Apparently...

It was the Queens 80th birthday yesterday.

It was completely impossible not to know this if you were a resident of the UK, as every newspaper and TV station did it's best to gently remind you of the fact. Well, I say gently, it was more like every newspaper and TV station had become fiercely pro-royalty and had taken it upon themselves to make you feel guilty for not sending her a card or a gift of some sort.

I even fell for it for a few nanoseconds. Which was exactly how long it took for my rational mind to kick in. For a brief moment I thought "Isn't that nice that she's managed to stay alive so long." Then sanity returned and I thought, "She didn't get me anything when it was my birthday so why should I give two shits if it's hers."

Pictures of Queenie and Prince "looks like it was built by Paki's" Phillip having a walk around Windsor Castle were beamed onto the Satanic Squawk Box. Newsreaders up and down the country smiled and added to the asskissing by informing us that they remember when they met Her Royal Unnecessaryness, and how she came across as being so warm and caring that
you barely realised that she was really a lizard-human hybrid who would suck your mind out your ear with a straw if it wasn't for the fact that there were too many witnesses for her to risk being exposed.

(Ok, so the bit about the lizard-human hybrid didn't happen and probably isn't true but, hey, this isn't CNN you're reading so please, try to see the jokes.)

Crowds of flag waving morons gathered in the streets around Windsor Castle to wave, cheer and hand the doddering old swine highly original gifts such as flowers and Hallmark cards with "Happy Birthday Ma'am." scrawled on the inside in handwriting that would, no doubt about it, make a colobus monkey think... "This species is top of the food chain how?"

occasionally a small child, with a look of awe upon its cherubim-like face, would hand a homemade birthday card to El Queenie... (You could practically see the longing look in the Queens eye that signaled she was thinking, "How sweet the brains of this snackpack would be with a nice bottle of Bollinger.") ...And the newsreaders would comment on how healthy and radiant the queen looked for a woman of her years.

Fused into the newsloop were pictures of the Queen through the years. They seemed to me to have a somewhat recurring theme. In almost all of them she was smiling and shaking someone's hand or sitting looking regal while people handed her gifts. "Hang on..." I thought. "If all I ever did for 80 years was smile, shake hands and get presents I'd look pretty fucking good too."