Philip

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Philip

Vole Country

To the casual observer, that breed of happy-go-lucky eccentric who endears himself to the fabulously wealthy by waiting for us outside church on Christmas Day morning wearing little more than homemade bunting and a Union Jack sombrero, the Royal Family might appear to be a rather formidable group who take their duties extremely seriously.

It’s understandable, I suppose, that people perceive us to be a bit heavy in the brow and prone to biting our lips in worry. However, the Red Tuft is here to tell you that this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, we younger royals are the very definition of thrill- seeking revellers with high pain thresholds and a wanderlust that encourages to holiday at least three times a year. In fact, there’s no time or place we don’t look to brighten up with a bit of the Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

For example, I awoke on Boxing Day ready for the first day of Christmas that I knew I would really enjoy. In my excitement, I forwent my usual nicotine gasper beneath the duvet in order to deliver myself to my wardrobe ahead of the day’s big fixture. There my personal valet, Bateman, dressed me in my heavy duty woollens and handed me my cavalryman’s sword. Then, not even pausing to peck the duffer on his cheek, I hammered down the stairs and into the hall in search of adventure. That’s where I found the Old Blazer already wearing his overcoat and selecting his walking stick from his cupboard of a hundred.

‘Ah, Harry,’ said Charles, fingering a six-foot length of gnarled birch with a heavy thumping handle fashioned from the horn of a truculent ram. ‘I thought you weren’t for joining us this morning.’

‘No fear about that, pater,’ I said, grabbing my hunting jacket and placing a deerstalker on my head so it might quell the tuft. I showed him that I was already armed for battle. ‘You know that this is my favourite part of Christmas.’

‘I’m not sure if I should wear this hat,’ said Camilla, suddenly appearing from the side room where I could hear the rest of the family chattering. She was cradling her pipe in her hands and wearing the same large fur hat she’d worn for church the day before. I’d remarked at the time that it made her look like a charging Hussar but she hadn’t appreciated the crack and had glared at me throughout the carol singing.

‘The hat looks great,’ I assured her this time, ‘but you won’t be able to take your pipe.’

‘Can’t I?’ she asked.

‘No you ruddy can’t,’ snapped the Blazer, who takes this annual ceremony seriously. ‘How many times must one tell you, Soapy: they can smell tobacco from a mile away?’

‘Bloody voles,’ said Camilla, sticking her pipe in her back pocket.

Her hostility towards voles is misdirected and proves that she’s still very much an outsider in the family. You see, for as many years as I can remember, it has been one of the Old Blazer’s rituals to spend Boxing Day hunting the voles.

‘One finds that they do an enormous amount of damage in the spring,’ he would explain if you were ever foolish enough to ask him. ‘One must do what one can to eradicate them before they can breed.’

I grant you, it’s an argument I’ve also heard many republicans make but the Old Blazer can prove that voles are a real and present danger to his profits from Dutchy Originals. He’s particularly obsessed with the Sandringham strawberries which go into his jam, or as he calls it, his royal preserve. He even has statistics to back up his case. Not that vole gnawing ratios are the reason the family gets so involved. Just the promise of blood sport is enough to get us all up early on Boxing Day morning.

‘Have a feeling I’m going to break my record today,’ said Prince Philip as he came out to join us. He was already swinging his old polo mallet. Like my grandfather, that mallet hasn’t seen the back of a polo pony in many years but it now gets regular action every Boxing Day when it delivers many voles to their maker.

‘Are we ready,’ cried Aunty Anne, next through the door and armed with a pair of claw hammers. The rest of the family followed, except for my grandmother who has never taken much interest in hunting voles and Uncle Eddie who is also funny about the whole business but funny in a very different way.

‘Won’t any of you listen to reason?’ he shouted from the top of the staircase. He was still wearing his slippers and his Starlight Express sarong. He’s a gentle soul, Eddie, but completely barking when it comes to voles. ‘Don’t you think those voles have as much right as any of us to live and love, sing and dance?’ Even his wife, Sophie, shrugged her shoulders as we all ignored him and streamed towards the front door. ‘Snouts not louts!’ cried Eddie. But like I said: barking…

Once outside, we gathered in the shadow of the house.

‘Okay,’ said the Old Blazer, taking his whistle from a pocket. ‘When I blow the signal, you all have exactly one hour to collect as many voles as possible. Bring them all back here for counting, measuring, and throwing on the bonfire.’

‘And what’s the prize this year, P.C.,’ asked Anne, her cheeks already flushed with excitement. ‘It better not be another copy of that bloody book of yours.’

