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Desert Island Discs: The Duke of Edinburgh

LIKE, dig that crazy beat.

I’ve been asked to pick some of my all-time favourite tunes for all you music lovers, so without further ado let’s put my first one on the beat box, chill out and try to ignore Edward as he sits in the corner, browsing through a fabric catalogue. Why, what do we have here? It’s a record that my feckless tit of an eldest son used to play all the time. I remember with fondness how the plaster would fall to the floor as I banged on the ceiling with my coolie stick while he listened to it over and over and over again.  

Ying tong ying tong
Ying tong ying tong
Young tong idle I po
Ying tong ying tong
Ying tong ying tong
Ying tong idle I po

Yes, indeed, it was She Loves You by the then popular ‘The Beatles’ – a pop group renowned for their ability to play musical instruments and sing ‘yeah’ a great deal, but not hold down a regular job because they were Liverpudlian thieves.

Music is a wonderful thing, even when it’s being interrupted by bothersome DJs like Jimmy Young. The wife’s mother used to listen to him all the bloody time, but even she had to switch it off when he started doing recipes for couscous and playing the Lighthouse Family.

Music has been central to some very important moments in my life. I remember listening to my second choice, Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, as I rode to victory in the Black & Decker Workmate National Carriage Championships (South-West Section). Then there was the time I had a Walkman strapped to my head as it blasted out King Crimson (Andrew informed me we were related, and then sniggered for some reason – the perverted oaf) as I captained my team to victory in the semi-final of the Tyne Brand Polo Classic.

Many of you think I’m a stuffed shirt who goes around calling people inappropriate names and upsetting devious little Chinamen. Utter nonsense. I’m guilty of just one of those things but for the life of me I can’t remember which one it is. Or is it both? Anyway, I remember when Sir Elton John came to the Palace for tea. We had a brief chat and he punched me on the arm and called me a ‘hip young gunslinger’. I hadn’t the foggiest what he was on about but it didn’t matter because six burly men from the Royal Protection Squad grabbed him by the arms and legs and tossed him out the window. Good times.

Anyway, my third choice is anything by Big Country, because I love the way their bagpipes sound like guitars. Or is it the other way around?

My book would be No One Here Gets Out Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. Like me, he was possessed by the soul of a Native American shaman, was arrested for indecent exposure and was the world’s hottest bastard in a pair of snakeskin trousers. Also, his father was an admiral. It’s like we’re twins.

My luxury would be a limitless supply of depth charges with which I’d fish the surrounding waters mercilessly, until all that remained was a quadriplegic starfish.

 

 

One woman's week, with Karen Fenessey

I HAVE  the utmost respect for all the sluts who took part in the recent walk through London.

We are still a good 20 years from this kind of thing taking place on the high streets of Saudi Arabia and for that I am truly proud. But after the streets have been hosed down and all the lesbians have gone home, what has really changed?  

But despite what the sluts say, most men are not that stupid. They can actually use their sense of smell to ascertain when you have your period and this doesn’t just apply to sluts – it applies to all women, even Her Majesty the Queen. It’s an incredible talent which, despite years of practice, I’ve never been able to emulate.  Given that they possess this skill, it’s not a massive leap for them to work out when a lady’s patterned tights are not just some random mortadella vomit by Kate Moss at Top Shop, but a meticulous think-piece from Fenn Wright Manson, costing upwards of £35.

People are always commenting on how pure I am, like an angel, so I reflect this in my fashion choices by dressing in clothes from The White Company. I recently attended an event wearing one of their sheer beach tunics with turquoise bra and pant set by Playtex underneath – which I’ll admit was rather saucy. Every man there wanted to rape me but when they saw my labels, they ran off, crying. Those men knew I was a woman of tremendous stature and that violating me would be a huge error. They used their amazing powers of smell to predict that my post-coital chat would include a series of questions about the merits of devolved powers for the Welsh assembly and saw that failure to deliver an articulate response within ten seconds would be a crushing humiliation. I felt so proud to be a woman that day – which was fantastic because normally I get really bored at wakes.

The message that whores are trying to convey with their hilarious walk is accurate: showing the colour of your underwear is not an invitation for sex. But if you’re dressed by George at Asda then what you’re saying to men is you don’t have the power of abstract thought and are highly suggestible – all things which are not going to bode well for a gal in the inevitable courtroom drama.

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The fragile relationship of brothers has never been so tested.  Yet again, David Miliband is forced to stand up for his peculiar, bovine relative. But if I’ve learned anything from the Young Guns movies it is this: exercise foresight when selecting which brother’s calendar to decorate your office with. Like Emilio Estevez, all David needs to do is use his Mexican name and bide his time. It won’t be long before the unforgiving public start laughing at Ed’s surplus wives and baseball caps with his own name on them.

 

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