The Queen is not dead. Long live the Prince of Wales.

When Queen Victoria died at 81 in 1901, her eldest son, the 59-year-old Prince of Wales, became King Edward VII.

Fast forward 80 years. (It occurs to me that the phrase "fast forward" has disappeared from today's world along with "radio dial" and "telephone cord".)

In 1981, when Diana Spencer, future mother of the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex, became engaged to Prince Charles Philip Arthur George of the House of Mountbatten-Windsor, the current Prince of Wales, she left her ancestral home in Althorpe and moved into Clarence House, I think it was, in London to prepare for her forthcoming marriage and new role as Princess of Wales.

The person who was assigned to be her mentor, to teach her how to become part of the royal family, to show her the ropes as it were, was the person who, as far as Prince Charles's bedchamber goes, was both her predecessor and her successor, none other than Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Here are a couple of true historical snippets:

1. Camilla's great grandmother, Alice Frederica Edmonstone Keppel, was a longtime mistress of Charles's great-great-great-grandfather, the aforementioned King Edward VII. You can look it up.

2. Andrew Parker-Bowles, Camilla's husband, was an equerry to the Queen. On the wedding day of Charles and Diana, he wore a bright red uniform and a golden helmet amd rode horseback alongside their wedding carriage.

Camilla bore two children to Andrew, a son, Tom Parker-Bowles, and a daughter, Laura Parker-Bowles Lopes.

Since Camilla was cut out of the same cloth as her great-grandmother, Princess Diana once remarked in a filmed interview that "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

As we all know, Diana died in a horrific automobile crash in Paris in 1997. Camilla, whose marriage to Andrew Parker-Bowles ended in 1995, continued on with Charles as before. Speaking of historical snippets, there is a recording of a telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla in which he stated his wish to be her tampon. They married on April 9, 2005. Camilla did not become the Princess of Wales, however. She became the Duchess of Cornwall instead.

Charles is now 71, and is still the Prince of Wales, the oldest one ever. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is now 94. She may outlive her own mother, who lived to the ripe old age of 101. Here is a photograph of the blended families with all of the step-siblings on Camilla's and Charles's wedding day in 2005:

If Charles, who is getting on up there and could die at any moment (as could Joe Biden or Donald Trump or you or I), outlives his mother he will become king and the world will remember him as Charles III or Philip I or Arthur I (or perhaps II?) or George VII. If she outlives him, however, then the first child of Charles and Diana, Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, the Duke of Cambridge (or as he is more popularly known, Kate Middleton's husband) would become king.

There is precedent for what I am saying. Before Edward VIII became king he was known as Prince David, and before George VI became king he was known as Prince Albert.

If you became the next British monarch instead of Charles or William, which of your names would you use? I could choose to become either Robert I or Henry IX. I would choose Robert.

Apropos of nothing, or Odds and Ends R Us

Now that Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC(P) has been thrust into the public eye recently as a result of his having associated with the late, unlamented Jeffery Epstein and has also been relieved of his public duties (a.k.a fired) by his mum, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (full name Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten), the royal family is on everyone's minds, tongues, and radar screens.

NOT.

But I do have a question. I know that within the family the queen was called Lilibet as a child, but what was Princess Margaret called? Meg? Maggie? Hey, you?

Inquiring minds want to know and I am sure my many loyal U.K. readers (they constitute a plethora) will be rushing to inform me.

Again, NOT.

I once read a slim volume entitled Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be A Kappa Kappa Gamma. The reason, divulged breathlessly within, was that she smoked cigarettes in public.

They say that Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis smoked like a chimney, but it was always in private.

It may be a beautiful day in Mr. Rogers's neighborhood, but it is a slow week in mine. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Christmas isn't here yet, in spite of what the retailers are telling you. There are three whole weeks left until Christmas.

In our family this month, one grandson celebrates his 22nd birthday, one son and daughter-in-law celebrate their 28th anniversary, the same son and daughter-in-law just returned from a 10-day trip to Israel, and another grandson is moving to Africa. None of them is called Lilibet, to my knowledge.

