Future "Royalty" Incoming

I am not a fan of normal politicians and leaders.

I am really not a fan of hereditary leaders.

But Kate Middleton is apparently going to have a baby. By my calculations this individual will be about 315th in line to be the next hereditary figurehead of the United Kingdom after Prince Charles, Prince Merkin, and Prince William.

Given that Queen Elizabeth 2 is about 450 years old and refuses to die before her dingleberry son, I'm predicting that Baby Middleton will be "monarch" by about 2243 at this rate. Modern medical technology is really making it difficult to get one's rightful turn at being a wealthy parasite tireless symbol of national pride.

If they want to keep their hereditary leaders, why should anyone else care?

Also, Elizabeth II will be queen long after 2243.

Also also, SpoofyChop watches tabloid television.

It's in 2243 that she'll be interned in the Golden Throne.

She will keep the space lanes open.

In the grimdark future of the British Empire, there is only Elizabeth.

She really is shockingly old. Here she is with Winston Fucking Churchill:

More seriously, did anyone see that movie about her from a few years ago? It was dramatized with a really good cast and I thought it was actually surprisingly interesting and really well done, but I can't remember the name of it right now.

The Queen?

No, I don't think that's it.

Edit: I found it. Chalet 2000.

But *do* they really want to keep her? Or do they just not want Charles? Hmmmm?

Also: NO I DO NOT WATCH TABLOID TV! I read tabloid internet.

For that one I'm going to give you the clap.

This guy is the real king (for fans of the Stuarts). He'd also unite Bavaria with the English crown, which would be cool.

I had a dream once about Her Maj attending Prince Charles' funeral in a Vivienne Westwood dress.
I am convinced it will come true.

Also, fucking Australians and their ingenious pranks.

Why the hell is that still a political movement?

Why not this one? Well, other than him being dead, I guess, so his son would be the king if you're looking for a new one.

Get them endorsed by the Pope!

So, for those not following this, it's actually turned into a serious news story rather than just royalty obsession.

A few days ago a couple of Australian DJs "pranked" the hospital. They phoned the hospital and with dodgy accents pretended to be the queen and prince Charles. They got through to the nurse on the ward and she gave them details on how Kate was doing. Since then there's been a bit of an uproar about them pulling such a prank, them being allowed through, and the security around the royals.

However, today the nurse/receptionist who put them through to the ward has been found dead with the police treating it as "not suspicious" meaning it was suicide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20645838

...Jesus.
The royal family is kind of really serious business, isn't it?

EDIT: edited after reading the news story

Sounds like guilt to me. Poor lass.

Yeah.

Any word on what happened to the people that pulled the prank? I'd think it'd get a serious sentence as it is, but a worse one now since they kind of indirectly have blood on their hands. That's not the kind of thing that you do, and I don't know what in the world they were thinking.

Other than "oh man this is gonna be so great we're gonna make them soooo mad"

I don't think they expected to get through to be honest.

'See, it's totally their own fault for putting our call through, we can help it if they were dumb enough to believe our shitty accents! Oh but yeah we're totes sorry if this chick's suicide was inconvenient to her kids or something.'

Did these guys really do anything illegal? Is it against the law to impersonate the queen over there? They're DJs, so it goes without saying that they're subhuman trash, but they have exactly as much blood on their hands as Bill Dungsroman does for sinij's suicide after Bill called him a 'turd whittler'. That happened, right? I feel bad for this girl, but she decided to kill herself, she wasn't pressured into it by bullies or anything. If the station decides to fire these guys, that makes sense. This is some bad publicity. But I doubt that they have a 'serious sentence' coming to them.

Edit: I suppose pretending to be someone to gain confidential information might be a thing? Though should the nurse really have been handing out information to a grandmother-in-law anyway?

If I remember right it falls under some broad category of attempted identity theft in the US, but it's been a while since I read up on it.

OK, it's really fucking sad and terrible that somebody committed suicide over this. But still, it's just royalty, and if whenever you feel like pranking some institution that people take way too serious, you have to consider if somebody takes it serious enough to commit suicide over, you're really limited in your picks.

I don't know how the scumbag English media has handled this, but if they've been calling for the heads of those responsible as they're wont to do, I blame them more.

That's the kind of thing that happens when you're still queen of a country where you sent all of your criminals.

I fully expect these guys to get extradited to face charges of invasion of privacy or fraud and given what's happened I'm not sure I would even object.

I didn't see Raife 's reply before I posted or I wouldn't have. He won the thread.

As much as I dislike the concept of royalty what they did was blatantly wrong.

First off, what did they expect? They ring and get hung up on. Great radio. They ring and the receptionist tells them to fuck off. So a royal receptionist swearing: award winning radio. Or, they actually get through, at which point they're asking a medical professional questions about someone who is in hospital. What would have happened if Kate Middleton had just had a miscarriage, or was being rushed into surgery because of some complication they had just spotted? "Haha! Serves them stupid royals right!" Royalty doesn't have any specialness to them, and in believing that they're the exact same as anyone else, I believe everyone is entitled to privacy in their life, including medical matters.

Titty pictures? Definitely, she should earn her however many million a year are spent flying her around the world to wave. But that she's having complications with a pregnancy means everyone should fuck right off and leave her some peace.

And that brings me back to "what did these DJs expect?" The second they got through to a nurse they should have hung up and given her some privacy. As well as respecting the idea that the mistake in putting them through could cost someone their job, and has now been part of someone committing suicide.

Fair point. Making fun of royalty is totaqly fair game, but messing with private information about pregnant people isn't. I agree.

They should have thought of a better joke not involving a hospital.

This makes me angry at everyone and everything involved, with the exception of the nurse in question. The hospital had royalty admitted and quite obviously didn't have a thorough screening process for calls, and as such they threw that nurse to wolves. I'm angry at the media in general for sustaining a ridiculous whirlwind of hype about what two relatively inconsequential mammals are doing at every nanosecond of their lives, which has a proven track record of making the targets of that attention thoroughly miserable in their private lives. I'm angry at the stupid fucking DJs trying to be funny in the most crass and unfunny way possible. I'm angry at the general public for being so lobotomised as to give that much of a flying fuck about royalty - royalty - in this day and age. I'm angry at the royalty itself for implicitly embracing their new role as a celebrity dynasty. I'm angry at puppies because fuck puppies.

There was a like coming your way right up to that last sentence.

I'll have to live with that. It will be a reminder to me that too much anger is blind, and in striking out makes victims of cute animals. I'm a better person now. Thank you.

See I'm angry at everyone involved. I'm angry at the DJ's because what the fuck were they thinking. Of course it was Australian DJ's-the retards of the commonwealth. I'm angry at the nurse because she's 46 and married and has two children. And you're going to go and kill yourself over a fucking prank call? WTF? I would think the Queen putting a price on your head more believable than killing yourself over a prank call.

They probably recorded it and then edited it. If they don't get through, no bit to air.

Yeah, it was a stupid, tasteless prank; and yeah, it's terrible the nurse killed herself. I have a hard time holding them culpable for her death, though -- all they did was make a stupid prank call, causing the nurse to make a mistake at her job. They're nowhere near the same league as, say, my ex-wife's Mom: she gave a depressed friend a box of razor blades and a book on assisted suicide. And was eventually sentenced to three years probation + $35k in restitution for said friend's medical expenses.

Holy fucking shit