Saturday 20 October 2007

Happy Snapping

This week the Wild Gourmets stepped up a gear by going fishing. Wading about the marshy shallows of East Anglia, they got a flounder. A flounder is, as any readers of fairy tales knows, a bloody good catch, not least because they often turn out to be magic speaking fish who offer you a statutory three-wish deal in exchange for not eating them (indicating a high degree of tastiness, when you think about it. Unless I was very hungry, I suspect I would be bought off with the offer of a single wish by any speaking fish. Or even just a nice chat.)

This fish did not speak, partly because Guy was so busy extolling its fleshiness it would have been well lucky to get a word in edgeways before suffocation kicked in. There would have been no point in his letting the fish speak, anyway, as he was so excited that any more stimulation would have caused expiration on the spot. He spoke so long and glowingly about the lovely fleshy flounder and what a wondrous fine, decadent breakfast it would make, that I began to think he would embrace the other fairy tale standby, and send it to the King, in the hope of future marital links to the Royal Household (going up in the world really has got harder, hasn't it?) But the longing for fried breakfast overcame his proper duty to his sovereign, and we cannot look forward to Tommy marrying a Prince any time soon. Disappointingly, as I have considerable respect for Tommy, even if she does celebrate the first days of winter by sewing herself into chunky knitwear.

On the subject of the Royals, I notice that William and Kate have been suffering from Papping again. I could almost feel sorry for them, because it must be so vile and horrible, being hounded by Mad-Max style mercenaries with long lenses when you have ALWAYS worn knickers in public places and thus done nothing to merit the intrusion of what seems very like a bunch of motorised psychopaths. But I can't, and it's to do with their insistence on having "an ordinary life". Rich people have no right to an ordinary life.

Firstly, to work. If you have enough money to live off without working, you should have no right to take well-paid work from out of the way of those who don't. Is Kate Middleton "middle class"? Not in my book. If your daddy is a millionaire, don't you sort of go up a grade? And rich people never get out of bed for the minimum wage. I say no. The rich should only be entitled to minimum wage. Work is for most people the ticket to a better life, and just how could people as rich as the Royals have a materially better life? The money from well-paid jobs should go to poorer people - ones who support children and work for a living, perhaps. And if they make a mess of running the BBC - well, so what? The men who gave us Maisie Raine need sacking anyway, and so do those who steal people's money on Premium Rate Phone-Ins.

Secondly, to being Defender of the Faith. You can't hold this title - or even be second in line to inherit it, imho - without realising that with the cash comes responsibility. Since I seem to remember that Jesus says the rich need to sell all they have and give the money to the poor in order to obtain heaven, I am Massively Shocked that none of the holders of the title, in its whole nearly-500 year history, have ever spent their time flogging off as many estates as they can, and making donations all over the shop, but they nobly choose to sacrifice themselves for us by keeping the poor out of the way of temptation or solvency or any of that nonsense. Thank you very much Royal Family, we say. But it's not an ordinary life, is it? So the Paparazzi hound you and it's frightful - but it's their cross, I guess, because that's the one they choose. So, one way or another, even though I do think it's an abuse of their human rights - I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy.

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