Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Happy New Year?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAFor as long as I can remember, yesterday, Labour Day, has always been New Year’s.  The dog hot days of summer are over, and real life can begin again.  It’s not just that I hate sand in my underwear and bugs in my burgers (which I do) it’s the attitude that goes with stinkin’ hot /no cloud afternoons that I object to.  Honestly, can anyone take baggy shorts and dirty feet seriously?  Point of fact: our society already celebrates the trivial as if it were holy writ, so when the sun is permanently set on Brainbake 5.5, it’s no wonder we collectively get media sunstroke sometime in June and stay that way for three months.  Let me elaborate.

Last week, the media buzz was Justin (Jason?) Bieber lost a necklace in a bar fight.  I can’t imagine who he was fighting; about the only thing in his weight class is a Care Bear.  Besides, on the non-threatening boy scale of One to Justin Timberlake, he’s about as bland as they come.  Even Justin– not Bieber, the other one— made a running grab for Janet Jackson’s 38-year-old boob on national TV.  Something Selena Gomez (Barney’s old playmate, nudge/nudge, wink/wink) would never have put up with when she and the Bieb were an item.  Predictably, nobody knows how the necklace got torn from his person, but the media certainly seems to be worried about it, even if Bieber isn’t.  Remember, this is the guy who left his monkey in Germany without even a backward glance or a jacket.  Unlike that woman in Toronto who styled out her primate in what looks like a GapKids winter coat before abandoning it in an Ikea parking lot.  But I digress.  The only thing anybody can discern from these two unrelated events is that Canadians hate monkeys.  However, back on topic: I’m certain that there’s less to this Bieber incident than meets the eye.

Either way, this was passing for major news until E.L. James spilled the Twitter beans that Dakota Johnson has been cast as Anastasia Steele, the “object” of Christian Grey’s affections in Fifty Shades of Grey.  The book, a WalMart rewrite of The Story of O, is about to be made into a major motion picture with a guaranteed box office that might reach into the billions — that is, until the first person actually sees this faux porn yawner and blows the whistle on the whole thing.  I have no idea how bad an actress Ms. Johnson is, but I do know there’s a whole lot of difference between reading hot prose in the privacy of your own mind and seeing it publically portrayed from the waist up.  Like it or not, Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie, will be about Dakota’s breasts and not much else.  Otherwise, The Motion Picture Association’s film rating system will step in and tear up half the receipts Focus Features are hoping to cash in on – notably, teenage couples with a hidden agenda.

And speaking of faux porn, the media is still bubble gumming over the latest Disney chick to go wacko on national TV — Miley Cyrus.   At this point, it looks like Britney Spears has been defrocked as the high priestess of … but hey, wait a minute, it’s Tuesday.  Regardless of what the calendar says, summer’s over.  Miley, Biebs and that whole crowd can pack their crop tops and bikini bottoms and take a hike.  It’s time to haul out the scarves and gloves and start acting like we’re adults again.

Ten “Unanswerable” Questions

tenInternet search engines Ask and, in Britain, Ask Jeeves have compiled a top 10 List of “unanswerable” questions.  Apparently this list is based on over a billion queries made on the site since it started in 2000.  What a joke!  These questions are totally answerable.  In fact, they’re easy.  Easy Peasy!  Try it!  First the questions, then the questions with the answers.  Don’t cheat.

Top 10 “UNANSWERABLE” questions.

1. What is the meaning of life?

2. Is there a God?

3. Do blondes have more fun?

4. What is the best diet?

5. Is there anybody out there?

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

7. What is love?

8. What is the secret to happiness?

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

10. How long will I live?

Now the answers:

1. What is the meaning of life?

There is no meaning.  Human beings are just techno-termites, toiling away at our structures, whether they be monster buildings in China and Vegas or virtual agriculture in Farmville and Pioneer Trail.

2. Is there a God?

Of course!  Do you really believe people like Glenn Beck and Lindsay Lohan are the result of millions of years of natural selection?

3. Do blondes have more fun?ten1

Only the women, even though the real ones all seem to hate it.  Guys who are blonde are miserable and spend their time in California flexing their pecs and waiting for that big earthquake to clean them off the planet.

4. What is the best diet?

Are you kidding?  The Mediterranean Diet – tons of salad and bread, 600 kinds of pasta, 300 kinds of sauce, every cheese known to human race including pamasano and if that isn’t good enough for ya there’s tons of pizza and a bottomless wine bottle and – oh yeah – you get gelato at the end of it all and a shot of Limoncino.  Like Jenny Craig can compete with that

5. Is there anybody out there?

There are billions of galaxies in the universe, each one of them has billions of stars and each one of them has at least four or five planets revolving around them.  Do the math and that’s several billion3, a number so big even Stephen Hawkings doesn’t understand it.  Furthermore, since the universe is billions of years old it’s a virtual certainty that something came crawling out of the primeval ooze somewhere (even by accident) and evolved into intelligent life.  Therefore, yes, there is definitely somebody out there.  However, the Area 51/Roswell/Alien autopsy/U.F.O. Conspiracy folks are still idiots because the real unanswerable question is: why would any intelligent life, capable of intergalactic travel, journey several light years through directionless space to visit Dawna and Eddie in a trailer park in Nevada?   Especially since, the Dawna and Eddies of this world seldom remember to charge the batteries in their cameras and can’t figure out how to focus them when they do.

