Alright already with this Brit wedding. Every TV journalist in the colonies is schlepping over for it. For it not to it. No room inside the Abbey because, for some reason, it’s filled with all the exes. This being a really busy couple who had, you might say, a royal time, shove all those together and they outnumber the residents of the Falklands.
A reader reminds me Di was actually Diana, Princess of Wales. Thus, although people will use it anyway, this bride won’t be Princess Kate or Princess Catherine. You aren’t a princess unless you’re born one. Mrs. Middleton’s kid will become princess of whatever fiefdom the queen gives to Wills — besides a fountain pen or palace or whatever she’ll hand over.
Considering my invitation went astray, I now center on things like Buckingham Palace’s official roommate Prince Philip. Comes his following comment: “Whoever invented the red carpet needed his head examined.” Besides the rigors of shuffling a step behind Elizabeth, that rusting armor married to Her Majesty hasn’t worked a day in his life, so why so sour, who knows? Nonetheless, smile prone, he’s not.
READ MORE: NO MORE WEIGHTY, KATIE?
The man acknowledges he makes gaffes. Have this one. A female naval cadet told him she’d worked in a club. Said Philip The Husband: “Oh, what, a strip club?”
Also: “The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop tourism, we could stop the congestion.”
Question is, how do you stop him?!
Saith divorced and remarried Princess Anne, another load of laughs: “I don’t like children,” and “Being pregnant is a very boring six months,” and “I am not maternal,” and “That’s an occupational hazard of being a wife.”
More from warm fuzzy Anne: “In public, people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground and swish my tail — none of which is easy.” Whoa, Anne. Easy, girl.
Wait. She’s in the money. Another Annie whinny: “I’m not everyone’s idea of a fairy-tale princess.”
As Diana’s husband HRH Charles has actually said: “Expect me to be the first prince of Wales not to have a mistress?” Prithee and forsook, certainly no. But possibly just not the first to pick a senior citizen chunkette as your Tampax. At his second marriage, he burped: “Camilla and I are just a couple of middle-age people getting wed.” Right. Like none of us noticed that.
Sarah Ferguson, a k a still a duchess, on husband Prince Andrew: “He loves the madness of me.” Obviously not for long. They’re divorced. Whereupon quoth the ex-Highness: “I’m the only woman who has not been beheaded for leaving The Royal Family.” Listen, there’s still time.
Sarah, with her devilish humor: “At the gym, Diana was in Lycra, and I was in ‘Chariots of Fire’ shorts. Only way to cover up my fears and anxieties was to laugh — or eat . . . Everyone looked at her as the most beautiful with the fantastically fabulous figure and then they’d go, ‘Oh, yes . . . and there’s Sarah.’ ”
The late — also divorced — Princess Margaret, sister to Elizabeth: “I suppose I’ll now be known as Charley’s aunt.” I suppose one of her equerries then mumbled, “Don’t wait for the laugh.”
Four generations and 100 years of so-called bon mots or mots not even so bon are in Kate Petrella‘s well-researched little paperback “Royal Wisdom: The Most Daft, Cheeky, and Brilliant Quotes from Britain’s Royal Family.”
A barrel of belly-slappers this group isn’t. But then bridegroom William recalls his many autograph requests plus the time a “grandmother stopped and asked me if I know a good place to buy underwear.” Since his future mother-in-law let him bunk with her daughter in the daughter’s old room, figures he now knows.
Kate the bride about Wills the groom: “He’s lucky to be going out with me.”
Charles, whose mummy obviously didn’t burp him, wipe his dribble or push him on the swings: “Camilla’s greatest achievement is to love me.”
William on what Harry would do were he not a Windsor: “Probably sit and play computer games and drink beer.”
Harry on grandma the queen: “Her knowledge of the army is amazing for a grandmother; I suppose it is slightly her job.” The kid’s unknown for pithy observations — although, considering his beer consumption, he may in fact be somewhat pithy.
Prince Andrew, about whom almost nobody cares: “It’s slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.”
Prince William, about whom everybody cares: “I’m always open for people saying I’m wrong because most of the time I am.”
Prince Harry about whom his girlfriend Chelsey cares: “To a certain respect we will never be normal.”
Page 72 quotes Queen Elizabeth, this head of state in human form: “I have to be seen to be believed.”
One last slice of immortal wisdom from the tonsils of Camilla the former Mrs. Parker-Bowles and the current Duchess of Cornwall and the maybe future Queen of the Realm when visiting a charity: “Since this was established in 1949 thousands of elderly in Wiltshire have benefited from its many services, ranging from home support to technology clubs and toenail cutting, which I am very interested by.”