Have you ever read any of Dorothy Parker's short fiction? If you have, then all I have to say is that I've a very similar outlook to hers (without the need of alcohol to sustain it--we have a fine array of buffers in this day and age). If you have not, then the following paragraphs should help you to understand how I, Rupert Bowes-Lyon, fell by the wayside and was condemned to spend the rest of my days hopelessly looking on as everyone else's fine leather footwear flashes by me upon the Yellow Brick Road.

   I was born with a silver spoon very firmly implanted in my royal gob (the picture above should give you some indication of just how good I had it. It depicts the home in which I spent the first fifteen years of my sojourn on Planet Earth).

   My childhood was the stuff of fairy tales: miles of manicured rolling lawns to gambol upon, pony rides with mater and pater (when they weren't too busy tinkering with the nation), gourmet meals prepared and served up by a bevy of doting underlings (there was even a lackey whose sole purpose of employment was to tend to the whims of my decidedly epicurean palate from dawn till dusk), and the one treat that eclipsed all others: Parade Day.

    This most splendid of time-honored customs took place only once or twice annually. The morning hours would be spent tormenting poor Grimes (the manservant in charge of my expansive attire for the day). He was a blur of fretful mumblings and perspiration from start to finish, which made for a delightful prelude to the day's main events.

    At precisely 11 a.m. the royal equipage would pull up in front of the foyer and prep for our arrival. Once aboard, we were ferried out of the grounds (which took an age in itself) and into the thronging city streets.                                         

    What a joy it was to behold the waving, cheering multitudes. In no time at all, we were up to our knees in roses and confetti-- so much so, that we felt we would surely drown in the stuff! I would scour the crowds for the rare individual who seemed nonplussed or indifferent at our passing and imagine myself sentencing them to a lengthy spell in The Tower. Little was I to know that the tables were soon to be turned, and that I would become the hunted one.

      Everything went swimmingly until my fifteenth year, which marked the

beginning of the Great Depression and all of the horrors that were spawned as a result of it. The nation was in the stranglehold of the worst drought ever recorded. All commerce and industry had ground to a standstill. Mobs of desperate proles had resorted to pillaging and torching the homes and stores of the merchant classes and, worse yet, the aristocracy. Such insolence! Did those repulsive hooligans truly imagine that they were alone in their suffering? The royal pantry was barren! I will never forget the overwhelming sense of mortification and indignation that welled up within me on the morning that cook sent me a bowl of porridge instead of my customary Weetabix. I saw red, and Grimes ducked too late to spare himself a painful encounter with the hideous stuff.

    The cruel modifications of le petit-déjeuner were eventually overshadowed by some rather more pressing issues. The daily reports from the guards grew more and more sinister until we finally learned that there were far too few of them left alive to protect us from the encroaching rabble. It was also brought to our attention that many fine heads were being crudely removed from their owners' shoulders and repositioned upon finials, fence posts, and the like. 

    Mummy and daddy simply refused to be cowed. They weren't about to be displaced by a bunch of fishmongers and hod-carriers. This proved to be a particularly costly point of view and, to this day, I can still hear the barrage of expletives that both dished out as they were being unceremoniously dragged to the makeshift chopping-block which had been set up in the main courtyard.

    You are no doubt wondering how I survived to pen this harrowing account of treachery and insurrection? It goes as follows: Shortly after my dear parents had joined the burgeoning ranks of the headless, a pair of spotty-faced, emaciated ruffians discovered me hiding in a wardrobe clutching my pet Corgi, Fauntleroy. The sight of their ill-fitting rags and jutting cheekbones gave me an idea: it must have been eons since either of those vermin had enjoyed a good meal. Well, I could do even better than that! I had an entire case of Mars Bars--probably the last in the country--stashed away in my hideout in the woods. I wasn't above a little bartering in the name of anatomical unity.

    The whole thing went off without a hitch. They scampered off in search of their booty and I made a beeline for the coast. I won't bore you with the details of my itinerary from Southampton to New York. Suffice to say, the curriculum at Eton had not included any courses that might prepare one for becoming a stowaway on a trans-Atlantic trawler.

    It's been twenty years since I arrived in the New World. If Cordwallis hadn't been such a wastrel, there'd at least have been a suitable degree of pomp and ceremony to welcome me to England's prize colony. They'd have rustled me up a palace in a heartbeat and I'd have found a way to regard the episodes of the previous year as little more than an unsettling blip. Instead, I found myself utterly destitute and an illegal immigrant to boot.

    Dear reader, don't judge me too harshly if I confess to awakening each morning with a heartfelt "What fresh hell is this?" It is, after all, only a privileged few of us who are legitimately entitled to moan. I know that it irks and rankles you to concede such a thing, but you are the fortunate ones, no? So why should you even care? You don't mean

to imply that-- no, no, it can't be!-- that all is not well in paradise?