I read that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, former Prince of Greece and Denmark, a sort of modern-day equivalent to Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, has also stepped away from public activities. It's about time, in my opinion. The man is 98 years old, for crying out loud.

There are a few days of note in December. There's St. Nicholas Day on the 6th, and there's Pearl Harbor Day on the 7th, and there's Beethoven's birthday on the 16th.

If the world were not so PC these days (politically correct), I would trot out an old joke I used to tell annually, Did you hear about the guy who was half black and half Japanese? Every December 7th he attacks Pearl Bailey.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Today no one even knows who Pearl Bailey is or, more accurately, was.

If I asked you to name four actresses who played Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway, could you do it?

I can. Carol Channing, Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, and Pearl Bailey. In the film version, however, Dolly Levi was played by Barbra Streisand

Today's young folks don't recognize any of those names except maybe Barbra Streisand. I know. I watch Jeopardy! five nights a week and am constantly amazed at the number of questions that no contestant knows the answer to. There is either no response from any contestant —- crickets — or the lone contestant who hazards a guess is astoundingly wrong. The other night in a category called "The Kennedys" the clue was a photo of a very old, very wrinkled Ethel Kennedy receiving a medal at the White House and the contestant who buzzed in said, "Who is Caroline?"

I'm not even kidding.

The phenomenon on Jeopardy! continues. On tonight’s episode, after being shown a photo of Carol Channing the lone contestant said, “Who is Phyllis Diller?”

Sometimes I wonder how Alex Trebek keeps a straight face.

I see that Prince Charles has passed Edward VII as not only the oldest Prince of Wales but also the longest-serving Prince of Wales.

My favorite line in Hello, Dolly! is near the end when Horace van der Gelder tells Dolly Levi, "Money, you should pardon the expression, is like manure. It doesn't do any good unless you spread it around."

I also remember when Barbra Streisand played Fanny Brice in Funny Girl and Fanny's mother, played by Kay Medford, was getting nowhere trying to dissuade Fanny from her infatuation with gambler and general ne-er-do-well Nicky Arnstein (played by Omar Sharif), and Fanny said, "But Ma, I love him". Her mother said, "Fanny, love him a little less. Help him a little more."

I'm rambling.

I do a lot of that, and more and more as time goes by. Eventually I will do less and less of it, and then you will stop hearing from me altogether.

Pity.

In closing, and I know it can't come soon enough for some of you, I have one question left.

Anybody know what the Princess Royal is up to nowadays?

If you encountered a file called “Carriage with horses” wouldn’t you expect to see...

this?

or this?

or perhaps even this?

When I encountered a file called “Carriage with horses” I didn’t see any of those. I saw this:

(Used in accordance with CC-BY-SA-2.0)

One has to look very closely to find the ear and neck of one black member of subspecies Equus ferus caballus. One. Singular. Horse, not horses. The only thing plural in that photograph are members of the royal family, and I for one thought it was rather rude to refer to the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the Duchess of Cornwall (whose chapeau brings to mind the late Queen Mother) in that way. Even allowing for the late Joan Rivers’s unkind impression of the Princess Royal, “Carriage with horses” is a definite misnomer.

If you don’t believe that such a file exists, click here.

After examining that photograph in detail, however, I concluded that there must not be a bare head in all of England. Makers of hats and helmets will never go hungry in the U.K.

The funniest five-and-a-half minutes of 2012 so far

...occurred at the opening of the 2012 London Olympics (5:37).

A close second was Queen Elizabeth II jumping out of a helicopter and parachuting into the stadium, but she was disqualified from the competition when it was revealed that a stunt double had done the actual jumping.

Here are Queen Elizabeth and some close associates in 2009 at the dedication of a statue of the Queen Mother.

...or as I like to call the photograph, “We few, we happy few.”

Even Mr. Bean would have had trouble making this group laugh.

If a certain person manages to keep the old ticker going for 28 more days...

...she will have been the Queen of England for 60 years.

Let’s hear it for Her Majesty!

And if she doesn't, this fellow will take her place:

Note that he appears to be listing a bit to starboard at the prospect.

And if for any reason he is unable to complete his reign, the first runner-up will be named Miss America King of all England, and a few other places besides.

