Good Golly, Miss Molly

 With certain very rare exceptions (all exceptions are rare, surely? my blog consists of ORIGINAL MATERIAL only, but of course you already guessed that. When I do look elsewhere for sources of inspiration e.g. https://capeldunn.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-editors-tale.html, I always make a point of giving  where credit is due.

It so happens that the extracts below come from a piece in The New Yorker by John Kenney, the same person who wrote the wonderful article in the International Herald Tribune all of 10 years ago.

By John Kenney

March 13, 2021

Photograph by Joe Giddens / Pool / Getty

Buckingham Palace issued a statement today in response to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey. . . . The statement is 61 words long. —The Observer

First Draft

What I say now, I say as your Queen. In my sixty-nine-year reign, I never thought I would see what I saw when I tuned in, this past Sunday evening, to watch the interview. I could not contain my shock when Kandi revealed that LaToya and Drew had apparently shared an intimate moment at the bachelorette party. Nor did I realize, for a full two hours, that I was watching “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” which is, I am told, a television programme about a city in America. I thought it quite good.

Second Draft

After the events of Sunday evening, I would like to address certain topics that arose in the interview conducted by the American journalist Harpo Winfrey. I take my job as sovereign seriously. But I am also a mother and a grandmother. And so it would be impossible for me not to express my deep concern for those chickens. Chickens are people, too, though not in any biological sense. We at the Palace care deeply for chickens. Chickens and corgis and birds and gin and the words “Oh, I see”—as in, “But I thought it was Taco Bell’s Canon and not Pachelbel’s Canon. Oh, I see.”

Third Draft

In light of the words said by Harry and his wife, Margot, on Sunday evening, I would like to address several pressing questions. Perhaps most important: What is it like being a royal? It is very nice, indeed. Second: Do royals look different naked than lesser people? Yes. We look marvellous. Third: Do you, Queen Elizabeth, have a favorite song? That is an extremely difficult question to answer, as there are so many wonderful, catchy tunes about. But I would have to say that my favorite song is Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower.” A Bob Dylan song, of course. But Mr. Hendrix’s version, from his album “Electric Lady,” is—Philip and I agree—the definitive version.

Fourth Draft

As a result of the quite remarkable events of Sunday evening, I would like to address nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. As I watched the interview—along with millions of others worldwide—I could not help but be struck by the number of advertisements for medications that seem to cause a great deal of nausea, vomiting, et cetera. Both Charles and William called halfway through the programme to say that they had counted thirty-two television commercials by that time, and that most seemed to be for medications that caused these horrific side effects. “Mummy, what’s going on in America?” Charles shouted. We are saddened by the gastrointestinal illnesses plaguing so many Americans, and we hope that Harry and Meghan and Archie get better soon.

Fifth Draft

The pain that Harry, now my fourteenth-favorite grandson, and his wife—what’s her name, the American divorcée—are experiencing is a feeling that we in the larger family share, too. Though less painfully. I never want anyone in the family to feel pain. But as I have learned—and as I think so many English people learn—a certain numbness creeps in after a time, and that can be a blessing. Charles’s doctors say that he has no feeling at all from the mid-chest down or from the ears up. If Harry or his lady friend were hurt by any rudeness or coldness or dampness or rain from anyone in the Royal Family—be they duke or duchess, earl or countess, knight or dame, viscount or viscountess —then I think my point is made.