Public: Royalty
I spy flunkies   (+1)  [vote for, against]
<newsflash> Palace infiltrates the Press </newsflash>

to keep the royal family ahead of the game and to see which way the wind is blowing with regard to their popularity, which countries they should spend their holidays and what is fashionable this season etc. the Windsors should train up some butlers and footmen in the ways of Fleet Street and wangle their way into a few jobs at the redtops and broadsheets.

equip them with cameras and recording equipment and a few boxes of posh chocolates and provide them with some neat looking references and c.v.s some newspapers are pretty lax over these details and may accept a character reference over the telephone. HRH could cover the business end of the telephone with a hanky, assume a common accent and give a most suitable account of her butler’s business dealing over the past few years.

much hilarity will ensue at Buck house at seeing the photos of their servants in all the most famous editors’ offices in the land.
-- po, Nov 19 2003

whats good for the goose.. http://media.guardi...495,1088496,00.html
don't mention the goose at the palace.. [po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

scandal.. http://www.vanguard...rld/w112112003.html
[po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Was Shakespeare Italian? http://www.endex.co...kspr/shlt042000.htm
If so, you'd expect him to have a better knowledge of basic Italian geography [PeterSilly, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Shakespearean theories http://users.northn...ays/shakespeare.htm
hard on the eyes, this one. [squeak, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Did Shakespeare even visit Italy? http://www.shakespe...ain/1/11?cat=1&A=23
[PeterSilly, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Has potential for humor. Could also get interesting sorta like when you take a mirror and put a mirror up to it. +
-- sartep, Nov 19 2003


Had to read this twice to understand it, but I have it down now (HRH took me a minute). You'd probably end up with double agents. You know, the butler that is really an undercover reporter who's actually an undercover chauffeur.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 19 2003


I always thought publishing certain journalists' and editors' expense reports would be a good way of countering some of the Royal chasing they get up to.
-- DrCurry, Nov 19 2003


[UB] Are you trying to drum up business for dictionary.com? Or do you expect everyone to know what Guelphs are?
-- Worldgineer, Nov 19 2003


But dictionary.com says a Guelph is "A member of a strong faction in medieval Italy that supported the power of the pope and the city-states in a struggle against the German emperors and the Ghibellines." If the royal family came from Germany, wouldn't they be Ghibellines? Or should I just walk away from this one before you tell me way more than I want to know?
-- Worldgineer, Nov 19 2003


ahem!

I suppose chasing them through the streets of Paris is a funny little gold coach, 6 white horses, two liveried footman and Prince Philip riding shotgun is entirely out of the question.
-- po, Nov 19 2003


Um... who are you trash-talking to? I live in Seattle.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 19 2003


UB: a better solution ,surely, to the inbred flunkies who follow the Royals around would be to get said scum of the earth to interbreed with them.
-- DrCurry, Nov 19 2003


//don't mention the goose at the palace// ahem, have you missed this in the US?

of course, interbreeding is out of the question..
-- po, Nov 19 2003


Yeah, we don't really follow the royal family in the US. There are some small-time "papers" that you find in line at grocery store registers that follow them (along with celebrities and UFO sightings), but not much else.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 19 2003


its a soap opera - as good as any other..
-- po, Nov 19 2003


Never mind. It was on the news tonight - they've found a way to tie it in to the US, saying that our president has been spied on. Ok, so I'm a step behind everyone else.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 20 2003


Didn't Edward already do this? I'm sure he was involved in some report which invaded his nephew Prince William's privacy. Bun though, [po], mostly for the image of HRH holding a hankie over the phone. I like that a lot.
-- Fishrat, Nov 20 2003


Edward had/s some film company that apparently overstepped the mark in stalking William at Uni.
-- po, Nov 20 2003


Well, if you can't invade your nephew's privacy once in a while...
-- Fishrat, Nov 20 2003


[UB]

William Shakespeare. Born 23rd April 1564 in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. First son and third child of Mary Shakespeare and John Shakespeare, Alderman of Stratford-upon-Avon and tradesman.

