Royal Nuisance

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband arrive in the United States today to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, a happy celebration of disease, famine and war with native Americans.

It seems funny that our forefathers staged a revolution to throw off the shackles of an oppressive monarchy and yet, centuries later, hundreds of modern Americans are clamoring to see the current monarch and fretting over what to wear and how to behave.

What also seems funny is the sanitized world in which the royals live. I wonder if they realize that wherever they go, they are seeing a highly glossed and polished view of what really is. They see schools where children stand quietly, wearing their best clothes, presumably pressed the night before. They see hospital wards that are clean, quiet and, I suspect, devoid of patients screaming in pain.

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which the monarchs will visit during their current trip, the chief of public affairs is mainly concerned with making sure the queen and prince "don't trip over extension cords stretched across the aisle."

When I lived in Kenya, there was a patch of tarmac just down the otherwise pothole-filled road where we lived that was perfectly paved and smooth. The patch started and ended abruptly and lasted for about 20 feet. I always wondered why someone had bothered to pave just one small, random patch of the road. Then someone explained:

The Queen had come to visit a few years before. Her itinerary involved her driving from the airport to the United Nations campus in Gigiri. To get there, she needed to drive close to where we lived, taking a fork to the right to ascend a hill. From the incline, if the royal dear had bothered to turn to her left, she would have seen a beautifully paved, 20-foot patch of road. Not surprisingly, the exact route that she drove had also been smoothly tarred just before her arrival. What I wonder is if Lizzie realized that this had all been done in her honor, or if she congratulated herself on leaving Kenya in such a fine state after colonial times. "My what lovely roads they have here!"

In the interest of full disclosure I should relate one other anecdote to counteract the somewhat cynical tone of this piece. During my last year of high school I lived in Barbados, a tiny Caribbean island that had not, at the time, been independent of Buckingham Palace for long and was still known as “Little Britain.”

I attended Queen’s College, one of the top high schools in the country. Our school had outgrown its facilities and plans were under way to build new, modern grounds. During a visit to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Barbados’ Parliament, the Queen was to lay the foundation stone of our new school. The entire island seemed to have been spruced up for her arrival. One day, before our stone-laying ceremony, the royal entourage was to drive past our old school on the way to the Parliament buildings. All the school children were given tiny paper flags and asked to line the street and wave when the cars passed by. I wanted to gag. I ranted to my parents about the irrelevance and pretension of it all. I was adamantly anti-royal.

The day of the ceremony came and the afternoon was predictably choreographed. The Queen made a speech and laid the stone. At least we all assumed she laid the stone; we were seated too far back to see much of anything. My photographs of the day consist of a sea of blue school uniforms surrounding a little dot wearing a hat. After the speech, the Queen and her entourage filed out down an aisle past the seated students. Half way down, they stopped and began to chat with students, Queenie on the far side and her hubby, Philip, on my side, directly in front of me and a few of my friends. He asked about our uniforms, what class we were in and other inanities. When he detected an American accent, he had an in-depth chat with my friend Rachael the exchange student about her hometown in Oregon.

Suddenly my teenage rage completely dissipated. Phillip was suave and charismatic and we were all sad when he moved on down the aisle to talk to some other students. For weeks, perhaps months, I related this story to everyone I met. I had been charmed by a royal.

The Wacky World of Ebay

Ebay is a strange thing. In the right hands, it can be an effective tool for exchanging merchandise according to the basic laws of supply and demand. In the wrong hands, it can be a masterful guise for fraud and deception.

And in the hands of people with a bit of imagination and spare time, it provides some oddly intriguing offers:

• Koopa, an artist living in Connecticut who just happens to be a turtle, is selling his original artwork (see above). Koopa's paintings hang in all 50 U.S. states, as well as Canada, Bahrain, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy, and he has been featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

• An ebay member known as little_ska_band is selling memories of his childhood, which he describes as “amazing.” For a minimum bid of $350, you can have this young man’s go-cart, car bed, play kitchen, bike and other toys. However the real treasure, he says, is his ‘book of memories’ containing recollections of birthdays, friends, family and embarrassing mishaps. (In true ebay style, the seller adds this disclaimer: “Only one book will ever be made and all memories will be authentic.”)