This was greeted by much laughter. Like the rest of us, she’d received a copy of ‘Harmony’ from the Old Blazer, only, in her case, ‘Harmony’ had quickly been blazing on top of the log fire. In that respect, we’d all agreed that it’s the best book the Old Blazer has written in years.

‘The prize,’ said Charles, leaning on his crooked staff, ‘is so… so… extremely well worth winning this year… The person who brings back the most voles will win… will win…’

He paused for a moment. People think he does it because he’s deep in thought but I know different. It’s the result of one too many cracks across the noggin with a polo stick.

‘Well?’ cried Anne.

‘Er,’ said Charles. ‘The winner will win… Absolutely splendid prize this year… One feels so… so… deeply honoured and in touch with nature just to be giving it away…’

‘On, bladdy hurry up,’ cried Philip, no doubt feeling the chill. ‘What do we win?’

‘Kent,’ said Charles.

‘Bloody hell!’ cried Anne who’s been after another home county to add to her small collection of Berkshire and Surrey. ‘Well, let’s get cracking, shall we?’

(You might not know much about this arrangement we have inside The Firm but we often indulge in a little horse trading of the English counties. It means very little, of course, to the people who live in places like Lancashire and Dorset but we enjoy it as some might enjoy playing Monopoly or playing poker with the global economy. For instance, I own most of the North East and half of Yorkshire but I’d swap the lot for Essex, which I’ve coveted for many years but my brother won’t give up.)

With the prize decided and the terms of victory explained, the Old Blazer raised his whistle to his lips and gave a mighty blow that inflated his cheeks and produced a thin rattle inside the whistle.

And with that, we were off!

I stuck with Philip who immediately started off across the West Lawns. I hunt with him not just because I enjoy hearing his ribald tales but because he knows every inch of the Sandringham estate and he has a natural ability to smell voles from a distance.

‘Ah,’ said he, his leathering brow lowered as he sniffed the cold morning air. ‘There are voles around here, Harry, my boy!’ He led me into the woods and sure enough, we were soon following vole tracks in the snow. ‘Reminds me of the Far East,’ he said as he examined the undergrowth. ‘The Imperial Japanese Army loved to hide in bushes. You couldn’t unbuckle your periscope behind a bush without some little gizzard running at you flashing three foot of steel and shouting “Banzai”. My bladder was a mess when I got back. Still can’t pass water in a rural setting unless I feel like I’m in mortal danger.’

I told him a few anecdotes of my own time in the trenches and we passed out time searching the woods. However, we’d not been hunting for fifteen minutes before a cry went up from over towards the house.

‘Oh, what is now?’ groaned Philip from behind a bush.

I stopped swinging my cavalryman’s sword over the bush to help enhance his feeling of dread.

‘Sounded like the bladdy fool of a son,’ said Philip emerging and zipping himself up.

Sure enough, we got back in time to find the Old Blazer lying on the back of a trailer. Camilla was cradling his head and holding a bottle of whisky to his lips.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘he’s just had a fright.’

I moved to his side. ‘What happened? Did he fall or did you push him?’
Camilla scowled at me but the Old Blazer sat up. ‘Worse than that,’ he said. ‘I was rushed by a mob.’

‘Bladdy locals,’ said Philip, his blood rising and his hands tightening around his polo mallet. ‘How did they get on the estate? I told you we need electric fences and machine gun turrets.’

‘Not locals,’ said Charles. ‘Voles!’

‘Voles?’ I repeated.

‘They’re learning, Harry. Haven’t I always said that they’re a cunning beast? Well, now they’re organised.’

‘You were mobbed by voles?’

‘They ganged up on me,’ said the Old Blazer. ‘They caught me alone.’ He held up his bloodied right wrist, punctured by small holes. ‘Look what they did! This is terrible! That’s where I rest my hand when I’m typing!’

‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ muttered Anne who’d arrived on the scene looking distinctly disappointed. She knew as well as all of us that this meant that the hunt was over.

However, much to her pleasure, it also meant that Anne won Kent with a rather feeble haul of one dead vole which, by the looks of it, had been dead for weeks and was still frozen solid, and a 16oz croquet ball that she’d recovered from a shrubbery where, in a spirit of high jest and mild intoxication, I’d bowled it the previous summer hoping to stun a corgi as it did its business in the bushes.

Once Charles was back in the house and had been attended by the best surgeon in London who dressed his vole bites, it was decided that these organised voles were too much for us and that we’d have Special Branch clean out the woods in the spring. These voles might have organised but they’re not so organised that they’ll be able to out-riot a Heckler & Koch MP5k.

