The only thing you need to know about the Windsors — the British clan of royal, freeloading slackers — is this:
Prince Charles, son of a queen, father of a prince, husband of Camilla — the man who sits a heartbeat from the throne — has never in his 62 years experienced the tactile sensation of squeezing toothpaste from tube to toothbrush.
“Someone squeezes it for him.” This, according to Johann Hari, author of “God Save the Queen? Monarchy and the Truth About the Windsors,” which makes the argument that, for the good of England, it’s time to shut the lights on a monarchy that’s grown too weird.
Next week, the planet will be fixated on that little island in the Atlantic. Hundreds of millions are expected to watch as a family that, in the last two decades, nearly imploded from its own epic horniness and sense of entitlement, makes another whopper of a mistake.
The Westminster Abbey wedding of Prince William, 28, and Kate Middleton, 29 — a lady insufferably marginalized as a “commoner” by snooty Brits (the UK Telegraph called her the oldest “spinster” ever to wed a future king) — has devolved into something less than the bejeweled spectacle it was designed to be. The nuptials are nothing more than an incredibly expensive, heavily choreographed and lavishly costumed infomercial.
It’s an over-the-top fete meant to look clubby. So President Obama has been snubbed from the guest list, forced to press his nose against the abbey doors with the hated Sarah, Duchess of York. To party with this crowd, it helps to be fabulous, idle or Elton John.
But there is desperation in the humid English air, as the painfully irrelevant crown stages a last-gasp effort at selling its product to the recession-gored masses. This is survival time for Queen Elizabeth (above) and the chorus of chuckleheads she spawned.
In welcoming Common Kate into the firm — as the late, incomparable Princess Diana called the nightmare brood — the royals come off as cluelessly snobbish at a time they need to reinvent themselves as open and modern.
Kate is viewed with a sly snort by the extended family. In interviews, and on “20/20,” I got queasy as Wills’ set spoke of Kate as one would speak of an adorable Martian.
It turns out the lady who might become queen is the product of a century of “upward mobility” by the Middleton family. They started as coal miners and graduated to middle-class merchants. Now they’ve hit the big time — offering up their daughter as a means to gain a foothold into the world of William. In America, hard work and success are celebrated. To British blue bloods, the Middletons are grasping social climbers.
Kate waited for William a grueling eight years, enduring the prince’s wandering eye as he bedded her, dumped her, took her back, then repeated. “Waity Katey,” the British tabloids taunted her.
“She’s pretty, but she has no spark,” observed a friend, also named Kate. But William needs a breeder. And if you believe a royal wife, who can’t work, can’t dance, can’t do much other than cut ribbons in awful hats, has a role other than birthing babies, you’re as naive as Diana on her wedding night.
There’s a theory that the Windsors, who changed their name in 1917 from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (too German), are good for the British economy. Author Hari disputes that, saying the $290 million a year in welfare lavished on the clan by the British public doesn’t bring bucket-loads of tourists to Buckingham Palace. The biggest attraction in England is LEGOLAND.
The wedding’s costs are to be borne by the royal family, with the Middletons kicking in $155,000. But security along the 1.4-mile London parade route is expected to hit British taxpayers for about $20 million. And it’s a national holiday, meaning government workers get paid to watch TV. The economy reels.
Here’s another thing you should know about the Windsors. They are banned from playing the board game Monopoly. Prince Andrew blabbed in 2008, “We’re not allowed to play Monopoly at home. It gets too vicious.”
This is what passes for a rule of behavior behind palace doors. William and Kate don’t stand a chance.
Now it’s a gentri-fight community
Smith Street in Carroll Gardens is known for chic cafes and stroller gridlock, not knife fights and sidewalk gore. But the area, where an elegant brownstone can set you back a Mayor Bloomberg-size fortune, was the scene of what cops call a quaint, mob-linked knife battle between Mark Iacono, who twirls a mean pizza at nearby celeb joint Lucali, and ex-con Benny Geritano. The beef was over a dame.
Both men are charged with attempted murder, and both have taken a vow of omerta with police. Investment bankers and trophy wives who’ve lived in the nabe less than 20 years are amazed at the return to Brooklyn’s bad old days.
As Iacono recovers from his wounds, two questions burn: Will we ever find out who’s at fault? And where will we go now to line up for an hour to plunk down 35 bucks for a heavenly pie?
Avoid pervs – date inmates
Match.com, the Web site famed for hooking up daters, is now running users’ names through a national sex-offender registry in hopes of weeding out molesters and freaks. This, after a Los Angeles woman claimed she was sexually assaulted by a dream date she met on the site. Sam Wagner has another idea.
He runs the Web site HotPrisonPals.com from his TriBeCa studio, enabling ladies and guys to select pen pals from among the sexiest men incarcerated on earth. At least there’s little question where these guys spend their nights.
“My site has always had this feature where you can just look up any inmate and find out what the crime is,” Wagner said. “It’s safer. You know exactly who you’re meeting.”
It’s a jungle out there for desperate singles.
NO HEALING CRYSTAL
Five years ago, stripper Crystal Mangum tried, and nearly succeeded, to ruin the lives of three Duke University lacrosse players, falsely claiming they raped her. She wasn’t done.
Mangum was indicted this week in North Carolina on a charge of first-degree murder after allegedly stabbing her boyfriend. Last year, she was convicted of misdemeanors after setting a fire that nearly burned her house as her three children were inside. Friends said Mangum got into a string of rotten relationships after perpetrating the Duke hoax, to bring her kids stability.
She’s failed.
Dork Mork a wheel space cadet
Pedestrians who risk life and limb dodging bicyclists on city sidewalks have another two-wheeled menace to fear: Robin Williams.
The bad-ass wannabe said he looked like a “terrorist or a crack dealer” in a ski mask as he rode illegally on a West Side curb. But he avoided a $100 ticket after a cop ID’d him and gushed, “Mr. Williams. Hey, how are you?” And “Mork!”
Walkers now have the option of getting their legs broken by an entitled, unapologetic celeb. Too bad it’s dorky Williams, not Jon Hamm.