The first runner-up is:

(Photo by Robert Payne, 12 June 2010, used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

Prince William!

He appears to be a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic: Palmolive - it’s neither palm nor olive. Discuss. [Editor's note. This paragraph was brought to you courtesy of Linda Richman, a character of actor Mike Myers on the Saturday Night Live television show. --RWP]

Or maybe Prince William is tight-lipped at being asked to ride in the same carriage as the Duchess of Cornwall. One never knows, does one?

But it’s good to know that the succession process is all taken care of, isn’t it?

In the meantime, on this side of the pond, we wish Her Majesty a long, long life (even longer than it has been already) and congratulate her on tying the 60-year reign of George III (1760 - 1820), although she is still four years short of the 64-year reign of Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901) and twelve years short of the 72-year reign of King Louis XIV of France (1643 - 1715).

Here she is on her coronation day in 1953, with Prince Philip:

This post should make up for my recent U.S.-centric post about 2011 in review. I’m, well, you know.

[Editor’s note. For a recent photo of Her Majesty, go to yesterday’s post (January 9th) and click on the links in the formula for the pascal until you find her. --RWP]

We few, we happy few.

The nuptial day of the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is apparently an even happier occasion than we thought. Either that or the groom’s family arrived already sloshed.

In what is surely a stroke of journalistic brilliance, at the exact moment when the next Prince of Wales was saying, “I, William Arthur Philip Louis, take thee, Catherine Elizabeth,” and the eyes and attention of the entire civilized world were fixed on the happy couple, our roving reporter today turned and pointed his camera at another part of Westminster Abbey and managed to capture the reaction of his grandmother, father, and stepmother.

The late Queen Victoria, however, the great-great-great-great-grandmother of the groom, in an attempt to maintain a modicum of royal decorum, issued a statement from beyond the grave through her publicist, saying, “We are not amused.” This is hardly surprising, as she died in 1901 and thus is unable to grasp fully the complexities and nuances of maintaining the monarchy in the twenty-first century.

Sharp-eyed viewers will note that although Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales sat upon exquisite Royal Blue Portable Wicker Thrones created especially for the occasion by Thrones ’R’ Us, the Duchess of Cornwall was relegated to a Royal Aluminum Lawn Chair. The Duke of Edinburgh, typically, was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he slipped away to find more bubbly.

Blimey, luv, it’s...

...the Queen! Almost 300 times! In Canada! And she’s a vision of loveliness in pale yellow, and pale blue, and aquamarine, and lavender, and bright red, and green, and white! And Prince Philip is in some of the pictures! And there are nearly 100 photographs of Prince Harry! He came to New York! And fell off his horse! And went to a baseball game! And there are a couple of photos of Princess Beatrice of York, Prince Andrew’s daughter, in there too! Oh, and even some of Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla.

So click here to find Waldo Carmen San Diego your favorite royal.

And keep clicking, and clicking, and clicking...

Even prose can be poetic

Earlier this morning I was reading today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac when the whole thing turned into a rhyming poem. Today, it turns out, is the birthday of Virginia Woolf. Her first masterpiece, it said, was Mrs. Dalloway. After going on some more about Virginia Woolf (it also mentioned her To the Lighthouse and The Waves and her long essay, A Room of One’s Own), another factoid announced that today is also the birthday of the man who wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an' men / Gang aft agley” and “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?” and “O my luve’s like a red, red rose, / That’s newly sprung in June; O my luve’s like the melodie / That’s sweetly played in tune” -- none other than Robert Burns, who, said The Writer’s Almanac, was born in 1759 in Scotland in the town of -- wait for it -- Alloway.

All of a sudden it struck me that Dalloway and Alloway rhyme and I thought of (a) my childhood friend John Galloway and (b) how the entire reading for today in The Writer’s Almanac was suddenly transformed from dull prose into a kind of lovely poem that someone like Ogden Nash might have written on a very good day.

The effect was short-lived, however, because a short final paragraph in which the writer of The Writer’s Almanac used the phrase “Burns’ poems” when any editor worth his or her salt knows it should be “Burns’s poems” brought me back to reality.

