somalia, continued war in Yugoslavia and the imminent
eruption of renewed hostilities in Iraq back into the "And in other news
today..." section.

Disclaimer: any resemblances in the above of any persons, places, members
of the Royal family, herbivores, neurotic Jewish comedians, esteemed
personages, aliens or events to any persons, places, members of the Royal
family, herbivores, neurotic Jewish personages, esteemed personages, aliens
or events living dead or otherwise inclined is purely coincidental and is
no doubt just a vicious rumour. I hereby deny all knowledge of the above
which I didn't in fact write but which was no doubt due entirely to freak
line noise which corrupted my previous genteel exploration of the ancient
art of basket-weaving in the Nile Delta circa 2500BC into a scurrilous
commentary on the private lives of certain highly regarded Royal
personages. It's all lies I tell you, all lies. The Devil made me do it!
It's a Communist plot to discredit me! CIA disinformation, designed to
prevent the world from knowing the truth about Fergie and the Greys! It's
automatic writing I tell you, channelled through me by an alien living in
the second dimension (that's an a.a.v. in-joke) and whose name sounds like
something out of a B-movie called "The Day The Flying Saucers Landed" in
which Doug McClure no doubt saved the Earth from aliens who, apparently,
came here from a badly painted picture of a planet with rings and who
turned out to be fatally allergic to tapwater.

I think I need a long rest.

--
		Not Al Crawford - Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk
      "Brothers, sisters, we don't need this fascist sheepdog thang"
Newsgroups: alt.peeves