As for myself, I returned to my room feeling that Christmas had ended rather early.

Bateman met me at the door.

‘Catch many voles this year, sir?’ he asked, taking my sword from me.

I kicked off my boots. ‘They’re organising,’ I said. ‘Break out the whisky.’

His eyes questioned me with a look meant to say ‘Before lunch, sir?’ but he knew better than to ask. If I couldn’t enjoy Boxing Day one way, I’d enjoy it the other. The very familiar other.

Regius Gingiber! 

Charades At Christmas by The Red Tuft

The Red Tuft’s Christmas Message

A transcript of my annual Christmas message, as broadcast over at The Dabbler.

Dear Subjects (of my grandmother),

It’s three o’clock on Christmas Day and, if any part of you is Englishman, you’ll be sat at home, nursing a mince pie, and watching this year’s Queen’s Christmas Message. And I’m sure it will delight! Having finally listened to me, the old girl has adopted an ‘X Factor’ approach to 2010’s highlight reel, so please vote for your favourite natural disaster or ceremonial ahead of the grand final in the New Year when the two lucky finalists will compete for a cash prize.

Yet despite my hand in the broadcast, you’ll quickly twig that it’s all a bit heavy on charity work and very light on culture. Luckily, I bumped into your editor licking the bark from the bar at Mahiki the other night and he asked me if I’d like to provide my own Christmas message to a more cultured audience. Naturally, I said that I would and we drank to our arrangement until the early hours.

Television in 2010 explored new territory, especially at the upper end of the Sky Viewing Guide. A special mention has to be made to Babestation which continued the excellent work they started in 2009 by extending its broadcasts into daylight hours so red-headed men can be entertained whilst sobering up ahead of a busy night on the town. However, this being a culture blog, I hope you’ll agree with me that the television highlight of the year was the moment Jeremy Kyle suffered severe paper lacerations when a snorting yahoo threw an envelope at the back of his head.

My musical highlights of the year are many but my Album of the Year is Sparks' ‘Seduction of Ingmar Bergman’, a choice which might surprise you. Yet my knowledge of Swedish and natural ability to sing in a high falsetto made Ron and Russell Mael’s witty experiment the perfect antidote to much of the autotuned pap that has passed for hit records this past year. I might also make a second recommendation of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s IRM (Because Music/Elektra) not because English brunettes with impeccable French are the flavour of the month but because it made up for ‘Antichrist’, the film that ruined my most promising date of the season.

If Lars Von Trier didn’t carry away the film award this year, who did? My award for ‘Services to Cinema’ goes to Judge William Hodges who locked up Wesley Snipes for tax avoidance. If, like me, you sat through ‘Game of Death’ you will think three years is what he deserves.

Sport was rarely out of the news and the World Cup was a victory for the vuvuzela’s bid to be taken seriously as a musical instrument. However, another bid didn’t go so well and my own brother made an arse of himself schmoozing with FIFA wideboys. I was asked to attend but I was too busy putting pins into my Sepp Blatter doll. Meanwhile, Zippy Phillips continues to dominate her sport (as well as the imagination of her cousin) but this year also saw her engagement to rugby star Mike Tindall. He’ll be a welcome addition to the family since we’ve not had someone able to rush a student riot since Fergie was kicked out of the Firm. My tip for next year: don’t go poking us royals with any sticks.

Can’t say I noticed a ‘Book of the Year’ but I can name my ‘Calendar of the Year’. Keeley Hazell trumped the rest by delivering a calendar that defied the critics. The setting was conventional – silky bedclothes and soapy lather abounds but the placement of witty elements elevated the genre to new heights – but I was particularly taken by the way she enhanced her cleavage with a large yellow rubber duck and her use of a large paper fan to keep her cool whist my temperature soared.

Online, the events of the year are no less difficult to choose. After much deliberation, my blog of the year has to be ‘The Dabbler’. Recent feature articles on whisky and beer have particularly caught my eye as well as my throat. Indeed, my Drink of the Year is not the usual expensive wine. I’m instead nodding my head towards a little cocktail invented by Yours Truly and named after this blog. ‘The Dabbler Daiquiri’ is a simple drink containing rum, lemon juice, St-Germain elderflower liqueur, lime juice, a touch of sugar, vodka, and mixed with a paddle in half a bucket of iced Moet and Chandon Brut Imperial Champagne.
Finally, we come to the big awards.

My ‘Woman of the Year’ is Lady Gaga for doing much to enhance the status of women, particularly the work she has done to promote fire safety.

For the fourth year running, my ‘Man of the Year’ is Silvio Berlusconi who continues to enliven Western European culture by providing a role model for the rest of us with ambitions to never let our libido lapse.

