The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Oh to be a fly on the wall
By and large, I don’t feel sorry for the Queen. There again, she probably doesn’t feel sorry for me either. I am not what you would call a royalist, although I did wave enthusiastically to her once in Logie Street, Dundee, when she blurred past in the pouring rain, and my mother, sounding uncharacteristically animated, exclaimed (and she really did exclaim): “Oh look, there’s Philip in the back!”
The Queen, it should be noted, was also in the back.
Anyway, the enthusiastic nature of my waving was to do with (a) being told to, (b) getting a day off primary school, (c) getting a free bar of chocolate in a souvenir tin, and (d) there was a Rolls Royce in Lochee and I would have waved to it anyway, because how often did that happen?
Where was I? Oh aye...I feel sorry for Her Majesty the Queen this week because she has to meet His Travesty the President. And I think that something could go horribly wrong.
I am currently engrossed in the BBC North America editor Jon Sopel’s book, thoughtfully titled, If Only They Didn’t Speak English, and sub-titled Notes from Trump’s America. It includes this perceptive interpretation of events:
“The former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, once remarked that in politics you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose.
“Donald Trump campaigned with a flame-thrower in one hand and a flick knife in the other. Big groups like the media, Wall Street, Washington, the establishment, would get the flamethrower treatment. Political opponents who stood in the way (Republican and Democrat) would get the switchblade. His other favoured method was the drive-by killing by Twitter…”
I just read those words “flamethrower” and “the establishment” in the same sentence, and I thought, ‘And they’re letting this man in the same room as the Queen?’
Having said that, there is a certain grim fly-on-the-wall fascination about their coming together. I mean, what can they possibly talk about? Which of them has more houses? Which of them owns more land? Which of them has more money? How to spend so much money, wisely of course, and in the national interest?
What should one do about fake news?
Quaint hair-styles from a bygone age?
And then there is the whole body language thing. Will he want to shake her hand ostentatiously, a la Macron? And if he tries, will the Household Cavalry have him on the Buck House Axminster before he can say “Howdy, ma’am”?
Will he take her hand like he took Theresa May’s?
And there’s another thing: will he take Theresa May’s hand again when he meets her at Chequers? Because if he does, people will start to talk, and he doesn’t like it when people start to talk about him.
I see the police bill is currently estimated at £5 million, which I think is very good value, and I think they should hand it to him just before he gets back on Air Force One. Then they can tweet the second one once they know the cost of cleaning up after the riots.
What do you mean there won’t be any riots?
Do you suppose that for one minute the relevant committee of government and/or royal advisers paused in their grandiose strategising to contemplate the wisdom of what they proposed? No, neither do I.
I would like to know who came up with the charade, what Whitehall twit thought that having President Trump meet the Queen was a good idea. Because once we find out, I think we should put him in the stocks and throw things at him for a while.
Perhaps the Queen would like first throw.
In fact, given that we now know that it is acceptable in President Trump’s mindset to separate children from their parents at the border and keep them behind chain-link fencing, why is he even being allowed to land in Britain?
As for visiting Scotland, I think he of all people will be sympathetic and understanding when we explain politely that we are anxious to protect our southern border, that when another country sends its nasty people, we should turn them back at the border.
And I am equally sure he will understand if any of his offspring are coming with him, and we politely detain them at Carstairs or some other showpiece of Scottish hospitality?
An air traffic controllers’ strike is also surely worth considering so that his safety cannot be guaranteed in Scottish airspace.
In the real world, he will probably fly into Prestwick (someone has probably told him by now that it worked for Elvis Presley) and proceed by motorcade to the golf links formerly known as Turnberry.
Expect messages of welcome to be lovingly ingrained into the greens by Trump-inspired campaigners wielding flame throwers.
There was a Rolls Royce in Lochee, how often did that happen?