Did not attend university but probably educated at Stratford grammar school. Married Anne Hathaway (who was eight years his senior and three months pregnant) at the age of 18 and moved to London at the age of 22 to work in the theatre......etc.

Where does Italy come into this picture?
-- squeak, Nov 20 2003


he liked pizza..
-- po, Nov 20 2003


Did they have tomatoes in Europe then? ....Probably. Well did they have Dominoes?

Ye Olde Pizza Hutte
-- squeak, Nov 20 2003


Little Caesars
-- po, Nov 20 2003


Isn't this already baked? I mean, didn't a palace footman recently claim to be a journalist for an English tabloid newspaper or something? Obviously spoof - we know that tabloid newspapers don't have journalists.
-- PeterSilly, Nov 20 2003


Yeah, [UB]. I've heard all that. I don't buy it though. It was very common for renaissance writers to set their plays etc. in Italy. Italy was the birthplace of the renaissance and seen as a centre of literature, science, art, music and fashion. Dead trendy, in other words. A Mecca for academics and artists and recognised as highly fashionable by the middle and lower classes.

I think Iuvara's theory sounds a little too pat. Get the stuff about Crollalanza having a thwarted love affair with a girl called Guliette and having a neighbour known as Otella who murdered his wife.

Oh and where does this professor come from who claims that Shakespeare was born in Sicily? You guessed it. Sicily.
-- squeak, Nov 20 2003


so who was Bottom?
-- po, Nov 20 2003


And lets all hope Leeds stay there.
-- sufc, Nov 20 2003


[UB] Not my personal claim. I'm not an expert on the subject, just interested. Those who are experts in the field however, almost unanimously reject Iuvara's theory.

Why I should believe Iuvara's incredibly convoluted tale of intrigue, unsupported by any hard evidence is beyond me. Is it not rather more rational to believe what the evidence we have tells us?

All kinds of people have tried to claim Shakespeare's works for others but none have been able to prove their theories. Yet.
-- squeak, Nov 20 2003


Yet another linky added for [UB].

BTW, your line of logic is open to abuse. You're from Australia so you claim Shakespeare is from??? Sheesh, next thing you'll be claiming Paul Hogan as your own.
-- PeterSilly, Nov 20 2003


Interesting. In your link [petersilly] a certain John Florio is mentioned. He taught Liz 1 Italien and was suspected to have been on the run from the inquisition. Iuvara said that his Shakespeare's father was a certain Giovanni Florio, on the run from the inquisition.

A tad confusing.
-- squeak, Nov 20 2003


for goodness sake, you didn't believe that rubbish for a minute - we know you better than that!

the 2nd bed is by a cowboy carpenter, you can tell at a glance..
-- po, Nov 20 2003


Now I'm confused. Are we saying that Shakespeare was really an Italian journalist who infiltrated the Ghibelline Court four hundred years before he was born and wrote plays about the Ghibellines and the Guelphses goosing each other? Surely he would have been decapuleted if caught? Perhaps the popularity of his plays saved his Bacon.
-- egbert, Nov 20 2003


Going back to emerods... is that not when you bleed out of your ass?
-- smiler, Nov 21 2003


ouch!
-- po, Nov 21 2003


Shakespeare was, like every famed Englishman, Scottish. He was born in Clackmannanshire, the son of Wee Rab Cooper fae the Yetts O' Muckart. It was only when Wee Rab was fortunate enough to find a significant amount of Viking gold buried in his smallholding that the family Cooper were able to buy fancy clothes and move to Stratford. Wee Rab died soon after, unable to adapt to the effete ways of the English. His son, being something of an artistic nancy boy, flourished in this environment. The rest, as they say, is history.
-- calum, Nov 21 2003


he was actually welsh but he was thrown out of Wales because he couldn't sing, play rugby or hold his liquor :)
-- po, Nov 21 2003


[UB] The question of Shakespeare's nationality is not a philosophical question, it is a historical one.

