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 A fresh twelve months ahead of us. A new beginning, a revivescence. The year's promised renaissance. And who among us has not made promises to oneself . . . promises to change, to improve. To ameliorate one's shortcomings, and expand one's strengths. Who has not sat down, quill in hand, to scratch out a list of resolutions for the new year?
Well, certainly not Sir Charles Grandiose!
One's readers (and one has it upon an irrefragable authority that the legion of faithful is so many that were each a single story, the famed Scheherazade would to this day be wiling away the evenings in Samarkand entertaining her wicked husband, Schariar) know that one has attained a pinnacle of perfection upon which few have perched. One's manners are exemplary. In a social situation, one can always be counted upon to call attention to the faults of others, much to their betterment. One has a perfect home. One has a perfect wife. One has a perfect ward (who, after a breath-taking series of Christmas week births and several post-Christmas deaths due to overindulgence, is eighty-seventh in line for the throne).
Knowing, however, that many readers wish an example to emulate, one will attempt in this forum a short list of items in which one can attempt improvement.
The Sir Charles Grandiose List
of New Year's Resolutions
- One resolves to pray daily for Little Brisket to win at the Ascot Races this June.
- One resolves to make frequent charitable donations to St. Jennifer's Half-Way House for Trollops Who Really Wish to Mend Their Ways. Those girls really know how to reward a man for baubles of paste jewelry, let one tell you.
- One resolves to be kind to the unfortunate old half-wit fossil who attempts to beg a few pence off oneself from time to time, and to have one's servants kick him senseless above the waistline from henceforth.
- One resolves to lose some excess weight. Specifically, Melody Windover-Midden, who could not define 'dead weight' any more closely than if her photograph appeared next to the phrase in an illustrated dictionary.
- Finally, one resolves to continue educating oneself in how to unfasten a corset without getting one's digits entangled in the cursed laces. The girls at St. Jennifer's have already promised to assist oneself in this noble goal.
Hoping that one's readers will be as successful in their attempts at self-reform as oneself will indubitably be, one remains for yet another week,
Sir Charles Grandiose
Mr sTrapping writes:
 Dear Sir Charles,
My husban dand I recentl yattended a performance of Messiah performed by the Philharmonic Symphony of Switzerland. He fel lasleep during 'For Unto Us,' unfortunately. I was most aggrieved by hi slack of interest.
He didn't even wake up until the strident entrance of several Swis strumpets later in the performance, and then he seemed to be riveted.
I sthere anything I can do about thi strumpet problem?
Mr sTrapping of Northampshire
Sir Charles replies:
My dear lady,
Gracious, your experience doesn't sound like any performance of Messiah that one has ever attended.
Fortunately, your husband seems to have found a solution to his own problem. A few Swiss strumpets always keep a man's focus, every time.
Halleluiahing about the place, one remains,
Sir Charles Grandiose
Patrick writes:
Dear Sir Charles,
Me created from body parts, like Frankenstein
monster. Me just killed Creator, because he
laugh at "Jim Carrey", when me no laugh.
Me fear police investigation. What me do
with body?
Patrick
Sir Charles replies:
Sirrah,
One regrets to inform you that one is as likely to involve oneself in a murder investigation as one is to dress oneself in a saucy French maid's uniform, walk down to a sailor's pub, wave one's feather duster at the bar, and say, "Ahoy, lads, anyone want to dock in me 'arbour?"
That noted, one's servants have always found the compost heap a remarkably speedy venue for such exercises, and one's marrows are always the larger for it come harvest time.
Wishing the correspondent good day, one remains,
Sir Charles Grandiose
Virginia writes:
 Dear Sir Charles,
Today my mother got our Christmas pictures back from the Foto-Shoppe and was going through them while we were waiting at the check-out line of the local Bailey Savings & Loan, but when she got to one picture she shoved it into her purse without showing it to me.
Later that evening, I just happened to glance inside her purse and under all the piles of lip balm and used Kleenexes, what should I find but a picture of my father in his underwear putting together my Christmas bike?
When I asked Mommy about it, she said Santa didn't have time to put together all of the toys and mommies and daddies sometimes have to help him out. But at Christmas she said the elves made the toys. I think she may be trying to pull a fast one.
So tell me, Sir Charles, is there a Santa Claus?
XOXOXOXO,
Virginia
P.S. I may be only eight and a half years old, but I'm really smart, so I know if Sir Charles says it, it must be true.
Sir Charles replies:
Dear girl,
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have visited your home this year, did he, Virginia? Seven hours of darkness. Several million children to visit. You're a smart girl. You can do the math.
You see, Virginia, Santa really only has time to visit the homes of the privileged and wealthy, where he pauses for an eggnog or two with the cream the beau monde. By midnight, the poor chap is in his cups, and too ginned up to visit the homes of common folk like you.
Thus it is up to your dear father and mother, one unshaven and in his day-old underwear and the other in her housecoat sucking down the last three fags from a package of 'Virginia Slims' as she desperately removes the price stickers from your Elizabethan Queen and Consort Barbie and Ken and their Tower of London Dream House with Live Action Guillotine, not even noticing the anachronisms, to provide their dear child with that sparkle of joy that distinguishes this holiday from all the others.
Isn't Christmas wonderful. Virginia?
Still glowing, one remains,
Sir Charles Grandiose
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