All winners will be notified through the post but let me end by wishing you all well for the New Year. 2011 promises much in the way of royal weddings, Wikileaks, and naval conflicts off the Korean peninsula.

That Ruddy Coin

I hate the wallpaper in my room up here in Sandringham. It resembles a sneezing fit in a lepidopterist’s study with dead moths stuck to all the walls. A lepidopterist, for those of you not in the know, is a moth collector. Or so the Old Blazer tells me. He’s quite the one for using big words.

Me, I’m a guy who loves a good abbreviation. For instance, if I were to say that I also hate the furniture in my room, I’d add that it consists of nothing but knobbly elbows that always connect with your nuts when you get up in the middle of the night to relieve the weight of bladder on the ale. Only, that’s not how the Old Blazer would describe it. It would be ornamental bosses impacting testicles, which, if you ask the humble opinion of this Red Tuft, doesn't adequately convey the situation I’d be trying to describe. That situation is best summed up as: two weeks of solid boredom as we royals come to Norfolk to celebrate Christmas.

Then there’s the view from my room. I used to have a nice angle on Zippy Phillip's boudoir but I think she grew suspicious of the way my curtains kept twitching at night and I’ve been moved around to the other wing where I now overlook the farm. From where I’m typing this, I can watch manure steam.

And that’s the real problem with Sandringham: it’s no better than living on a farm. It’s also too crowded. We all get under each other’s feet, which wouldn’t be so bad except Uncle Eddie has to put anti-fungal powder between his toes and we all end up spending the holidays smelling like mustard.

So, if you detect a note of misery in the old Red Tuft today it’s because I’m not at home...

And while I'm complaining, I should add that I’m also damn exhausted.

I thought Christmas this year would mean escaping London and taking some R&R. Only I now find myself in the middle of this mini-crisis over these souvenir coins commemorating next year's Royal Wedding. I refuse to take the blame, of course, and I’ve spent my morning firmly pointing my finger at the Old Blazer who lies at the heart of the spectacular cock up.

It all began when Will asked me to provide a design for the coin. He knows that I enjoy doodling and his plan was that my design would be sent to the Royal Mint where one of their top illustrators would take on the commission, copy my design but fill in the faces with some lifelike resemblances. You know: steely glances, soft pouts, and the usual amateur dramatics in gilt form.

Now, I’m no great shakes as an artist. I hold up my hands to that one. And I certainly find it difficult drawing a likeness when I’ve not got the original sitting in front of me, preferably still and even more preferably buxom and naked. The buxom part certainly makes the artistic juices flow.

Only both Will and the Lovely Brunette were unavailable to sit for me but that was not going to be a problem. The Royal Academy type down at the Royal Mint would sort out the noses from mouths. I needed to only think about the design of the coin so, naturally, I employed a couple of models to stand in for the happy couple.

Nelly Duffy is in charge of the Old Blazer’s washing over at Clarence House. She is a lovely woman who was only too willing to help, but I’m sure she won’t mind mentioning that she has a slightly lazy eye. Young Bill is the window cleaner and general odd job man. He’s the son of Old Bill who did the same job for the past fifty years, and even Older Bill who did it before him. He too was up for a little modelling. Of course, neither Young Bill nor Nelly Duffy look anything like Will and the Lovely Brunette but they had the right shape of heads for the purpose of my design so I slipped them a couple of fivers and had then sit in the corner of my pad for the afternoon as I pencilled them into my plans.

Things when awry once I’d finished designing my coin. I forwarded my sketch to the Old Blazer only for the Old Blazer to perform his duties with his usual indifference to the whole project. Before you know it, he'd passed them on to the Royal Mint with instructions to have them made. Now there are twenty thousand coins depicting Clarence House’s cross-eyed washerwoman and a man who spends most of his time up a ladder cursing London pigeons.

I’m only telling you this so you don’t believe any of the accusations you read in the papers, especially if any of those accusations are directed towards my easel. You should also get in there and buy a coin before the stocks run low. There’s already talk of recalling them in the New Year – or, at least, producing no more when the current stocks run low – so this will be a much more collectable commemorative coin than any other. Not only were they designed by me but they are the only coin minted to celebrate minor members of the royal household.

To my credit, people tell me that I’ve captured Nelly and Bill’s likenesses to perfection. I hope you agree.

Regius Gingiber!

Philip

The Old Blazer and the Snowman

As you know, the Old Blazer loves his organic crops. Many are the days I’ll breeze over to Highgrove and find him in the greenhouse, knee deep in the compost as he gees on the earthworms to greater industry.

