Queen Elizabeth the Second, Buckingham Palace

January 12, 2009

Queen Elizabeth the Second
Buckingham Palace
London, England

RE: The dustup about Harry and aren’t grandchildren wonderful.

Your Majesty,

There is a certain amount of irony involved when an American whose forebears came from Ireland [Ballyglass and Cork] can offer a comforting hand to an English Queen.

With regards to Prince Harry…

#1 – The video tape is 3 years old. It would not require a fantastic leap to think that beer may have had an effect on language and behavior. Speaking of language, it’s the way men talk, particularly when they are with their peers. Please not that peers is lower case.

#2 – Am I the only person left in the world who remembers Kipling? To give the first multicultural poet his due:

“We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.”

#3 – Since the tape was made your grandson having “taken the Queen’s shilling” has “seen the elephant”. Cut him some slack.

#4 – For 30 years, beginning in a saloon in Antigua, I have enjoyed the friendship of two of your devoted subjects. I have shared pints and bumpers with Denis Greenough and Barrie Cooper. Both are army veterans. Denis landed in France on D-Day. Either of them will attest that I am good company in a pub. Should your grandson find himself on this side of the Atlantic have him give me a call. The afternoon will be on my slate.

#5 – Maybe you can help me. I found a 1919 American edition of “Heroic Record of the British Navy” by Hurd and Bashford. It belongs in your country. I am loathe to send it @ General Delivery – The Admiralty lest it fall into some civilian clerk’s hands [maybe a Paki] and not be appreciated. Give me the proper address to and it will be in the next post.

Fear God and Dread Naught!