• In a similar vein, you can buy ‘everything that Lisa Perry owns’ - from mid-century modern chairs to 8-track tapes and Talbot dresses - in one lot (buy-it-now price $2,000). The auction is, Perry says, part of an effort to “rid myself of possessions which have kept me looking backward.” There are currently 9 bids.

• If you’d rather make your own history than buy someone else’s, you may want to consider buying a Scottish ‘sporting estate’ that, for $49.95, comes with the right to call yourself ‘Laird’ or ‘Lady’. If you have gullible friends, it’s a great way to impress them. What you really get is a certificate entitling you to a 12-inch-square piece of the highlands. Archaic Scottish law being what it is, this is enough for you to be a master of a landed estate - so there you go!

• Lastly, the opportunity to exact sophomoric revenge. For $5.00 (plus shipping and handling) millard_699 will mail your foe a diaper smeared with melted chocolate to simulate human feces. Now you may be thinking you could just do it yourself but our plucky seller is already two steps ahead of you: “Sure you could do it yourself and maybe get away with it... Drive to the store, buy a whole pack of diapers, put chocolate or peanut butter in it, purchase a box, insert your own note and ship it yourself, sure you could probably do all this yourself........ BUT WHY!! Why go through all that!! We'll do it for you cheaper than you can do it yourself and we'll save you the time and the trouble!!” Hey, you can’t argue with that logic.

The Secret to Satisfaction

My friends... I believe I have unwittingly stumbled upon the key to being happy. The catch is, it involves moving to South Korea, becoming a gangster and of course ... not getting caught.

It seems that of 109 jailed South Korean gangsters questioned, nearly 80 percent said they were either somewhat or very satisfied with their life of crime. This compares to about 65 percent of police who enjoyed what they did, according to another survey. The results, no doubt, have much to do with the fact that gangsters in Seoul take home about 4 million won a month, roughly $4,255 US, through extortion, prostitution and gambling.

I love the fact that South Korean researchers took the time to ask the convicts whether they liked their work. I tend to think, however, that few of us, when jailed, would not look back wistfully on our life of work - not matter how droll it might have been. I think the Age-o-Matic is a much more realistic and intuitive measure of the affect our jobs have on us. Try it and see!

Holy Sh... Shanghai!

When New York City banned smoking in restaurants and bars many residents groaned and grumbled; but in the end I think we can all agree it was a good thing. Likewise when London banned cars from the city center I’m sure tons of people were inconvenienced. But now dozens of other metropolises are introducing similar measures. Singapore banned chewing gum in public places. Moscow banned gay pride parades. Kuwait banned men from working in lingerie shops.

But a ban on swearing? Now that’s just too much!

Not for Shanghai... The city is now considering a law that makes using swear words in public an illegal offense. Dirty words, according to city officials, often lead to physical fights, which could turn lethal. The law would also extend to spitting, littering, jaywalking and uncivilized behaviour on the part of dog owners. Fines are yet to be determined and may work on a sliding scale according to the income of the offender.

From what I understand, swearing has a long and venerable history in China. Swears are inventive and expressive - from “dog fart” to “turtle’s egg” to “wear a green hat”. ‘Ta ma de’ is a Chinese expression that involves performing degrading acts upon one’s mother. The phrase is apparently so popular and widespread, that renowned Chinese writer Lu Xun once jokingly claimed it should be declared the ‘national swear word’ of China. Next time you’re in an online chat, if anyone types TMD at you - be offended... be very offended!

The move, according to the Guardian newspaper, is all part of the city’s campaign to clean up its image ahead of the 2010 World Expo. The paper reports that “teams of students are being sent out to smile at strangers in public places to spread politeness among the traditionally frosty populace. Last week, the government announced it would equip 45,000 taxis with spit-sacks to curb drivers' habits of winding down their windows and hawking into the road.”