‘One can’t help but feel that they respond to a few words of encouragement,’ he will say. ‘In that respect, the common earthworm reminds one very much of the working men of Dagenham…’

Yet, about a month ago, I noticed a distinctive lack of enthusiasm creeping into our conversations. He has been spending less time encouraging and taking more time moping, looking out of the window and sighing a lot. Eventually, I knew there’d be an outburst. Little did I expect the cause to be something so mundane.

‘It’s the snowman,’ cried the Old Blazer, standing in his office and looking out over Highgrove’s grounds. ‘I can’t help but feel like he’s watching me.’

‘What snowman?’ I asked.

‘That snowman there,’ said Papa Onion. ‘One’s staff made it.’

‘Bloody cheek!’ I said taking my position at his shoulder and looking out at the monstrosity. ‘I hope you’ve told them to pull it down. If the newspapers get wind of these pagan rites they’ll compare you with Russell Grant again and you know how that ended up.’

‘That’s just it,’ said the Blazer. ‘One would look an absolute tyrant if one started to pull down snowmen, even if it is a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant vegetable patch.’

‘You know where I stand on these matters,’ I said. ‘I’d happily pull it down for you. My reputation couldn’t get any lower, unless, of course, they started to compare me with Russell Grant, which would be an outrage. I’ve always seen myself more of a Russell Brand or perhaps even Russell Crow.’

‘Russell Hobbes would be closer to the truth,’ sniped my father who can be a touch sharp when the occasion warrants. ‘However, that’s a very kind gesture, Harry. But it would simply be the wrong thing to do.’ He looked at the snowman again. ‘Besides, over the last few weeks, one has become quite captivated by it. I have the distinctive feeling that it’s looking at me. I know this will sound odd, Harry, but I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before.’

‘It’s a snowman,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you’ve seen it many times before.’

‘No, no,’ said the Old Blazer. ‘But there is something quite specific about this particular snowman. One can’t put one’s finger on it…’

I looked at the snowman but more carefully this time. I looked at the lime green scarf wrapping the oversized head, punctuated by a carrot nose and a couple of lumps of eyes. The hat on the head cast a shadow across the face at the point where the mouth was clamping hold of a briar pipe. That’s when it hit me.

‘It’s the pipe!’ I said.

‘By jove,’ gasped the Old Blazer. ‘You’re right. I never spotted it before! The slope of the shoulders, the penetrating stare. It looks just like Camilla!’

‘Those swines have stolen her pipe,’ I said. ‘It’s an outrage.’
Ten minutes later, we had brought Camilla to the window to identify her pipe.

‘That was my old pipe,’ she laughed in her usual baritone low C. ‘I threw it away last week. Good to know it’s getting some use. My old scarf and hat too I see.’

‘You aren’t slightly dismayed,’ I said, ‘that the staff have recreated you in the form of a snowman?’

‘Touching,’ said Camilla, lighting her calabash. She sucked it into life and then blew a smoke ring. ‘In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that it’s better than being poked with a stick.’

Camilla is always comparing everything to being poked with a stick since she was indeed poked with a stick the other week by those rioters. When the cook under-boiled the sprouts the other night, Camilla wolfed them down whilst assuring us that they were still better than being poked with a stick. When we had yet more snow the other day, that too was better than being poked with a stick and I overheard her telling the American ambassador that not being mentioned in Wikileaks was infinitely preferable than being poked with a stick.

Her indifference was the last straw and I was not having any of it. I ran around to the back door and went out, snatched the pipe from the snowman’s lips, removed the hat and scarf, and began to dismantle the snowman with the toe end of my boot. Then I ate its carrot.

‘Perhaps you can dispose of these in a way that means they don’t end up mocking you from the garden,’ I said, as I came back in doors and handed Camilla her belongings.
Like I said, that was about a month ago.

This morning I sat down to watch H.M’s Christmas broadcast. We always get an early look of her review of the year, even if I had places I’d have preferred to be.

Anyway, I was thumbing through the Radio Times, Wills was standing in the corner of the room whispering sweet somethings to the Lovely Bruntette, Camilla was sitting in her favourite chair cleaning her pipe, and Papa Onion was at my side on the sofa, commenting on the show.

‘No, no,’ I heard him mutter. ‘No, no. That’s not right.’

I looked up. ‘What’s wrong, Papa?’ I asked.

‘That Somali Warlord,’ he said, tugging at the lobe of his right unmentionable. ‘One has the distinctive impression that I know him from somewhere.’