If you think “Burns’ poems” is just fine you obviously have never read The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. Strunk, who was White’s English professor at Cornell in 1919, had written the little book himself as a textbook for his classes. White re-published it in later years, adding an Introduction.

Here is Rule 1 from Will Strunk’s first chapter, Elementary Rules of Usage:


1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ’s.

Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,

Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice

Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in es and is, the possessive Jesus’, and such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness’ sake. But such forms as Moses’ laws, Isis’ temple are commonly replaced by

the laws of Moses
the temple of Isis

The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours have no apostrophe. Indefinite pronouns, however, use the apostrophe to show possession.

one’s rights
somebody else’s umbrella

A common error is to write it’s for its, or vice versa. The first is a contraction, meaning “it is.” The second is a possessive.

It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.

(End of first page of Chapter 1 of The Elements of Style)


E.B. White, in his Introduction to the second edition of Strunk’s book, said:

“Some years ago, when the heir to the throne of England was a child, I noticed a headline in the Times about Bonnie Prince Charlie: “CHARLES’ TONSILS OUT.” Immediately Rule 1 leapt to mind.

Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice

Clearly, Will Strunk had foreseen, as far back as 1918, the dangerous tonsillectomy of a prince, in which the surgeon removes the tonsils and the Times copy desk removes the final s. I commend Rule 1 to the Times, and I trust that Charles’s throat, not Charles’ throat, is in fine shape today.”

I note happily that Will Strunk foresaw not only Charles’s tonsillectomy but also today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac with the phrase “Burns’ poems” that jumped out of the blue to shatter my Alloway-Dalloway-Galloway reverie and return me to the cold light of day.

Just for good measure, I am going to throw in here Rule 13 in Strunk’s own words:

13. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.


E.B. Write called that paragraph “sixty-three words that could change the world.”

Elements of Style has its critics. Not everyone likes it or agrees with its rules. The world changes, time marches on, and language is not static.

But I like what Dorothy Parker said in her review of Elements for Esquire magazine in 1957: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

There are no simple answers.

In this post I am going to answer the puzzler question of February 4th, to wit: Why did Carolina say to Billy Ray Barnwell that her father often says “If I didn’t have ears, I would be blind” and what prompted her to reveal it?

Several people submitted answers.

Ruth said, “He’s an alien from Neptune whose neurological system is wired differently from ours. He said it often to remind his children of their Neptunian heritage because they were in danger of being assimilated into Earthling culture.” Clever, Ruth.

Reamus said, “The expression means literally, to not see something that was quite obvious (as the nose on his face). He said it often because his sense of the obvious was not as keen as yours. She said it because she missed some crucial point in the compelling novel and you kindly pointed it out to her (such as that you didn’t write it, Billy Ray did).” Thoughtful, Reamus.

Rosezilla said, “I don’t know...could it be that a WORD is worth a thousand PICTURES?” Weird, Rose, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what your answer means.

Those answers are all wrong, and let me just say here that I feel your pain.

Understanding the right answer will require that I give you a little background first, beginning with the questions begging to be asked, which are “Who is Billy Ray Barnwell?” and “Who is Carolina?”

It is always good to begin at the beginning. Last month I created a second blog called Billy Ray Barnwell Here to contain a book I spent half a year writing called, oddly enough, Billy Ray Barnwell Here. The book itself is finished and static, but the blog is alive and kicking through its comments section. You can read both (the book and the comments) at your leisure or never. It’s your choice. You might like them, or you might decide they're not your cup of tea.

Someone who reads both blogs is “Pat - An Arkansas Stamper” and on February 1st she posted this short message on the Billy Ray Barnwell blog: “Dear Billy Ray, You and your alter ego have an award at my place” and added a little smiley face at the end. By “alter ego” I suppose she meant me. The award was cute, it had the words "I like your style" at the top and a little lion wearing a blue dress and blue flip-flops, and at the bottom there was a little Bible verse, First Corinthians 7:7, that said, “Each one has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.”

