For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports by Christopher Hitchens

Author:Christopher Hitchens [Hitchens, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Essays, Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780860916284
Google: 8haLsgCsae8C
Publisher: Verso
Published: 1993-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHARLIE’S ANGEL

IF YOU CAN IMAGINE being force-fed a whole box of mint chocolate creams, you can catch a whiff of the intoxicating atmosphere that is England today. There is something about all Royal events which leaves a cloying taste. But a Royal romance is something quite else again. Overnight, the national press dissolves into a swamp of schmaltz. The BBC newsreaders adopt an unctuous tone and set their faces into a permanent smirk. Party leaders vie with one another in loyalty contests, and the grovelling Olympiad is usually won by Labour. Babes are taught to lisp a new name, and what name could come more trippingly than Lady Diana Spencer? Lady Diana was sixteen years of age when she first caught the eye of the Prince of Wales (a fact which might trouble mothers of other boys of thirty-two, but has not creased the brow of Elizabeth Windsor). She then survived a barrage of media attention, and passed the crucial test. Not to be too finicky about it, no callow youth could be found to say that he had bedded her. This was in bold contrast to Prince Charles’s earlier escorts who, if they could not be said to be the nation’s sweetheart, could at least claim to have been the sweetheart of a noticeable proportion of its adult male population.

Gone were the speculations about scandal. Lady Diana’s father swore publicly that she was intact. Another relative, Lord Fermoy, told the press: ‘I can assure you she’s never had a lover.’ Britain has never been specially fussy about pucelage, but virginity has now become a crucial issue. The whole thing might have been scripted by Lady Diana’s step-grandmother Barbara Cartland, queen of romantic fiction, one of whose many tear-stained bestsellers was entitled Bride to the King. As well as having reached nineteen without yielding Lady Diana has been recommended on the ground of her breeding. She descends from the Stuarts on both sides of her line (if we allow for the interruption of King Charles’s head) and has almost as good a claim to the throne as Prince Charles himself. She is a seventh cousin of Humphrey Bogart and (by marriage) an eighth cousin of Rudolph Valentino.

Her pedigree, then, is impeccable. And pedigree may be the word – the poor girl has been advertised as if she were a milch cow. One close family friend told the press about her first proper meeting with the heir to the throne: ‘She taught him to tap dance on the terrace. He thought she was adorable. Who wouldn’t? It was rather like being given a puppy, full of vitality and terribly sweet.’ Indeed. There was a time when Prince Charles was being urged to strike out, to marry a girl from the Commonwealth, to found or enrich a line that in some fashion would keep the monarchy abreast of the century. Instead, he has opted for a girl nearly half his age, who was born on one of the Royal estates, has never

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