An Open Letter To The People of Great Britain
From Prince George of Cambridge
My official name is His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge. That’s quite a mouthful for my contemporaries to say. Sometimes at the playground they can’t remember it, so to get my attention they throw sand in my face. Why couldn’t I have been given a simple name like Tom? Or Ben? Or Max? I would’ve even settled for Dudley.
I turned one year old in July of last year. Despite my impressive royal lineage, I’m a typical one-year-old tot, so keep that in mind, would you? When I’m out for a stroll in Mayfair or Piccadilly Circus, the masses flock to me with such excitement you’d think I was Harry Styles of One Direction. I could do nicely without the bowing and the curtsying. I’ve had it with the endless shaking of hands and the taking of those “selfies.” For goodness sake, stop acting as if I’m the bloody King of England.
Please treat me like a little tyke on his way to becoming a toddler. Make silly faces. Talk to me in baby talk. I’d much rather give you goo-goos and gah-gahs than quote Winston Churchill, as I’m often expected to do. Think of me as the little boy next door (if you happen to live near a 775-room estate with a 40-acre garden, a helicopter landing pad and a lake). If you want to buy me a gift, get me a rubber duckie for my bath, not a first edition copy of I, Claudius. I recently received a gold-embossed invitation to the christening of a cruise ship. Why on earth would I want to christen a cruise ship? I happen to get seasick. Do you really want to watch me upchuck in the English Channel?
The only person who treats me properly is Francesca Cheddar, my Italian nanny. (I’m actually dictating this letter to her.) She plays with me the way you’re supposed to play with a one-year-old, with stuffed elephants and toy fire trucks. She also teaches me everyday skills like how to wash my hands and prepare a good gnocchi. My Norwegian nanny is intimidated by me, as are all the other nannies except Frau Schwanhild from Frankfurt, who is positively infuriating. She insists I sit ramrod straight with my chin out and head held high. Not what I’d call comfort.
Mummy told me that I’ll be devoting my life to serving the unfortunate and assisting the befuddled in my fiefdom. And to that end, I’ve already begun. Every Friday, Francesca and I do the food shopping for a paraplegic paralegal. On Saturdays, we pick out proper wardrobe for our style-challenged members of Parliament. And very soon, we plan to visit England’s poignant leper colony (the moment one opens).
Because the press has written about me since I was in the womb, I learned, post birth, that I gave my mum acute morning sickness. There was nothing cute about it, I hear. She vomited violently every morning, afternoon and evening. How can she look at me and not think about all that throwing up? It can’t be good for the start of a mother-son relationship. And stop asking, “Do you know who your great-grandmum is?” I know she’s some sort of queen. (Elizabeth? Latifah? I can never get them straight.) To me, she’s just the wrinkled old relic who wears a kooky hat and lives in a creepy old castle. Sometimes she rummages through the contents of her leather handbag (lipstick, mirror, lunch meat, smartphone, laxative, bug spray, bicarbonate of soda, binoculars, flask) for a piece of hard candy to give me. More often than not, she comes up empty-handed.
Then there’s my granddaddy’s brother, Prince Andrew, Duke of York. He’s in the midst of a sleazy sex scandal involving an underage prostitute, or as I like to call her, a prostitot. I don’t understand any of it, but I know it’s sleazy because Mummy and Dada discuss it in whispers.
Even at my tender age, I’ve come across some frightfully unsavory characters in this supposedly dignified country. You see, disreputable dirtbags want access to members of my family. But I do my research. Most of these immoral mongrels have pasts peppered with pandering, perjury, battery, burglary, looting, littering and loitering. So I’ll have nothing to do with them. Just last week, I was bribed by a conniving bloke who could coax a kid out of a candy bar. (I know this because I was the kid with the candy bar.)
As the world knows, I’m expecting a sibling. I’ve decided to be present in the delivery room for this momentous birth. That way, if the doctor slaps him (or her) too hard, I’ll encourage the baby to slap him back. If necessary, I’ll remind the obstetrician that this is no ordinary infant, that this crying little creature happens to be the newest addition to the royal House of Windsor.
