Our little bit of the UK appears to be under a huge raincloud. Droughts may exist in other parts of the country but not here. We are beginning to wonder if we have our very own microclimate. Twice this week I have travelled over to Southport, not all that far away, and on both occasions the weather has been fine and reasonable sunny. On both occasions, as I approached Greater Manchester the weather grew progressively worse. This phenomenon has been noted also by a friend whose work takes him out and about. He declares that the rain appears to hover over a ten-mile radius above our house.
If this is a drought, Heaven help us when the real rain starts!!
Still, other people have troubles raining down on them, which is a good deal worse than a bit of rain. While the British royal family seems to be going through a popularity boom – Kate Duchess-of Cambridge Middleton is held up as a fashion icon, young women are declaring their love for the ginger prince Harry ad want to marry him and nobody is being scandalous at all – the Spanish lot are having all sorts of difficulties.
The two royal sons in law are being outrageous. Cristina’s husband has been accused of all sorts of financial messing around and Elena’s ex has allowed his underage son to use firearms and the lad has shot himself in the foot. On top of this the king himself has been out elephant hunting and managed to fall so that he needed to have surgery on his hip.
Much of the indignation about this is because some people feel that the government should have been informed in advance that the king was off to Botswana but only found pout after he was sent home to hospital. I didn’t know kings needed permission to go on holiday.
Of course, the real indignation is that he was occupied in such an obviously luxury pastime when his country is going through such a bad time and many people are having to take pay cuts. No holidays at all let alone luxury ones.
To cap it all the German newspaper Bild is now making insinuations about Juan Carlos and a German divorcee, Corinna Prinzessin zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. She has apparently been accompanying him on lots of trips, often taking the place of Queen Sofia. Bild implies that they are having an affair. And it would seem that she is the one who organised the fateful safari in Botswana.
For a long time the press had a kind of agreement not to print scandal about the king. Maybe the kid gloves are coming off.
However, the king has apologised for the elephant-hunting incident. So that’s all right isn’t it?
And we can all rest easy because he has no plans to retire just yet. Prince Felipe is said to maintain himself in a state of readiness, aided by Letizia who is said to have improved his attention to detail no end, but he does not expect to become king for a while yet.
When that happens, of course, it will be, as some folk say, “a whole nuther story”. But that will have to wait for the future. Watch this space.
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