Just
suppose you need to call the Queen of England.
Why?
Oh, there are dozens of reasons, my good man.
You
live in Twickenham and the privy is backed up at York House Gardens and the
landlord is -- well, don’t get me started -- and you wish to have some strings
pulled;
You
wish to donate to the “Remodel Buckingham Palace Fund” since the place is --
how does one say? – looking sooooooo 14th century;
You
need a recipe for bubble and squeak with a blood pudding chaser to feed 142
heads of state, give or take a duke or a backbencher of Parliament or the casual
Eurocrat;
Or
you simply wish to inquire as to why the seasons of “Downton Abbey” are so
bloody short on the telly.
You
don’t need a prime minister or a bobby or the Farmer’s Almanac: What you need
is a Queen. THE Queen. Time to pick up the blower and bell her highness.
Spot
on old chap!
The
problem is, you grab the phone book and … what? Look under “Q”? Under “E”? “M”
for matriarch or monarch? “R” for royalty? “D” for dowager?
Of
course not. You look under her last name, silly. Which is … duooh?! One of the
most recognizable figures in the world for the past 60 years, and we don’t even
know her last name.
What
does it say on the top left of the Queen’s personal checks? That’s my question.
That’s what I’d like to know.
How
did she sign her children’s report cards?
On
her driver’s license, it can’t just say “The Queen.” Can it?
Has
anyone ever seen her luggage? Is it monogrammed? Can you share?
This
question of royal surname raises its head because of the birth of a boy child
from the royal loins this week in London, a product, at least in part, of the
family jewels you hear tacky people talk about from time to time.
Surely
even the Queen and the children and, in this most recent case, the
great-grandchildren need a last name. While odds were placed on the child’s
first name, this guy doesn’t even have a LAST name, something the rest of us
are born with, like it or not.
You
need a last name. What will it say on the back of the child’s soccer/football/cricket
jersey?
Where
does he sit if they put him in alphabetical order in the third grade?
How
will he countersign the back of his royal paychecks?
A
great deal of research (“great deal” being a relative term) suggests the royal
family’s surname is anything from Cambridge to Wales to Windsor to the somewhat
tedious Mountbatten-Windsor. If so, that’s going to be tough for autographs,
unlike it is for, say, Henry/Hank of Wales or that old fan favorite, the Wizard
of Oz. (“Yessir. Uh, just make it, ‘To Toto.’”)
Not
that “of Wales” or “House of Tutor” passes for a last name. It passes for a
prepositional phrase, I’d say. It’s in the preposition family. But I’ve never
seen it on a mailbox.
On
the other hand, England is the country that invented the language, one I can
hardly speak myself. So I give the Queen and her family a pass. Besides, as
much as I like William and Kate, I read in a British tab that it took them
three weeks just to name their dog, and the best they could come up with was
Lupo. (No last name, natch.) Imagine how long it’d take them to buy a car.
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