I promptly added the award to my sidebar with the words, “This award came from Pat of Remembrances of an Arkansas Stamper in February 2009.” Billy Ray Barnwell also added it to his sidebar with the words, “The Hollywood Foreign Press Association had nothing to do with the following award. It came from "Pat - An Arkansas Stamper" about whom I know very little, only that her name is Pat and she lives in Arkansas and is a stamper and likes my style. Oh, and also, thanks to a comment she left on this blog, that she was born in Yorktown Texas about 35 miles from her mama’s home town of Victoria, so she is really from Texas and not from Arkansas at all, Pat I mean, not her mama, who as far as I know never once claimed to be either a stamper or from Arkansas. (Feb 2009)”

Which demonstrates for all to see, I hope, that what the award says is true. My gift is of one kind and Billy Ray Barnwell’s is of another.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I wrote a little thank-you post on this blog and Billy Ray Barnwell posted the following comment on his:

“Well, thank you, Pat - An Arkansas Stamper, I will retrieve the award you have kindly given me and add it quickly to the sidebar area of my blog, posthaste you might say, ha ha ha, I made a little joke, I do thank you for thinking of me, especially after reading my book and all, although I can't imagine why you think I have an altered ego, I do not now nor have I ever had an altered ego, I still have the very same one I started out with originally, but one thing it would be very nice to have at this stage in my life is an enhanced libido, if you know where I might could find one of those I would appreciate your letting me know, the posthaster the better. This dadblamed computer still thinks I am rhymeswithplague and I most certainly am not, I am me, myself, and I and the three of us are very happy to know one another, I read something the other day about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) but the only people I have run across who might could fit that description are that couple who had twins and then had sextuplets, Jon and Kate Plus Eight on the TLC channel, they are really one stressed-out mommy and daddy, I would be too if I had all those kids screaming in my ear all day long, I actually have two ears, I'm not claiming to be Vincent Van Gogh.”

This is where Carolina comes in.

On February 3, Carolina, a first-time commenter, wrote to Billy, “Yes, well, uhm, I came here through Pat from Arkansas, who isn’t from Arkansas, and if you don’t mind I will join your ‘followers’ with the intention to read your book because I really like the recommendations on the cover! Can’t wait to read more!”

And Billy replied, “Carolina, welcome, welcome, and the more the merrier, I always say. Well actually I don’t always say that, I haven’t said it in a long time and if I did always say it I wouldn’t get much of anything else said at all, now would I? I see you are in the Netherlands or maybe that is The Netherlands, I for one have always admired the way Queen Wilhelmina abdicated in favor of Queen Juliana and then Queen Juliana abdicated in favor of Queen Beatrix, but Her Majesty Elizabeth II in Great Britain is still going strong at eighty-something after 56 years as monarch, do you think Prince Charles will ever get to be king? I do believe you are the first commenter I have ever asked two questions of, don’t you feel special? That makes three. Happy reading!”

The next day Carolina posted,

“Dear Sir,

In answer to your questions:
1. No
2. No (which reminds me: when he’s wearing a hat my father always says: “If I didn't have ears I would be blind,” or actually he says: “Het is maar goed dat ik oren heb, anders was ik nu blind geweest.”)
3. Yes

Thank you.”

Her answer must have caught Billy off-guard, because he replied, “Carolina, what a pleasant surprise to receive your answers to my questions, I wasn’t expecting them, your answers I mean, not my questions, because when I asked the questions I thought they were rhetorical, but this internet thing makes for two-way, if somewhat delayed, conversation, n’est-ce pas?, that last phrase is French for “isn’t it so?” and is a very useful phrase that can be added to just about any statement so it can mean “don’t you think so?” or “wouldn’t you?” or “doesn’t it?” or “aren’t they?” or just about anything you want it to. I was confused at first about your father’s statement but then I figured out after a little while that he prolly wears glasses and the earpieces go over, guess what, his ears, and without his glasses he would be blind, but I am still unsure why he says that when he’s wearing a hat, wouldn’t it also be true even when he’s not wearing a hat? You don’t have to answer that one, but I would still like to know whether it is the Netherlands or The Netherlands and where Holland comes into the picture.”