I looked at the screen. It was recent footage from the front line against the war on terror and a heavily armed militia leader was staring into the screen. I looked at the lime green scarf wrapping the oversized head, punctuated by a scarred nose and a couple of eyes as cold and hard as lumps of coal. The hat on the head cast a shadow across the face at the point where the mouth was clamping hold of a briar pipe. That’s when it hit me. I nearly said something but then I shook my head.

‘He has a passing resemblance to Denzel Washington,’ I told him.

‘Ah,’ said the Blazer, visibly relaxing. ‘That must be it.’

I looked across the room and smiled at Camilla. The fact she’d donated her old clothes and pipe to Oxfam was to be commended. It was just unfortunate they’d made their way to a world hotspot, fallen under the gaze of a BBC camera, and made the final cut of The Queen’s Christmas Message. However, all things considered, it could have been worse. As I’m sure she would agree, it was better in fact than being poked with a stick.

A New Member of the Family

I’d like to add my early-morning husky cheer to the chorus of well-wishers celebrating the news that my cousin, Zippy Phillips, is to marry her boyfriend, Mike Tindall. Of course, the term ‘boyfriend’ applies loosely to a man who would more accurately be described as a ‘man-friend build like a walnut workbench’. I love rugby players as well as the next season ticket holder to Twickenham but I can’t help but think that Zippy is marrying Bob Hoskin’s bigger and more mangled brother.

But that’s Zippy for you: a woman of independent spirit. She reminds me of my aunt, her mother. Aunty Anne is another independent spirit. Ideally, she would have been born two hundred years ago on the American frontier. Put her in a log cabin located in some remote spot deep inside Indian territory with only a sharp stick to protect her and she’d have been in her element trapping and skinning wild beasts, living off the land, wrestling mountain lions...

I have to say that it always amuses me to read the newspaper reports that say that ‘The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are said to be "delighted" by the news.’ I happen to know that H.M. barely looked up from the Racing Post and that my grandfather is still confused enough to think that Mike Tindall made a fool of himself by appearing in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.

However, never let it be said that the old Red Tuft is completely against marriage (for more about that, please see my reasonably priced book), especially when it brings new blood into the family. We’ve been crying out for serious muscle able to cripple a journalist with a shoulder barge since Fergie was given the boot. I’d like to wish them much happiness together and if they could put their heads together to create some strange union of horse jumping and rugby, they’d find me a more-than-willing participant.

Horse rugby. Now there’s a thought…

Going Postal

I don’t know about you but foreign ownership of your own grandmother’s head was not something I voted for at the last election. Not that I voted, you understand. Democracy is not written into my constitution, plus I was rather busy on the day of the General Election. I didn’t climb from under the Page 3 girls topping my duvet until well after the polls had closed and, by then, all the damage had been done.

My distinct lack of interest in politics is rather inconvenient now that I want to complain to the government. No sooner had I got back from this weekend’s celebration of general red tuftedness over on the Rhine than I saw the news reports that some foreign types plan to ditch H.M.’s head from the non-denominated. Well, it’s a bloody outrage and you can quote me on that, though, naturally, having a key role in the British monarchy means that I’m unable to voice my concerns publicly so I would prefer it if you didn’t quote me on that. Or, at least, not until my speech writer has had a good look over it…

‘Don’t play politics’ is one of the first lessons we’re taught, along with ‘never compliment a scullery maid about her shins’ and ‘never talk about your Uncle Andrew’s party trick of potting a pink without a billiard stick’.

I’m meant to keep a low profile when it comes to dealing with H.M. Gov. types but that never stops me from jumping on the back of a butler and spiking my down to Whitehall to see the toff in charge. I’m always discreet about the whole business.

‘Who’s the bloody Tommy Rotter who wants to behead my grandmother?’ I cried as I burst into the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills this Monday morning. That might be a long-winded title for a minor department but you have to remember that they have the same model of civil service coffee machine as any other department. Never forget that when they start feeding you the greased porridge.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but the minister isn’t available at the moment,’ said the skirt in charge. Distinctly not a looker, you understand. Resembled a fly half who’d met the prop forwards a few too many times.

‘Not available!’ I cried, lashing my riding crop into a potted creeper in the corner of the room. The creeper gave a yelp and began to snivel. ‘I bet the minister would be available if I dragged Joanna Lumley in here. Is that what you want? You want me drag in the Lumley to sort out this trouble?’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary, sir,’ said the skirt, not reacting to the Lumley threat the way that I’d hoped. But that’s the problem with the Lumley Option. It works less often than it should. ‘The minister is currently chairing important meetings. Perhaps you could arrange this through your office…’

They always say things like that. If I were to follow their advice, I’d do very little in life and I’d have to check with my office every time I wanted to lick salt before my tequila. I’ve found that it’s best to barge right through their objections and present them with the heart of the matter.

