Queen's Greatest Hits

Especially when I wear my eyeglasses, I tend to look more like Dick Cheney (above) than Johnny Rotten (right), late of The Sex Pistols.  And that's what makes it all the more enjoyable when things happen as they did on Monday. 

I was in Towson, the county seat (so named because that's where everyone sits down, I suppose) and was heading back to the office when a lady with a knitted brow, pursed lips and a perplexed shrug asked me for directions to the courthouse.  I pulled the truck over to the curb, but hit the "down" button on the window before I hit the "off" button on the audio system.  This meant that the lady was treated to an audio shower of Mr Rotten singing the chorus to "God Save the Queen."  I believe the verse she got to enjoy was "God save the Queen/She ain't no human being/There is no future/In England's dreamland."


Not that I look all that dignified, but she seemed surprised at my choice of music.  Can't help it.  My mix CDs will take you from Conway Twitty to Barry Manilow to Zappa to Abba to Cledus Maggard (real name: Jay Huguely) to Fiona Apple (real name: Fiona Maggart.)  The God Save the Queen song was written, what, 35 years ago, and on the grounds that there will always be an England, England has survived the economic depressions of the 70s that led to the street revolts and punk movement.  They survived Hitler's Blitzkrieg and the brief popularity of Hugh Grant, and they can survive most anything, I reckon.

And now it has come to this. Queen Elizabeth II ("Betty Q2" to her loyal subjects) has joined Facebook, although it is a fan-type page, so you can neither friend nor poke her.  Indeed.  The stories say that The Big E is not even going to get on the page herself, citing a maladroit internet sense, but I can't help but wish that someone with time on his hands - Mr Rotten!?- would teach the old lady how to enter status updates, so we could see entries such as:

QUEEN ELIZABETH II OMG Are My Grandsons the biggest buttheads in the world - especially the one who looks like Opie and struts around in Nazi gear!?

QUEEN ELIZABETH II is sooooo looking forward to St Swithin's Day! Par-tay!

QUEEN ELIZABETH II likes You Know Who Else Is A Royal Pain and 35 other pages

QUEEN ELIZABETH II is looking for a new purse - hit me up with shopping ideas girlfriends!

QUEEN ELIZABETH II has a bustle in her hedgerow; don't be alarmed! It's just a sprinkling for the May queen!

QUEEN ELIZABETH II is making a sandwich for Victoria Beckham