Acting like a right Charlie

The Bug flew its royal reporter DON GORDON-BROWN to England in August 2000 for the 100th birthday of the Queen Mother. He filed this report assessing Prince Harry's alleged father, Prince Charles the Prince of Wales.

Okay, so sure he's a goose. A prat. A right royal twit. But you've got to feel just a little sorry for the Queen Eccentric.
Standing on the balcony at Buckingham Palace with all the other drains on the public purse and paying homage to the biggest purse-drainer of them all, Prince Charles must surely have been thinking: "Gosh mummsy, you aren't going to live to be a hundred too, are you?"
Well, Chucky, sadly, there's a very good chance of that, for the Queen Proper (the Queen Itself to royal household staff) looks remarkably well preserved - especially on coins and notes of the realm, where she looks almost as youthful as on the Aussie $5 note.
Now, we at The Bug can't influence when the Queen Proper will call it quits and finally live apart from that revolting Queen Husband, but we can offer some advice as to how the Queen Eccentric could change his ways a tad.
Enough, at least, so mummsy wouldn't be quite as concerned about giving up the big comfy chair and shiny headgear to someone who talks to plants and who is known among royal household staff as the Windsor sausage.
The Queen Eccentric's chief problem is that he lacks .... and we're going to put this as gently as possible ..... balls!
Even as The Bug arrived in London in preparation for watching the Queen Mother finally tuck another G&T behind point to bring up a much deserved ton, the Queen Eccentric was on the front pages of the pommie media declaring that he and Camilla Hyphenated-Surname would never, ever, be married.
About this time, one of the big papers here had a cartoon of the Queen Eccentric getting a fright by mistaking the arse-end of a fairly ugly horse for his one-true love.
Don't correct us if we're wrong, but reports in the Australian media over recent times have had it that the royal spinmeisters have been softening up the pommy public to accepting the outing of Hyphenated-Surname. The M word might even have been given an airing.
And while The Bug failed royal politics 1 and 2 in favour of drawing naughty things in the toilet block 3, we also thought that if the Queen Eccentric really decided to put his foot down and take a stand, one's others would have to come on side, one would think.
Isn't it supposed to be good to be the King-in-Waiting?
The trouble with the Queen Eccentric is he is incapable of telling mummsie off about anything. More to the point, he's frightened shitless by the prospect of getting a right royal roasting from the Queen Husband, who it has been said is quite capable of saying the most offensive and hurtful things even when he means to.
For you see, the frightened and unloved little boy watching his parents return home from some cushy colonial junket is now the frightened and unloved middle-aged man who, sadly, still has to turn sideways to get through even the widest of doorways.
His seemingly unsolicited "never be married" edict shows that nothing much has changed since The Bug last visited these shores several years ago.
Then, the Queen Eccentric and Lady Camilla Hyphenated-Surname attended their first public outing together.
Sort of. They arrived in different limousines and didn't look at each other at the function and then departed in different limousines at a discreetly but finely worked out interval.
See what we mean. No balls.
The Bug's advice to helping the Queen Eccentric develop some testicular toughness is the same now as it was two years ago.
Instead of the ceremonial Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the Queen Eccentric should inaugurate the Changing of the Sheets. And once a month, of course, the Trooping of the Colours.
So come out of the closet, Chucky and Camilla. Get those royal household infantry with the bad haircuts to wheel a big four-poster bed around the perimeter fence while you, Chucky, give the horsey woman a right royal rogering to the clicks of 10,000 tourist cameras and the delighted giggles of little children from not just the cricket-playing empire, but beyond.
At the end of it all, hoist the soiled royal sheets high above the palace facade to show the world that you've not only got balls, but can do something with them.