THE NAKED CITY – POSTSCRIPT TO THE ROYALS
Another royal tour has come and gone with Charles and Camilla shuffled from one photo op to the next, delighting hardcore monarchists and those with a predilection for B-Grade celebrity. Despite Malcom Turnbull once labelling the crusty couple as engaging in “unashamed adultery”, their former nefarious love affair seems all but forgotten.
Not only forgotten, but well and truly forgiven by a doting public prepared to continually overlook all kinds of royal indiscretions. If any Australian politician or public figure had ever paraded in a Nazi uniform, as did the once rambunctious Prince Harry, their career would have been history. Not to mention the Duke’s endless list of clangers and the late Queen Mum’s nasty racist quips.
Go back around five hundred years and British royalty could get away with just about everything if the reign of the positively vile Henry VIII counts for anything. Whilst the modern day royal lineage is most unlikely to serve up such an arsehole, here’s an interesting scenario to consider, albeit a radical historical swap in time…
Tony Abbott has just regained the Coalition leadership and the reborn PM has invited Henry VIII for a nationwide royal tour, to coincide with the reinstatement of knights and dames. Henry has arrived in Australia via a brief stopover in Saudi Arabia, where Anne Boylen was conveniently beheaded along with their PR man Thomas Cromwell.
Thousands line the streets of Sydney as Henry’s massive entourage is ferried down George Street in a regally outfitted light rail carriage. Whilst literally hundreds are knighted during the tour, all of course with the blessing of Tony Abbott, there’s a special honour reserved for Abbott himself––The “Keeper Of The Stool”. In the great sixteenth century tradition one lucky monarchist, chosen by ballot, gets to attend to Henry’s sanitary needs and dare we go any further.
With more wives and mistresses than Zsa Zsa Gabor had husbands, and despite his all-consuming obesity, Henry has not completely lost his shaggers spark. Whilst it’s all kept hush hush, he’s afforded carte blanche at the Golden Apple in Potts Point and enjoys a thoroughly debauched, six hour romp. The next day he is found dead in his bed in the presidential suite of the Rushcutters Bay Travelodge and his massive body immediately prepared for return to the UK. Thousands of mourners line the roads to the airport as the coffin is lashed to the roof of Sydney’s longest ever stretch Hummer.
Unfortunately it’s a particularly hot and humid day and Henry’s hulking 200 kilogram frame is beginning to rapidly decompose with noxious gases forming in his humongous bloated stomach, the legacy of years of gluttony and appalling hygiene. It’s time for ASIO to intervene as the threat of an enormous ticking bomb on board a Qantas flight to London is all too much to risk. The bomb squad is summoned and his body is safely detonated at an undisclosed firing range… Ho hum––just another boring royal tour!
