Craig has been so good to me during these sometimes awful months of pregnancy, that I hardly cook dinner - but last night I concocted a creamy, garlic sauce of pesto, parmesan and buttery leeks to go with the shop-bought gnocchi I usually make by hand. With my bowl balanced on top my bump and between my boobs, I asked Craig to see if there was anything decent on TV. It was either a sickening show about Paris Hilton finding a British best friend - or yet another, bloodily gory* episode of 'Trawlermen' which we'd seen before - or... "Undercover Princes".
Three princes from abroad in Brighton - looking for a soulmate to take back to their kingdoms to rule beside them. Prince #1: Pseudonym 'Mani' from India. Painfully thin, moves like an old man who needs a walker but refuses in his ancient stubbornness. Oh yes - and very gay. Prince #2. From Sri Lanka. Currently exiled with entire family in Holland due to wars - but hoping to rebuild the monarchy and be a 'people's prince'. Is looking only for a woman 'of the blue blood' -- hardly likely when he was living in Brighton and spending his evenings speed-dating!
Prince #2: Pseudonym 'Africa'. From Africa. Original, huh? We tried to unlock all the clues of his accent, body language and other quirks to see just WHICH part of Africa he was a prince of. After just a few sentences, we decided, proudly, he must surely come from South Africa (in fact, he's a Zulu prince) -- but then: shock and horror! when asked what he was looking for in a future princess-bride, he says: "It is not the inside so much that is important to me but the outside. And, aah, she rrreally MUST be pretty. Her personality - we can work on that. But first, it is her looks." How EMBARRASSING!!! His manner and attitude of speaking to his dates was quite abrupt - and he certainly didn't know how to dance the delicate dance of flirtation! Instead he bumbled his way pompously and bombastically like a bull in a china shop. As an ambassador for South Africa, he was closed-minded, quite arrogant and didn't have ANY sort of royal bearing at all. Mind you, the producers of the show didn't do the royalty of these princes much justice. They had Prince Africa Zulu rowing a boat with an 18 year old lapdancer! Perhaps had he been introduced to a segment of the British female population more suited to his upbringing and expectations, things may have panned out differently!
It was VERY interesting to see how not a single black woman was presented to him. Was he particularly looking for a white princess? Or was he presented with a racially varied group of girls and his choice included only the white ones in the end?His final choice was an outdoorsy British brunette of which the Prince's Zulu mama said reminded her of Lady Di!
The Sri Lankan prince took his polite but not-at-all blue-blooded,office-worker blonde home to Amsterdam after revealing his true identity. The Indian prince found true love in his peroxided blonde shop assistant, Mike - returning with him to India to seek re-admittance to his family after being the first Indian royal to step out of the closet! (We can't wait for the final episode which shows how these potential 'brides' feel about becoming part of a foreign royal family!)
*that was for you, Dad ;)