Philosophy is concerned with thought and belief, history is concerned with the collection and interpretation of evidence.

I fully agree with you that theories should be questioned and examined or no progress would ever be made in any direction. What I do not believe is that *all* theories should deserve the same respect and consideration.

Theories which can be backed up by factual evidence and are thorough and logical in their reasoning are always going to convince me more than theories with gaping holes in them.

After reading more on the subject, I cannot find any references anywhere to Iuvara having any convincing evidence to support his theory. It appears to have been based on coincidences, leaps of imagination and bad logic.

Abundant evidence points to the fact that William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and wrote the works published under his name.

Deciding which of these two theories seems more probable isn't even a philosophical excercise. Unless of the Zen kind.
-- squeak, Nov 21 2003


I'd just like to applaud aka & sufc'c comments about Leeds United.

Shakespeare? Who cares? Kit Marlowe wrote all of his plays anyway. Which brings us nicely back to undercover operatives...
-- DrBob, Nov 21 2003


< bad joke alert>A Leeds fan dies on match day and goes to heaven in his blue and white top. He knocks on the old pearly gates and out walks Saint Peter.
"Hello mate" says Saint Peter, "I'm sorry, no Leeds fans in heaven."
"What ?" exclaims the man, astonished.
"You heard, no Leeds fans."
"But, but, but, I've been a good man", replies the Leeds supporter.
"Oh really", says Saint Peter. "What have you done, then ?"
"Well" said the guy, "Three weeks before I died, I gave 10 pounds to the starving children in Africa".
"Oh" says Saint Peter. "anything else?"
"Well, 2 weeks before I died I also gave 10 pounds to the home less."
Anything else?"
"Yeah. A week before I died I gave 10 pounds to the Albanian orphans."
"Okay", said Saint Peter, "You wait here while I have a word with the governor."
An hour pass's before Saint Peter returns. He looks the bloke in the eye and says, "I've had a word with God and he agrees with me.
Here's your thirty quid back, now fuck off"
</bad joke alert>
-- sufc, Nov 21 2003


Going back to [po]'s original idea - which I liked. Rather than spy on the offices themselves, why not spy on the editors and journalists? I'd like to see pictures of the inside their houses, details of the contents of their computers, their salaries etc, sordid revelations from the hidden ex-partners from their pasts etc. The royals would have to launch their own tabloid to carry the stuff though as none of the press scum would publish the dirt on each other for obvious reasons.

I say this not as a fan of the royals but a hater of the press scum.

And as for our Will being Italian? Err I don't think so - it doesn't say "To be or not to be? Who cares lets have a cappucino and shout abuse at women all day" does it?
-- dobtabulous, Nov 21 2003


// Um... who are you trash-talking to? I live in Seattle. //

Don't worry. Trash-talking inbred Seattlites is also a favorite pasttime of non-Seattlite Americans.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 23 2004


<conspiracy theory alert> //the current British royal family are descended from the Guelph line, originally from Germany//...//eventually gaining control of the German, Greek and British royal courts//

Genetically, I thought that the royal families of Europe were so inter-connected that just about any surviving member of any of them is somehow related to just about all of them. So, trivially, the current lot probably are descended from Guelphs, but also from Ghibellines and any number of other formerly-important families.

Politically, the British Establishment went to great lengths over several generations to ensure that the royals were not even Catholics, let alone 'supporters of the power of the Pope', so Guelphist control of the court seems rather improbable. </conspiracy theory alert>

<Dare I challenge the lexicographical authority of [Unabubba]?> 'emerod' doesn't look like Latin to me; it looks like an anglicization of something Greek, not referring to an evil spirit. </DIctlao[Unabubba]?>
-- pertinax, Jun 30 2006


The philistines were afflicted with emerods when they captured the ark. They were so painful, they sent the ark back into Israel. Whatever emerods are, wow, do they hurt.
-- david_scothern, Jun 30 2006



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