Nut Bags! – Royal Lessons With Dame Helen Mirren, Robbie Williams & Sharon Osbourne
THE week brought a question: What odds Her Majesty the Queen abdicating in favour of Dame Helen Mirren?
Make that two questions: And what odds that any of the serfs would notice or mind?
Indeed, the twin pluses of watching Prince Charles trying to keep busy as he is made to wait even longer for the throne and Mirren’s flashes of bosom on State occasions would endear this idea to the public.
Mirren was holding aloft the Best Actress Bafta she’d won for her portrayal of the Queen in film.
Staying with our theme of Queen Helen Windsor, we wondered how much more magnificent Her Majesty would look if she could borrow more from Mirren’s body of work. What if she could enliven her speeches with some earthy language.
As the Mirror’s front page announced: “Helen, Queen of the *@!#!* Baftas – She wins after a 4-letter boob on live TV.”
The air turned “royal blue” as Mirren was interviewed on the red carpet. Matt Smith, a presenter on Sky News, warned Mirren that his channel was a swear-free zone.
Mirren: Where people don’t swear? Fucking nutbag!
Smith: You’ve done it again.
Mirren: Is it live? I’m sorry – I do apologise. That was an appalling thing to do. It was a joke and I take it back.”
But some things cannot be taken back. And “nutbag” was added to the national swear words database.
So can The Queen become more like Dame Helen? You see, change is good. Take Jennifer Aniston’s nose. Not, literally. OK, literally – Jennifer is on her third nose and may like to give her old nose to a good cause.
If Jen can change, then why not the Queen. And if Her Majesty needs a master class in swearing, and Nut Bag is not enough, she could summon Amy Winehouse to train her in the ways of the foul mouth.
But, then, Winehouse is changing, too. “But there’s another side to me people don’t see,” said she. “I also like to get up early, cook my fella breakfast then go to the gym.”
The gym? Such talks could ruin a young rebel’s career, we noted. But rock ‘n’ roll was ever so. Iggy Pop didn’t get those sinewy muscles from just lifting the microphone. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are buffed to a deep mahogany sheen. And Cliff Richard is a demon with the tennis racket.
Change is the theme. Change is good. And we looked on as Robbie Williams was wheeled into rehab.
The Sun’s front page lists Robbie’s intake: “Happy pills, sleeping pills, 36 espressos, 60 Silk Cut, 20 Red Bulls EVERY DAY.”
Poor Robbie. Or, as the Mirror’s Dr Miriam Stoppard put it, “Robbie Williams needs a good shaking, if not a good slapping, to bring him to his senses.”
Minds turned to that scene in Airplane when in a bid to control a panic-stricken woman, the other passengers, armed with clubs, boxing gloves and iron bars, queued up to knock some sense into her.
The queue to slap Robbie Williams may well be a long and winding one. And at its head could be Robbie’s mum. Jan Williams is a drugs councillor. She said that “from a mother’s point of view, going into rehab is the best birthday gift he could have given himself”.
“Let’s send actual love to Robbie. It’s for you Robbie. Get well England’s Rose,” said Russell Brand to the Brits audience.
Change is good. But you need help. Every one needs helps, even Her Majesty.
And finally Queen Liz was with a tutor par excellence, or par fucking excellence, as is her wont. The Queen was with Sharon ‘Fucking’ Osbourne.
Not that the Telegraph was telling us what words passed between the mother to a dysfunctional family of drug-taking, hard-drinking and womanising spoilt brats and Sharon. We only got a photo.
Nut bags!
Posted: 18th, February 2007 | In: Broadsheets Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
