Lengthy Screed?

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reading over the Poet Laureate's site today and noticed that he had become a sad postscript to the le parcours des blogueurs post. Yes, it is true. Your Maximum Leader hasn't had a lengthy screed in him for a few days now. He has been quite busy with other things, and has had to cut short his blogging time. To parapharase one of his favourite bands, "Is it better to have blogs left unwritten than to have blogs misunderstood?" (Check out the song "Pale Sun.")

Aside: Speaking of Cowboy Junkie lyrics... They are so poetic. Your Maximum Leader has (quite literally) spent hours and hours just listening to Margo Timmins singing those wonderful lyrics. One that really does stick in his mind is this: "Two are born to cross/their paths, their lives, their hearts/If by chance one turns away/are they forever lost?" There is one old friend of your Maximum Leader to whom he would like to send those lines annonymously and see if the person can guess who sent them... But... That aside...

So, why no lengthy screeds? As your Maximum Leader has said, he has been busy and just hasn't had significant commentary in him. But! Now that he has been relegated to a sad codicil to the Poet Laureate's site, he must produce something. In this spirit allow him to write a lengthy and truly meaningless screed.

In the days when your Maximum Leader was just a young villain out of college he applied for a job with Cunard Cruise lines. He noticed a position advertised that didn't seem to require any effort or hard work. Essentially the position was for an "Escort." In addition to general crew responsibilities, it seemed as though the primary function of this position was to sit around with little old rich ladies and make conversation with them as they crossed the Atlantic or cruised the Med. Your Maximum Leader is nothing if not a font of useless knowledge with which to make idle conversation. He was interviewed for the postion. Interviewed twice in fact. And is convinced that he lost the position to a much more handsome looking Aussie guy, who probably could dance. Your Maximum Leader, while waiting in the lounge to be interviewed, was sitting with an Aussie guy and we struck up a conversation. It turned out he was also on a second interview for the same position. Your Maximum Leader took one look at him and knew that the chances of the Mike World Order being sidetracked for the sake of a few years cruising around the world keeping old ladies happy were slim.

What does that little tidbit have to do with anything? Nothing really. It perhaps shows nothing more than your Maximum Leader loves to dispense his useless knowledge whenever possible. Such my minions is the benefit of a sound liberal education. (Liberal in the traditional sense. Not the sense of the Propaganda Minister - who's post is still missing - is a bleeding-heart Liberal.) So moving right along...

Over Sunday dinner at the Villainschloss, Villainette #1 asked why there was no King of England, but there was a Queen of England? Your Maximum Leader complimented her on her completely esoteric question and took the occasion to lecture on this very issue. You see my minions, the reason there is no King of England to complement the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is simple. Kings always outrank Queens. (Although Kings aren't nearly as useful in Chess.)

You see, there are two types of queens (in the monarchical, not homosexual, sense). There are queen-regnants, and queen-consorts. A queen-regnant, like Elizabeth II of Britain, is the hereditary monarch of her country. She is the rightful heir to the throne, and her line will be used to determine the succession. A queen-consort, on the other hand, is the wife of a king, and is only responsible (in a monarchical sense) for producing an heir to the throne for the king. So, in the grand scheme of things, if Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Philip were to be made king, he would effectively outrank his wife and his lines would be used to determine succession and such. Thus, Philip is the ever-quick-with-a-not-too-subtle-faux-pas Prince-Consort (and Duke of Edinburgh). A good example of a queen-consort would have been the current Queen of Britain's mother, Elizabeth the Queen Mother. She was the queen-consort to King George VI. When Charles succeeds his mother (yes Mrs. Smallholder, it will happen) he will likely become King Charles III. Should he take a new wife (unlikely but possible) she will become Queen "Whatever," the queen-consort. But William, thanks to the succession act regularly passed by the British parliament, will remain the next in line.

Primogeniture brings up an interesting aside... Sweden, that socialist monarchy on the Baltic, changed the traditional rules of inheriting the throne. Rather than the first-born son being the heir (agnatic succession), the first-born is the heir (cognatic succession). So, the heir to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is not his son, Prince Carl Philip (born 1979); but rather his daughter Crown Princess Victoria (born 1977). And if your Maximum Leader may comment, Crown Princess Victoria is quite attractive, quite available, and quite bright. (NB to the Minister of Propaganda - she's an Eli.)

And that, loyal minions, was a completely useless, yet somehow vaugely theraputic, blog from your Maximum Leader.

By the way, here is a cool site describing titles, nobility, and the like. And while you are at it, this site is really fun. Your Maximum Leader particularly likes the "Inbreeding Index" for all the royals...

Carry on.