When Harry Met Meghan (II)

harry

Are you sick the British Royal Family, yet?  Yeah, me too, but I’m such a hopeless monarchist that I can’t help myself.  Here are a couple of things that may have just gotten lost in the ocean of wall-to-wall-to-wall -to-floor-to-ceiling Royal Wedding media coverage we’ve all been enduring.  If you haven’t heard these before, go to bed smarter than when you woke up.  If you have heard them, turn off the TV — you’re ODing on purple pageantry.

1 — Just because you marry a prince, you don’t automatically become a princess.  The Brits are very strict about this kind of thing.  For example, Diana (Harry’s mom) was Diana, Princess of Wales and her granddaughter (William’s daughter) is Princess Charlotte.  Notice the difference?  In the British Royal Family, the only way to be a real princess is to be born that way, so there’s a subtle difference in title if you merely marry into it.  Charlotte’s title comes before her name because she is a princess by birth; whereas, Diana’s title came after her name because it was only an honorific.  Meghan Markle isn’t even going to get that close.  After the wedding, she will become Her Royal Highness, Duchess of Something-or-other (probably Sussex) — not a princess, at all.  In fact, even the girl who will be queen, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge isn’t actually a princess.

2 — Meghan Markle might be marrying into one of the richest families in the world, but she’s never going to see any of that money.  In fact, by royal standards, Harry and Meghan will be living very low on the totem pole, indeed.  This was one of the chief complains that Sarah Ferguson (Fergie) had when she was married to Prince Andrew — champagne obligations on a beer budget.  It’s a popular misconception that all members of the Royal family are living large on the taxpayer’s shilling.  Not even close!  Since 2012, when Parliament abolished the Civil List, the Queen and Prince Philip are the only ones who get any government money.  All the other royals, from Prince Charles to Princess Alexandra (61st in line to the throne) may have some of their “official” expenses paid for, but generally they have to fend for themselves.  This puts Harry in a precarious position.  Since he doesn’t actually have a job, the Duchy of Cornwall (Prince Charles’ estate) picks up the tab for him — everything from paying the servants to the cost of a new tuxedo.  So essentially, if Harry wants any extra pocket money, he’s got to go ask daddy for it.  This has led to wild speculation that, given Ms. Markle’s acting career, she may actually have more walking-around money than her husband.

And finally, something silly:

3 — Everyone knows that the Queen loves corgis and her last one, Willow, died very recently.  However, most people don’t know that the Queen still has two dogs, Vulcan and Candy.  They’re dorgis, a mixed breed that came into the Royal household when one of the Queen’s corgis mated with one of her sister, Princess Margaret’s, dachshunds.

5 Types Of People (Plus 1)

peopleIdiots and the Internet are always yipping about how every person on the planet is different and we’re all unique in our own way. What a load of trash!  There are only six types of people in this world.  There might be a lot of combinations and some subtle variations, but in the end, there are really only six.  And they are:

I’m a lover — You never know where you stand with these people.  They love everything!  If you invited them to dinner and serve mud, they say “OMG!  This is the best mud I’ve ever had.  Can you please, please, please give me your recipe?”  These folks are so cheerful you just want to swat them.  And you know — YOU KNOW — they go home at night, wipe that painted smile off their face and throw things at the cat.

I’m a fighter — These are people who are never actually pissed off, but they’re never actually happy, either.  They exist in a kind of twilight zone of irritation.  They’re always pointing out things that bother them — from the guy in the elevator who smelled like fish to the size of Kylie Minogue’s teeth.  They get a lot of traffic tickets — “for no reason” and constantly talk about what they’re going to do to their boss, their neighbours or their in-laws the next time they step out of line.  These people who are always looking for a fight, but they never quite get there.

I have a problem — These are the people who walk the Earth in a state of perpetual difficulty.  They’re constantly being set upon by unusual circumstances and have only one coping mechanism — “I just got screwed!”  When they file their income tax, the paperwork always gets lost.  When they go to the doctor, she can never figure out what’s wrong with them.  There’s usually a vague legal situation looming in the background and some kind of financial problem that never gets fixed.  These folks spend their entire lives “running a little late” because they can’t find their keys, a cab, their phone, their kids, the TV remote or … God, the list just goes on and on and on!

You have a problem — These are the folks who think personal responsibility is something other people need to understand.  They play the Blame Game like it’s an Olympic event — and they’re goin’ for the Gold!  It’s not that they’re never wrong; it’s just that there is always somebody, somewhere, who’s wronger than they are.

I’m smarter than you — There are two kinds of “I’m smarter than you” people.  There are the obvious ones who let you know right away, and then there are the other assholes.  They’re the ones who wait in the weeds until you make a mistake and then leap up and tell you exactly what you should have done and, more importantly, what they would have done if only they’d been in charge.

And finally:

I’m a selfish bastard — Ironically, these are the best people to have as friends, colleagues and romantic partners.  First of all, they hang around because they want to.  Secondly, they have no hidden agenda (selfish bastards!)  Thirdly, by definition you’re never going to be disappointed in them and finally, the biggie: when they do something nice — they actually mean it.

Super-duper Smart People

moon

My whole life has been a lie — and so has yours!  Unless you’re some super-duper scientist, you’ve been living under the delusion that the Earth has only one moon — conveniently called “The Moon.”  You’re wrong.  Our planet actually has two moons, and the second one is called Cruithne.  You didn’t know that, did ya?  Well, don’t feel bad ’cause neither does anyone else outside the super-duper scientist community.  But wait: there’s more!  The reason you and I and everybody else have never heard about Cruithne is another bunch of super-duper scientists thought about it for a while and called “Bullshit!”  They say that this other moon isn’t really a moon; it’s a NEO (Near Earth Object) and, apparently, there are thousands of them flying around out there.  Nerd wars!

The truth is, it doesn’t matter if the Earth has one, two or a thousand moons.  Aside from screwing up some romantic song lyrics and making the horoscope people look like idiots, what difference does it make?  Not much!  The important thing, however, is we have a crew of super-duper smart people sitting around all day, thinking about smart stuff — like whether a space rock the size of a golf course is a moon or not.

Here’s the deal: 500 years ago (1518) if you mentioned the Earth revolved around the Sun, you’d have been burned as a heretic.  (Galileo and his buddy Copernicus barely missed getting the crispy critter treatment for saying exactly that — 25 years later.)  But you don’t have to go back that far.  Less than a hundred years ago, if you told people a moldy cantaloupe could cure everything from pneumonia to blood poisoning, they’d have found a straitjacket and put you in it.  Hell, 30 years ago we only had one moon!  My point is, who knows what absolute facts will be proven wrong 500, 100 or even 30 years from now?

Ordinary people, like me, don’t know anything about microbes or moons or any of the other billions and one things scooting through our universe.  We need super-duper smart people to think about that stuff and figure it out for the rest of us.  People like Da Vinci, Newton, Madame Curie, Einstein and good old what’s-his-name who discovered Cruithne in 1986.  These are the folks who, throughout history, changed the human race from a bunch of thugs with thumbs into the dominant species on this planet.  And if it weren’t for them, we’d still be dancing around the campfire and howling at the moon — whichever one you fancy.

BTW, it’s been generally decided that 3753 Cruithne is not a moon, but for a while there, it looked like we’d all be singing “By the light of the silvery Cruithne.”