A few minutes later, Billy wrote, “Carolina, P.S., I am even more confused now, what does your father’s statement have to do with whether Prince Charles will ever be king of England?”

And Carolina answered, “Usually, if my father says something, everybody is confused. I inherited that gift. He means: his ears prevent the hat from covering his eyes. And I had this image in my head of Prince Charles wearing a crown and then I thought of his ears. That’s why they are the size they are! (Ironically my father is actually going blind, whether he’s wearing a hat or not. But that’s another story.)

“I’m not so sure if it is The Netherlands or the Netherlands and when it’s Holland. I feel so stupid now. We just say Nederland. It’s you people outside our borders that make it so difficult! Now I’m confused!”

Billy replied, “Carolina in Nederland, I guess that makes you a Nederlander, n’est-ce pas?, and saying Carolina in Nederland strikes me as being almost like saying Alice in Wonderland, I could put another n’est-ce pas? here but I won’t, I’m glad you explained the relationship between your father’s hat (a hat had not occurred to me) and his going blind and Prince Charles’s ears, I suppose that should be among and not between since we’re speaking of more than two objects, why, your father’s ears alone are two objects unless his name is Vincent Van Gogh, to name a Nederlander of another era, and you don’t need to feel stupid unless you have never heard of Vincent Van Gogh.”

Once again, Billy wrote a postscript a few minutes later. He said, “Carolina in Nederland, P.S. again, are you saying that the reason Prince Charles’s ears are the size they are is to keep his crown, if he were wearing one, from covering his eyes? I guess we in the U.S. are not the only ones with freedom of speech after all, but I would caution you not to say it when you are in England, because even if a huge portion of the English populace would prolly agree with you it is always considered rude to insult one’s hosts, at least it used to be.”

Carolina replied, “Vincent van Gogh? No, doesn't ring a bell. (Just joking.) I like Carolina in Nederland. Do you think saying that someone has big ears, when he actually has big ears, and that they might come in handy some day is an insult? I don't. It's just a practical observation. I can think of other things to say that will be insulting, but I will not put them in writing here because someone once told me that everything you write on the internet or text or say through your telephone is monitored by huge whatdoyoucallthosethings and that the FBI or CIA or MI5 or 6 will be on your doorstep soon afterwards if they think that would be the appropriate action to take. Better safe than sorry.

“What I am sorry for is taking up so much of your time, but the way you write is quite infectious, or is catching a better word? Anyway, chapter three of your writing is on tomorrow’s agenda. Like it so far!”

Billy Ray then wrote, “Carolina in Nederland, I think saying that someone has big ears, when he actually has big ears, and that they might come in handy some day is perfectly all right to say to your significant other, if you have one, in the privacy of your own home, if you have one, provided he or she is not the one with the big ears, but it is not something I would recommend you go around saying to people on the street because some of the people on the street might be friends of the person who has the big ears and take umbrage at what you are saying about their friend and you might could find yourself involved in an altercation or worse, that’s what I think, I have never been one to say provocative things though, and even though the truth will set you free it can also land you in the hospital or in jail, so a word to the wise [should be sufficient, as we say in English], and please don’t be sorry for taking up so much of my time, I love to interact with my readers, maybe I should be sorry for taking up so much of your time here in the comments when you could be reading more of the book proper, not that there is any such thing as a book improper, of mine anyway, but let me warn you if you want to improve your English writing skills I may not be the one you should be emulating, especially in the area of punctuation and sentence length, you might try old rhymeswithplague sometime, he is a bit more conversant with how to turn a phrase than I am even though I hate to admit it.”

Carolina replied, “Point taken.”

Here endeth the reading of the dialogue between Carolina in the Netherlands or The Netherlands or Nederland or Holland or wherever she is and Billy Ray Barnwell. Thanks be to God! Carolina hasn’'t been heard from since. Perhaps she never made it past Chapter 3.

I didn’t mean to bend your ear or test your patience, but some things just can’t be helped.

I have decided that Rosezilla is right. A word IS worth a thousand pictures.

But I still don’t know what Carolina’s father’s hat has to do with whether Prince Charles will ever be king of England.

Do you?