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Katha Pollitt

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November 11, 2002

Good evening. I’m Alastair Cooke. And this is Masterpiece Theatre, scripted tonight by Joe Orton and Irvine Welsh. Tonight’s episode of “The House of Windsor” features betrayal, Fleet Street bidding wars, sycophancy, vengeful courtiers, threats, cruelly discarded retainers, secret tapes, embittered police, and the rape of a young palace servant by a senior staffer to the Prince of Wales. Ian Hislop appears briefly in the role of Nemesis. “The House of Windsor” appears courtesty of WGBH, the Arthur Barking Mad Foundation, and viewers like you. [11:03 PM]
Welcome to Electrolite's comments section.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Comments on Good evening. I'm Alastair Cooke.:

Graham Sleight ::: (view all by) ::: November 12, 2002, 02:09 PM:

You might want to add conspiracy theories to the list of tropes this saga has got through. When the Queen met the butler just after Diana's death, she warned him to keep quiet with the frankly bizarre words, "There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge." Sounds like she's read _Declare_ once too often.

Andy ::: (view all by) ::: November 12, 2002, 07:35 PM:

Y'know I knew that craven toadying of the most of the press around the Queen's Jubilee would produce a deserved counter-reaction but this is more than this humble republican could have imagined. Truly, sometimes Allah is very good. Anyhow the Queen's bizare comment could be explained by her reading say David Icke and finally admitting to herself that she is in fact a lizard or other type of alien reptile.

Seth Gordon ::: (view all by) ::: November 13, 2002, 07:01 AM:

> and viewers like you.

You misspelled "voyeurs".

Alison Scott ::: (view all by) ::: November 13, 2002, 08:17 AM:

Yes, well; the only report of the Queen's words is from Burrell, who is surely an unreliable narrator.

I laughed out loud at this morning's Pass Notes -- because I was one of the many Brits studying Italian on the fly the other day. I particularly liked the golden rule of journalism: "Scandalo fa vendere i giornali".