8314/21233
My plan to write 30 books a year by cracking on and doing 4000 words a day slightly floundered today as I got distracted by admin and online poker and aside from some amusing blog about faeces and jigsaws I did NOTHING. Unless I decide to write books about faeces and jigsaws, in which case I am on my way!
I hope I made you think about how trusting we all are about sending faeces through the post though. You'll all laugh at people who thought they were going to get millions from a Nigerian prince or were dating Brad Pitt and had to send him some cash because he was a bit short this month. But you'll all happily send your shit in the post without checking anything just cos it's got NHS written on the envelope.
I did listen to a good chunk of
Entitled by Andrew Lownie, an extraordinarily diligently researched book about your friend and mine Prince Andrew. It's an incredible window into a world of greed and depravity as well as a social experiment about what happens if you raise a child to believe their actions have no consequences and they are allowed to do anything they want. As with the Michael Sheen drama I almost felt sorry for Andrew to begin with, because in a sense this situation was not his fault. But to be fair, it doesn't take long before that sympathy evaporates.
No one comes out of it well and the stuff about Fergie is perhaps not equally awful, but still feels like something from pre-revolutionary Russia (including them relying on mystics - using her title to acquire money in dubious ways, spending millions largely wastefully and then claiming poverty and falling in love with any notable figure she comes across. Both Andrew and Fergie, one feels, are attempting to fill some vast emptiness inside of them and finding nothing works, yet still pushing on to further excess as if the problem is that they haven't gone far enough.
If you give people power and money and free them from consequences (at least for the first few decades) then I suspect that many would behave the same. On a smaller scale you see this with various people in showbiz and on an even smaller scale perhaps you see it in yourself, if you've ever tried to fill the void within you with any kind of hedonism or splurging.
One of my favourite jokes from Lionel Nimrod (I think) (which is probably too wordy and a little bit obscure to be a great joke, but there's a truth at the heart of it) was something like
William Blake said that the road of excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom, but it's a two-way street and at the other end is the Hut of Stupidity and so many of the travellers on that doomed highway end up going in the wrong direction.
Yeah, nearly good. Could make it good with some work. Maybe not enough people know about William Blake.
I am amazed at the things that Lownie is about to put in this book- some blank facts about Trump and Epstein, casual mentions of Prince Philip's affairs and some pretty good evidence that Prince Andrew COULD sweat. And I had believed him about that, so that was quite the shocker.
I don't think I've even got to the juicy bits yet.
This book is not only the final nail in the coffin for Andrew's chances of going out in public again, but should be the death knell of the monarchy as well. These guys are the ultimate immigrants, coming over here from Germany and living off the state and being given massive houses and committing sex crimes.
It won't be the end of the monarchy, but reading about these ridiculous chumps should convince anyone that it's an outdated institution. Sadly America has a President cut from the same cloth as Andrew in pretty much every way. Andrew might be slightly less intelligent, but it doesn't matter because the confidence that comes with this kind of lifestyle means that you believe you're the cleverest person in the world, even when you are palpably stupid.
I emailed Andrew (Lownie, not Windsor-Mountbatten, but the invite is open to him too) this morning and asked him on the book club and he quickly replied to say he'd do it! So that should be a fun one.
And I listened to the book when I was playing poker, so that was officially working. Which is lucky cos I only broke even with the gambling. Yeah, look at me playing £1 poker tournaments all afternoon. Who am I to criticise the profligacy of the Royals? Also it's a game which props up the royal family who can only be beaten by Aces.
Sadly the real world seems to be empty of Aces
Or
become a monthly badger (and get all the videos of the show NOW plus much more).
If there’s any left in stock (which I think there are) you will also receive a Prince Andrew No Sweat sweat band!
