Weatherstone Run
Kneicesby Idle, -----shire
10 April, 2000

My dear Sir Charles Grandiose,

As personal secretary to Camilla Parker-Bowles, I write to thank you for the extreme hospitality you displayed in allowing Mrs. Parker-Bowles to stay in your gracious estate of Blandsdown last weekend, after her car broke down in the neighbouring town of Fishampton. She very much appreciated being allowed to stay for the two days it required for her motor to be repaired, and wishes me to inform you the rest of her journey to her retreat in Weatherstone Run was uneventful and pleasant.

However, Mrs. Parker-Bowles was concerned about a number of . . . Sir Charles, let us call them 'oversights' that she encountered during her stay at Blandsdown. I settle upon the word because I cannot believe a man of your stature and accomplishment, a baronet of the realm, would every be intentionally insulting. I shall enumerate.

• It was not necessary, or even encourageable, to roar at the top of your voice, whenever Mrs. Parker-Bowles entered the room, "By gum, ladies, watch out, it's the Maneater Of London!"
  
• Mrs. Parker-Bowles prefers to keep a low profile when visiting private houses. Sending the town crier to announce through the town that villagers could pay a pound apiece to see 'that old slag from the papers' borders on the libelous.
  
• One cannot imagine who told them such a thing, but your servants should be informed that Mrs. Parker-Bowles does not prefer to be addressed as 'Milly the Silly Filly.'
  
• Mrs. Parker-Bowles believes it nothing but courtesy that if you recommend a guest take a long morning's walk in the estate park, you inform her that you and your friends will be using said park for target practice within the half hour. Her best tweeds were quite ruined by gunpowder.
  
• Mrs. Parker-Bowles' desire to take meals in her chambers was out of a disinclination to interrupt the daily life of your family, Sir Charles, and not because she is, as you apparently phoned several of the London tabloids to report, 'a snotty old horse whose teeth are older and yellower than some of my family's heirloom chamberpots.'
  
• Concerning those meals: Mrs. Parker-Bowles does not eat nails for breakfast, a fact you might have noticed when she declined to ingest a plate of them the first time.
  
• And finally, while we recognize that it is the custom of many hosts to place a card on the door of their guests' rooms bearing their name, during their stay, it was entirely unnecessary to emblazon upon Mrs. Parker-Bowles' door with white paint the appellation of 'Ho.'

Sincerely yours,
Lester Smithee
Secretary to Mrs. Parker-Bowles

Renata writes:

you sir charles,

i want to know should i let my boyfriend go at this time or should i keep him, but i can't cause i am leaving. And when he call sometime he don't have any thing much to say to me and when one time i went to his town and he act like he didn't want me there and he said that i came without telling him that i was coming. i really want to get to know him and be with him but we got alot of things to talk about.......WHAT DO U THINK ABOUT THAT?

renata ingram

Sir Charles replies:

My dear Renata,

What I think is that it's a pity there are so many genuine freaks in this world, and yet so few circus sideshows.

Advising against a constant diet of 'corn dogs,' one remains,
Sir Charles Grandiose

slangley@comtech.com.au writes:

Hi

If you can help? I need some tips on how to write a funny limerick on a
person.

The persons name is Louis Crow.

Thanks your assistance  much appreciated

Sir Charles replies:

An illiterate friend of Lou Crow
Asked a question not quite apropos
Of a wise baronet
Whom he'd never met.
And the peer told the bugger, "Go blow."

Hoping to have fulfilled the 'fun' quotient, one remains,
Sir Charles Grandiose

Confused  writes:

Dear Lady Felicia,

As you can see by my chosen nom de plume, I'm confused. I was ecstatic to read your dissertation on diamonds in last week's column. It seemed to be very well reasoned and as always, quite informative.

However, I do have a question that's been plaguing me. My mother says that I am too young for diamonds. (I am but fifteen.) But she's always telling me I have to be careful not to let a man take my precious jewel. I'm assuming she means the garnet necklace my great-aunt Myrtle gave me last year for my birthday. But honestly, are there really garnet-hounds out there who'll try to get me alone so they can get a garnet?

It doesn't make sense. Please help.

Confused

The Lady Felicia replies:

My dear confused child,

A wise and loving mother is a girl's best friend. Be guided by her always. That said, one must confess that mamas can be, on occasion, very trying, very obtuse, and so very out-of-date. Yes, many and many a time can I remember crying out in exasperation, "Oh, Moth-er!" when my own mama sent me back upstairs to put on a third petticoat. Why, on occasion, even Penelope Windsor-Smythe, eighty-fifth in line for the throne, whom one loves as one's daughter, has rolled her eyes at some bit of useful advice one has given her. But mothers know whereof they speak, although sometimes they have difficulties in expressing themselves coherently on certain topics.

To answer your question quite frankly, my dear, it is a wicked, wicked world and yes, there are bold and masterful men out there who will try to take your sweet little garnet. Men, and boys even, who desire it above all things and who will go to great lengths to possess it for their own. In this, your mother is right to be concerned. But let me assure you and your dear mother that it is unnecessary for you to cease your youthful efforts at adornment when a good safety clasp will protect your jewels from the advances of the most ardent suitor. You are young -- you should flaunt your jewels!

I will give you one further bit of wisdom: this manly lust for precious gems does seem to diminish with age and the onset of gout. My Sir Charles, before we were married, was enthralled with my pretty rubies -- often making boyish lunges at them -- and now, he hardly notices them at all.

Serenely, one remains
Lady Felicia Grandiose