THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603060031
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
DAVE SAYS:
I hesitate to ask you this favor, Kerry, but I know you worked for an Irish newspaper for a couple of years and I was wondering if you had any idea how I could get a letter to Prince Charles.
I have a warning for him: His tactics in this divorce against Princess Di are not going to work. I know. I tried the same thing 10 years ago.
In return for certain minor concessions, I offered my wife the title Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Virginia Beach. I also offered to let her live in any castles that could be traced to my family, and I offered - quite magnanimously, I thought - to allow her the title Queen Mother should our son become King of England. (Hey, it could happen. He's three-fourths Scottish and he doesn't drool, so he has a leg up on most of the royal family.)
Her lawyer, in his shortsightedness, opted instead for a chunk of cash, two cars, all the furniture and all the good tax deductions. I got custody of a wobbly chair and two maxed-out credit cards.
Prince Charles gets to keep his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles. My deal was similar. I got to keep two Tupperware bowls - one blue, one brown - and a lid that fit neither.
There is one huge difference, though. My ex and I managed to remain friends and to get through it with our dignity intact.
Everybody sees Prince Charles as the villain in all this, Kerry. But at least he has tried to shut up about their private lives, and only went public when forced to do so.
From the other side, we get a constant stream of excuses about Di's cavorting in the barn with her riding instructor, Di's dalliance with a soccer star - one wonders when she'll call a press conference to announce that she's dating Rod Stewart but may leave him for Mick Jagger.
Lady Di has a tendency, in interviews, to tuck her chin down and peer up from under her eyebrows in a pouty sort of ``Oh, please pity me'' pose. Whenever she does that I'd swear that what she's thinking is, ``Gawd, I wonder if they're actually buying this malarkey.''
Not many women, upon settling their divorce, get a castle, a title, millions of pounds sterling and two handsome sons in line to be the King of England.
Most women, I'd venture, have endured far more, would settle for far less, and would be willing to show a touch of class in the meantime.
KERRY SAYS:
First of all, Dave, I have no inside line to Prince Charles. Things may have changed some since I left the Old Sod, but when I was there Irish journalists prided themselves on ignoring the mess across the water. After 800 years of oppression by the British, the Irish reasoned that the subjects of the crown were getting just what they deserved with this royal dysfunctional family.
I wish I could say the same for myself. But I admit that I can't stop reading about Charles and Diana. (This week's National Enquirer has a great story about the time Di pointed a loaded shotgun at Charles' head while he was chatting on a portable phone with Camilla: ``Hang up or I'll blow your bloody brains out,'' she is quoted as saying.)
Which all goes to show that the Waleses prove the axiom that money cannot buy you class and good breeding doesn't always get you brains.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana prove what most of us royal watchers have suspected for years: The gene pool among Britain's upper crust is becoming dangerously mutated.
Not that they asked, but I have a couple of recommendations for the British people, should they insist on keeping the monarchy around. And why shouldn't they? The entertainment value of the House of Windsor should not be underestimated.
First, the minute the ink is dry on the divorce decree they should both go out and marry commoners. It's the only way they'll preserve the monarchy.
Second, the Queen's Guards should confiscate every cellular phone in the palace. That includes Prince Phillip's, the royal consort, who seems to have taught his eldest son a thing or two about consorting.
Are these people idiots or what? Do they not understand that everything you blather on a cell phone is being listened to by mothers with baby monitors in their homes? Really. The things those royals discuss on their cell phones. Can't somebody slip them a shilling for a pay phones?
Finally, every member of the royal family should get jobs. And flouncing around hospitals, cutting ribbons and getting their toes sucked doesn't count. They need real jobs - the kind that leave you so tired at night your window of opportunity for acting stupid is cut short.
As far as feeling sorry for Princess Di is concerned, I'm afraid I'm a little low on sympathy. Any woman who marries a middle-aged man who's waiting for his mother to die so he can get her job is only asking for trouble.
by CNB