‘I’ve come to complain about these plans you’ve hatched about my grandmother’s head,’ I began. ‘The old girl’s disgusted that you could think of ditching her after all these years of faithful service. Do you think it is easy getting to sleep at night knowing that a nation has tasted the back of your head? Well, I want to know what you have planned and I sincerely hope you don’t tell me it’s a re-branding exercise.’

‘I’m sure that’s not the case at all,’ said the woman calmly.

‘So,’ I asked, eyebrows narrowing until they formed a peach of a frown, ‘you don’t have a meerkat lined up to replace her?’

‘A meerkat?’

‘Oh, don’t deny it. They’re all over the place these days. There was a time when you’d only ever find them crapping on David Attenborough’s trilby. Now you can’t escape them.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do. Perhaps you could have your office make an appointment...’

Well, a second suggestion that I should run this through my office was just too much. I’ve learned how to be diplomatic at the highest level but I’ve also learned how to be undiplomatic too.

‘Damn it all,’ I cried, looking for another creeper to lash but only spotting the water fountain. I thrashed it within an inch of its tap. ‘You civil servants are all the same. You don’t take a blind bit of notice unless there’s some yobbish son of Pink Floyd swinging from your balcony.’

‘I hardly think that’s true,’ said the woman in that way they have of telling you that they’re about to call security.

‘Oh, I’ve watched Sky News, especially when that blonde with the big lips is on. I saw the student riots and if that’s what it takes to get the attention of the minister in charge you can count me in.’

And with no further ado, I unlatched a nearby window and stepped onto the subsequent ledge.

A few pigeons were a little confused seeing a happy-go-lucky Ginger Tom appear in their midst but I gave it no mind. I have a head for heights. A head for pigeons too, though you might call that incidental detail. Soon I was digging the toes of my cavalryman boots into the cracks in the wall and I began shimmying up the outside of the building.

I’ve often watched those ‘Fathers For Justice’ lot and, though not a father myself, I admire their approach. If you want to get things done you must be willing to do the ordinary extraordinarily well or be quite ordinary at the extraordinary. I, as it happens, am extraordinary gifted when it comes to the extraordinary. The only thing I was missing was by inflatable Batman costume.

Not that I should have worried. I’d barely climbed the six floors to the roof on the north face of the building when I heard a door open nearby.

‘I was told you wanted to see me,’ said the Minister in Charge suddenly appearing on the roof. He was a touch out of breath and the snowflakes set off the red in his cheeks quite magnificently.

‘You’re just in time,’ I explained. ‘I was just about to stage a protest. I don’t like what you’ve got planned for my grandmother’s head. I find it a bit disrespectful.’

‘Ah,’ said the Minister in Charge. ‘Well, the plans are only provisional and we are still trying to reach an agreement about the issue of the monarch’s head.’

‘What do you think that lot down there will make of it?’ I asked, pointing a boot towards the street. ‘They love us, you know?’

‘Indeed they do, sir,’ said the M. in. C. ‘But it’s a matter of making the post office an attractive sale.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘well then, you’ve come to the right man. I can tell you how to make the post office an attractive sale.’

‘I really doubt that,’ he replied. ‘It’s a bloody mess if I’m honest. We can’t give it away.’

I clicked my teeth. ‘Well, there you go. You sound like you really do need my help and I have a cracking good idea for you.’

He looked at me in silence, clearly the patient type who is willing to wait for good news.

‘Sex it up!’ I said.

‘Sex it up?’ he repeated.

‘That’s right. Sex sells.’

‘Does it?’

‘Oh, it does!’ I assured him, warming to my subject. ‘The problem with the Post Office is that you’ve forgotten your basics. Here you have a totalitarian organisation famous for its uniforms. Only it’s gone the way of any half-arsed militia. Once you allowed them to stop wearing uniforms, you lost the public’s interest. You need to revitalise the service. Give them new uniforms, black in possible but leather is preferable. Thigh high boots and low cut tops. You want the nation to feel its pulses quicken when the post is due. With a proactive hiring policy, this could be a winner.’

‘A proactive hiring policy?’

‘Yes, pro-actively hiring the blonde female stunners with an eye for a postcode.’

‘I hadn’t thought about it like that,’ said the Minister. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

I nodded but, to be honest, thinking about post-women delivering the mail had put me in the mood for a sniff of hem down at the club. A jug of rum would be just the job after all this hanging around on cold ledges solving the problems of the Royal Mail.

