The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #29

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

19 April 2021

To the members of the commonwealth and to all peoples of lowly status,  it is with a heavy heart that I announce the death of my dearly beloved cousin Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband of more than seven decades and a towering ribald figure in the public life of Britain. He was, by the looks of him towards the end, 2000 years old.

I speak to you at this sad time as the Queen’s papa and the father of her children, except the vile Prince Andrew. That unwholesome personage did indeed spring from the loins of the now departed consort.

It may surprise you to hear that I, the Queen’s father, also sired some of her children. Don’t be alarmed. It’s perfectly normal.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was a bit of a stallion in my youth. More to the point incest among royals is alive and well in the 21st century. It is only forbidden for lowly people such as you for the simple reason that you produce ugly inbreds with savage grudges against oversexed college students who mistakenly wander into the Appalachian mountains. Whereas blue bloods are apt to give birth to specimens of the highest caliber, who hang out in Monaco and Mustique. So what if some are simpletons, have buck teeth, huge ears and pronounced honkers? No one is perfect.

But I digress. The Duke of Edinburgh has gone Casper and we must pay respects.

Pip, as I called him from earliest childhood, is survived by the Queen and their children, kooky Prince Charles, hilarious Princess Anne, sleazy Prince Andrew and the invisible Prince Edward. Old Pip had eight grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, and various cheap slags who married into the dynasty, the most recent and possibly worst being Meghan Markle. Not because — as she claims — of her skin color, but because she is one of the richest, most privileged women in the world donning the grey cloak of martyrdom.

She also stole Prince Harry from me, but that’s another story for another day! Not that I am one to hold a grudge.

Anyway, back to Prince Philip. What else is there to say about a man who in true Greek style did so very little with the time allotted to him on earth? Except that idleness is its own virtue. And yet only this morning I heard the bereaved wife proclaim from behind closed doors, ‘So young, so much to give.’

Is she senile or what?

Meretricious Meghan, on the other hand, released a statement asking the media to respect her privacy during this time as she throws a party. La vache bon marché!

My memories of Pip, the fifth child of Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark, and Princess Alice of Battenberg (don’t rich people slum it with the poor?) go back to our idyllic summers on Corfu, before the ghastly proletariat banished the royal family from Greece, and before Princess Alice, dressed as a nun, was committed to a loony bin.

Who says the rich have it easy? They suffer too, you know. Only in greater comfort and elegance than you.

Needless to say it was I who brought the then rather gauche Princess Elizabeth and Pip together. ‘Marry her,’ I told him. ‘You can sponge off the Windsor millions for the rest of your life.’ So struct was the young princess by Pip’s golden Olympiad radiance that she ovulated on the spot and, within days, produced Dumbo, I mean Prince Charles.

The rest as they say is histrionics.

I could relate many an amusing tale about Pip, such as the time we accidentally blew up his uncle Lord Mountbatten’s yacht off the coast of Ireland, killing all on board. Oops. Lucky, the IRA was blamed. Phew!

And how can I forget the time we toured China and Pip called the communist cadres ‘slitty eyes’? Terribly amusing fellow, what?

Which reminds me. If Pip is remembered for anything it will surely be his peppery, take-no-prisoners wit. No concessions to political correctness with him. Oh, no. He went for it, come what may.

Many accused him of being racist or misogynist or whatever adage you care to attach to what was once known as humour. Really, it was Pip letting off steam. He used comedy to keep his feet on the ground on those long, arduous tours of savage, uncivilised places, such as Australia. But he was greatly misunderstood and castigated for it, too, in a most unfair manner, one must say.

As he once observed, ‘Not only do the resentniks have no money but they’ve also lost their sense of humour.’

Wise words indeed! It’s not for nothing Pip was worshipped as a god on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

And so I hereby leave you with Pip’s choicest sayings:

To an Aircraft Research Association: ‘If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.’

On Ethiopian art: ‘It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.’

To a fashion writer: ‘You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?’

On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: ‘A pissometer?’

To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick: ‘And what exotic part of the world do you come from?’

To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms: ‘It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!’

And in case you think he only picks on the less fortunate:

On his own daughter Princess Anne: ‘If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.’

À bientôt, mes amies.

The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. He is currently stateless and lives on gin and cigarettes.

Dmetri Kakmi is the author of Mother Land (shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia), and the editor of When We Were Young. His latest book is The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. He does not endorse the Sozzled Scribbler’s views.