Countdown to another Royal Divorce part 1.

It behoves me to assist those readers of a foreign persuasion, and also those a little slow on the uptake (that just about covers every bugger, Ed.) to explain the contents of the document whose image is currently circulating on the electric internet concerning the forthcoming shitfest in the UK.

For most of us, when informed about, and invited to, a wedding, a simple “Fuck off, I will be busy watching television” is an adequate and concise response, but dear old Lizzie Saxe-Coburg-Gotha – one of the few people old enough to remember how to use Microsoft Paint – has to make a song and dance about it.

I shall endeavour to explain some of the quaint terms and usages:

“ElizabethR”: The R stands for “Richards”. This is a throwback to the happy days she spent playing the part of Mrs Richards in Fawlty Towers. Even now, she affects to be deaf, if only to irritate the shit out of Phil.

“Our other Realms and Territories”: These days, the Scilly Isles and Lindisfarne (when the tide is out).

“To all to whom these Presents shall come”: ‘Oi! You lot’, would be more concise and easier to comprehend.  There are no presents. Young Hal will be lucky if she slips him a fiver on the day, her parsimony being the stuff of legend.

The Great Seal:

(come on, some readers expect this sort of thing).

Privy Council:

(That’s enough catering for the lowest common denominator, Ed.)

“Know Ye that We”: She refers to herself as more than one person. You will have to consult a Freudian about that, beats the shit out of me. As for the Know Ye bit, let’s just call it rhetoric, out of kindness.

“Our Most Dearly Beloved Grandson”: she can’t abide the other fuckers.

Great Seal:

(This time for the younger readers)

“Signed with her own hand”: She keeps the hands of several people who have got on the wrong side of her, in a drawer in her living room. When she uses one of those hands to sign, then the writing becomes even less comprehensible.

I will not go into all of the dialogue that has beset me these last few months about declining my invitation. Suffice it so say that I was not influenced by the prospect of having to sit immediately behind Anne Laurence and her legendary flatulence, as has been reported in some of the media.

Victory for common sense

It will not surprise you to know that I fully support the proposal of Mr Trump to train the teaching profession in the use of ordnance.

I adopt this position on the basis of experience and watching how effective it was during my schooldays.

I cannot imagine that Dr Adey would have been so successful in instilling respect for Chaucer’s popularisation of the vernacular had he not reinforced his thesis with his trademark P938.

Miss Stones, later Mrs Lewis, was famous for her enquiry about the number of Commandments – “Are there nine commandments or are there ten? Ask yourself one question – do I feel lucky?”

Who can forget the day that “Butch” Robinson and “Sundance” Hargreaves Minor came a cropper when they tried to sneak out before the bell had gone and were met with the combined fire power of the staff of the biology department?

I doubt whether many of us would have understood the birth of the Romantic movement in symphonic music had Mr Newby not kept time with Mendelssohn’s Reformation symphony by shooting the score onto the blackboard with his famous Smith and Wesson.

None of us would have mastered the declension of German verbs had not Herr Clarke and Herr Still been mounted in gun towers.

As for Barry Batterham’s replacement of the starter pistol on Sports Day with an AK47, what can one say? Seldom have the competitors in the 880 yards felt so motivated.

Happy days indeed.