‘Fancy a drink?’ I asked the Minister.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty.’

‘Pah!’ I said, throwing my arm around his shoulder. ‘This is state business. Come with me. I’ll fill you in on my ideas for late-night parcel post.’

‘Late night? Wouldn’t that be a strange time to deliver parcels?’

‘It depends on how you deliver them,’ I told him as we walked into the building.

The rest, as they say, will appear when official documents are released in a hundred years or more. Alternatively, you can read them next week on Wikileaks.

Regius Gingiber!

The Humanitarian Award

This is the last I'll say about the extremely important award I picked up in Germany for my charity work. I’m far too humble to boast about such a distinguished gong presented by such an important body of people. The fact is that I’m often asked to pick up awards for my charity work but I’m always loath to go public about all the good I do, especially when the picking-up of awards gets in the way of doing even more good work. It’s a delicate balance to strike. Do you stop serving soup to the homeless in favour of eating soup with people that own not just one home but several? The answer is, of course, that you do attend the event but you also bring back some soup for the poor, along with a few crusty rolls and whatever else you can squeeze into your pockets. (My tip: empty your pockets before you leave the hotel.)

Anyway, to answer a question which is often posed to me after these events, here is a list of my top ten humanitarians (not including family or friends).

1. Angelina Jolie
2. Madonna
3. Joanna Lumley (circa the green Lycra leotard she wore in ‘The New Avengers’)
4. Liz Hurley (does charity work on behalf of orthodontists)
5. Pamela Anderson (very much anti-lice)
6. Kelly Brook
7. Adriana Lima (Victoria’s Secrets)
8. Bono
9. Ghandi
10. Mother Teresa

Regius Gingiber!

The Monday Doodle

Taking The Piste

Having grown up hearing the Old Blazer talk about global warming, the migratory habits of sperm wales, and the dangers that oblong buildings pose to the environment, it should come as no surprise when I say that I don’t believe a word of it.

I don’t deny that I’m a climate change denier but I do deny that my denial is anything but well-reasoned.

Take it from a man who understands snow as well as he knows his way around a French chalet maid keen on English mustard but there’s nothing unseasonable about a drop of the white stuff around Christmas. If there was, Santa would have wheels on his sleigh and would have chosen something with more grip than a rosaceated reindeer to power his drive train. In all probability, he’d be riding a Japanese quad bike and breaking and entering via through a window left open on a warm muggy night rather than the chimney.

Not that the Press would have you believe any different. If they didn’t have ‘unseasonable’ snow, they wouldn’t be able to bore the pants back on us.

You want the facts of climate change? Well here they are:

• November to April, you can always be sure of some good skiing at Klosters;
• it’s never too cold for the open-necked look the chickeroos love so much;
• all times of the year, it’s always going to be cold sleeping on the floor of airport, so don’t complain when you wake up shivering and with your pockets pinched;
• if times get really tough and you begin to think about chopping up furniture to feed the fire, you should begin with a highly combustible 336 pages. There’s enough there to keep you warm until February;
• and, finally, it's never too cold for a good pun on the word 'piste'.

Regius Gingiber!

Bingo!

If everything goes according to the blueprints, I’ll be accepting humanitarian awards in Germany when this blog goes live.

You can call me a weasel if you must but this wise ginger knows when to stay well away from the political fallout that’s bound to ensure when my opinions are made public. And I don’t intend to be in the country when the Old Blazer finds out that I don’t agree with everything he says.

Publicity! That’s what this blog is about and I hope you accept it in the spirit in which it is written.

The simple fact is that I’m sick and tired of people telling me what I can or cannot do with my life. When the BBC recently approached the Red Tuft and asked if it would like to appear on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, I said: ‘Sign me up a bronzed bird with a toothy grin and double-d cups taped down for the bolero.’ However, then the Old Blazer caught wind of my plans and the whole thing went the way of my guest appearance on ‘Mock The Week’.

It’s simply not fair.

How can a prince of the realm establish his celebrity credentials if his hastily formed opinions aren’t out there before the British public?

The Old Blazer is all over the news with his new hardback yawn and Will has a prime-time slot booked in the spring. Yet Yours Truly is going to find it difficult making down to the Loose Women studios without Special Branch standing in my way.

Hence this blog and the little treatise of mine that I’ve had Batemen, my personal valet, type up in his spare time and which is now available from Amazon.

The Red Revolution starts right here! And when I can find myself another napkin, I’ll write out a little more about what I intend to do with this blog.

Regius Gingiber!