6. Who is the most famous person in the world?

Sorry, Kim and Kanye.  It’s Elvis

7. What is love?

It’s that delicious ache in the very pit of your stomach — often mistaken for lust.

8. What is the secret to happiness?

Sex and warm socks

9. Did Tony Soprano die?

Yes, but what most people don’t know is that Meadow takes over the family (ala Annalisa Zucca, the Italian crime boss from Napoli in Season Two.)  She tells Patrick Parisi to take a hike and brings Furio Giunta out of hiding in Italy to help her run the show.  She locks up her little brother in an extended care facility in New Mexico and then takes over what’s left of Phil Leotardo’s organization.

10. How long will I live?

Right up until the time you see that light at the end of the tunnel — or a couple seconds after you say, “Dude, hold my beer and watch this!” — whichever comes first.

The Royal Family: Fact Not Fiction

queenI can’t help myself.  I love arguing with anti-monarchists.  I never win, so dedicated are they to their point of view, but it renews my faith in the human ability to remain steadfastly obstinate in the face of overwhelming truth and logic.  Let me explain.

For as long as I can remember, the battle cry of the I-hate-the-monarchy crowd has been that the royals are a bunch of useless inbred Germans who cost a lot of money and don’t do anybody any good (notice, they were useless twice.)  And if we got just get rid of them (this is the good bit) we could use the cash they’ve been squandering on polo and tiaras to feed the homeless, clothe the starving and restore peace in our time to Afghanistan.  This is an idiot argument based on fairytale logic you could drive a golden carriage through.

The quaint assumption that once the Queen and her family are off the clock the politicians would automatically use the ex-monarchy money for something useful — instead of the stupid crap they always buy — is ludicrous.  Aristotle, wherever he’s buried, isn’t spinning in his grave; he’s doing the meringue.  Besides, the cost recovery for keeping the royals in the style to which the rest of us would like to become accustomed is worthy of the brilliant money management skills of George Soros and Warren Buffett … combined.

Everybody knows that the monarchy is maintained by the British government.  However, ridiculous as it may sound, a lot of people think that David Cameron and George Osborne show up at Buckingham Palace once a year with a big bag of money stained with the tears of widows and orphans.  They hand it over to the Queen and clear off before she unleashes the corgis.  Nice try — but not even close.  Actually, the money the British government provides for the monarchy is based on a deal, brokered way back when, by King George III.  It’s all very complicated, but here’s the decaf version.

In 1760, George III, not the sharpest royal blade, was up to his sceptre in debt.  He worked out a deal with the British government to exchange the revenue (only the revenue) from his Crown Estates for a one-time debt reduction package and an annual financial grant to keep him in crumpets for the rest of his life.  The government of the day said, “You bet!” and the Civil List was born.  Ever since then, every sovereign has renewed the agreement by voluntarily (voluntarily!) forgoing the revenue from the Crown Estates.  The government, in turn, takes on the financial responsibility of maintaining the institutions of the monarchy, not the Royal Family itself.  In fact, Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Harry and now little George don’t get a penny for their personal use.  I imagine, given it’s the British Isles; most of the taxpayer money is spent on mending the plumbing.

Now, let’s crunch the numbers.  As of March 2012, the annual surplus (Brits don’t like the word profit) on the revenue fromroyals the Crown Estates was just shy of £240,000,000.00 — a hefty chunka change.  Meanwhile, the monarchy, in all its various and assorted glory, costs the British taxpayer, give or take a farthing or two, about £40 million per year.  Do the math: that’s a 600% return on your investment!  The mighty shysters of Wall Street would kill for numbers like that.  However, before you start counting your shillings, this isn’t even where the big money is.

Pound for pound the Royal Family is a tourist attraction that rivals Vegas.  The souvenir industry alone is worth billions.  Walk down any High Street in Britain: you’ll find royal faces on everything from coffee cups to black light posters.  (Yes, I’ve seen those, more than once.)  Furthermore, the crowds the monarchy generates are incredible.  Show up at Buckingham Palace (any day of the week) for The Changing of the Guard, and you’ve got to fight your way in to get a picture.  The line of people waiting to see the Crown Jewels stretches for blocks – every day.  Let’s just crunch a single number.  Last year, in the two months it was open; more than 400,000 people toured Buckingham Palace, and the vast majority were not from London.  Those people had to eat somewhere, they had to sleep somewhere and, by Tube or by taxi, they had to show up to take the tour.  This is business as usual in Britain; throw in a Royal Jubilee, a wedding or a birth announcement and you could pave Hyde Park with American dollars—or, more recently, with Chinese yuan.

There will always be someone ragging on the Royal Family.  However, as the man said, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”  The anti-monarchists are just too strident to think the thing through.  It might cost every Brit– man, woman and child– about 65p (75 cents, this side of the Atlantic) to have a Queen, but if they fired Her Majesty and gave the money back, nobody — from the Isle of Wight to the Isle of Skye — would be ahead more than the price of a hotdog.  Plus, many of them would be ruined by the economic downturn.  In actual fact, the Royal Family is one of Britain’s most valuable sustainable resources.  So, ladies and gentlemen, charge your glasses.  God Save the Queen!