While not everyone is enthused about Prince Charle’s impending nuptials to Camilla Parker Bowles, some Aussies in Alice Springs are stoked, and would love to show the Prince a good time.
Councillors in Alice Springs have offered to take Prince Charles on an Aussie-style stag night when he visits next month, while promising the heir to the throne will not end up chained naked to a lamp post.Charles will arrive in Australia for a five-day visit taking in the remote Northern Territory town on February 28 without his bride-to–be Camilla Parker Bowles, who he will marry on April 8.Alice Springs alderman Ernie Nicholls said the council wanted to organise an appropriate “territory send-off”.“We are going to put it to Charles when he comes here, to have his bucks night here,” he said. “Have you heard anyone else offering one?“Everyone’s got to have a bucks night.“Most people learn after the first, but he wants to have a second run at it so we’ll give him a good send-off.”Nicholls said a local pub in town had live web cameras, so Camilla could keep an eye on her future groom.“If he’s playing up too much I’m sure Camilla could send him an email or something,” he said.“Someone’s suggested we chain him naked to the traffic lights but we wouldn’t do anything that bad.”Nicholls was optimistic Prince Charles would agree to the party.“I can’t see why he wouldn’t be up for it,” he said. “He’s a bit of a lad. A few beers, a couple of rums, we’ll get him going.”
I can just imagine the conversation when Prince Charles visits a local Alice Springs pub..
Aussie local 1: Hey Charlie, fancy a bit of a bucks night?Charles: Bucks night? Is that like hunting for deer?Aussie local 2: Naa mate..ya get on the booze until you are completely sloshed.Aussie local 3: Might be some stripping sheilas too!Charles: I see (what on G-d’s earth are these socially inferor life forms saying?)Aussie local 1: So are you in, mate?Charles: In and out.Aussie local 3: Victoria bitter?Charles: Yes, I would say so. Ever since Albert died (what a strangely out of context question).Aussie local 1 (to locals 2 and 3): What on earth is this rich cobber on about?
Update: While Charles may escape being “chained up to a lamp post,” * I wish the same could not be said for another Englishman – London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
Ken Livingstone was under intense pressure last night to apologise for comparing a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard, after a Labour MP condemned his behaviour as ‘appalling’.The London Mayor should say sorry immediately not only to the reporter but to the wider Jewish community, said Andrew Dismore, whose Hendon constituency in north London has a high proportion of Jewish voters. The MP called Lingston’s refusal to do so childish.As Downing Street distanced itself sharply from the row between the Mayor and the Evening Standard, with which he has a long-running dispute, Labour MPs condemned him for his remarks at a party to celebrate the anniversary of MP Chris Smith declaring he was gay.‘I can see that Ken was getting frustrated because I presume the reporter was there to get some story on a perfectly legitimate event that he was hosting, but it’s no excuse for abusing the reporter in the way he did and using language which was wholly inappropriate,’ said Dismore.‘I think Ken should apologise and should apologise quickly, both to the reporter and to the entire Jewish community.While I have a lot of time for Ken on many issues he seems to have a blind spot when it comes to the Jewish community.’The encounter between Livingstone and reporter Oliver Finegold, in which the Mayor – on learning which paper he worked for – asked if he had previously been a ‘German war criminal’ and then accused him of just following orders like a ‘concentration camp guard’, was initially dismissed by the Mayor’s office as a robust joke.But when the Standard disclosed it had a tape recording of the encounter, including Finegold pointing out that he was Jewish and found the remarks offensive, it escalated into a serious dispute.Livingstone has so far refused to apologise, despite condemnation from leading Jewish MPs including Labour’s Gerald Kaufman.
* A rather fitting punishment, given Livingstone’s own fondness for people swinging from lamp posts
