Queen Protocol

Queen Elizabeth is coming to America for a little visit. Apparently we Americans have our panties in bunches trying to figure out the proper protocols.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18445710/

Luckily for you, I’m here to help. I’m not an “expert” in royal protocol, but most of this stuff is common sense. For example, when addressing the queen, you should call her “Your Majesty.” You should never address Queen Elizabeth with any of the following names:

Liz
Lisa
Beth
Your Hiney
Beeee-atch

When making small talk with the queen, do not try to be witty. The queen hates witty banter. Here are a few bons mots to avoid:

- Are you related to Queen Latifah?

- How’s that taxation without representation look to you now?

- How far can Prince Charles glide with those ears?

- Ask me about my Yankee doodle.

- Would you like some tea? It’s at the bottom of the Boston Harbor.

- So what exactly is your job description, aside from being Tony Blair’s fluffer?

You should also never ask the queen if you can try on her hat. But if you do, and she lets you, it’s a big mistake to take it to the next level and do your impression of her scolding the staff.

If you plan to give the queen a gift, there are some items you should steer clear of. For example, she’s traveling with her husband, Prince Philip, so it would be bad form to give her a t-shirt that says, “I’m with stupid.” He already feels bad enough.

In fact, gag gifts of any kind are out. If you are unsure whether your gift fits into the gag category, here are some clues:

- Anything involving a penis
- Anything activated by clapping, especially if it sings
- Anything involving an 8-ball
- Anything with the phrase “You want it WHEN?”

If you have to pass gas when the queen visits, wait until someone sounds a trumpet and time it accordingly. If, inexplicably, there are no trumpets, blame someone on the queen’s staff. In a loud, sarcastic voice, look at him and say, “We saved you from Hitler, and you give us that. Well, I guess we’re even.”

For the guys, if you need to reach down your pants and adjust your junk while standing in line to shake hands with the queen, that’s okay. She wears gloves for exactly that reason. I’m sure she brings an extra trunk of them when she visits America.

That’s all the royal protocol I know. Do you have anything to add?

Comments

[jerry w]

Some quotes overheard by the royal staff (and no, I don't mean the Bonnie Prince):

Q.E. II to Phillip: "No, I said bring me the Royal Jewels, not the family jewels. Besides, that wouldn't cover half my bloody ear lobe."

"Charles, when I said that I hope someday you would try to save some mangy bitch from the gutter, I was thinking more of a lost corgi".

"Yes, I'm quite sure that Diana didn't name William after that Clinton fellow, but there was that night when he and his Camillia, sorry, I meant to say Hillary, visited the castle.... Hmmmm....... Yet I do recall that he pronounced it as Ball-More after that."

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Attilla the Rob]

I guess asking her to "pull my finger" or "show your tits" would not go over too well?

"hey, your the chick on that Canadian money!"

[Ice]

I'm English and I'd like to point out that only the Americans idolise Diana now. Most of the rest of us accept that although yes Charles did cheat, he has quietly got married again and it bothers us no further, despite what 'opinion' polls say.

[Hacker Kitty]

come on, most of you have already made the worst mistake...

...don't mention the war!
ANY war! did none of you watch faulty towers?
jeez

[Pedantic John]

It's pronounced"Mam" not "M-ah-m" (I have it on good authority from a Lord Lieutenant).

Off to practise looking at things in a loud sarcastic voice...

[steve]

And then they voted

[amitabha]

After seeing Act 4 of Return of Mr. Bean I knew about the things not to do before Her Majesty. In the episode Mr. Bean meets Queen Elizabeth II in a royal premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square cinema, but is quite unprepared (his nails and teeth are dirty, his breath smells, and his shoes are unpolished). He manages to rectify most of these problems to his satisfaction (using spit to polish his shoes, folding back the corners of a postcard to serve as a pocket handkerchief, and using a loose thread from an sherette's uniform to floss his teeth), but when he uses his trouser zipper to clean his fingernail, the zip gets stuck, and he only manages to force it back up just before the Queen greets him. Preparing for a bow, Bean accidentally head butts the Queen, who is knocked to the floor. During the confusion, Bean makes a run for it.

[Dom]

For someone with pretty much unlimited wealth, crazy kids, grandsons who are off to fight in Iraq or on the front cover of gossip magazines, and who has to wear funny old clothes, ride sidesaddle, and drive around in gilt horse carts, she's good at keeping it real.

It's very unlikely you would upset her, but very likely you would make a fool of yourself. Take care.

The main thing is that the Queen thinks that the whole world smells like fresh paint. Anything that smells otherwise will be noticed very quickly, so waiting for trumpets won't work. You will need to stand next to a corgi or horse for sure.

[Arron]

Brits get annoyed when Americans say things like, "we saved you from Hitler". I live in Britain and I can understand why.

On D-Day, the US landed and parachuted 73,000 troops. Britain landed and parachuted 83,114.

So when an American says, "we saved you from Hitler", it comes across as a mixture of arrogance, ignorance and Stalinist rewriting of history.

The US and Britain joined forces and won. Neither would have won without the other.

[jeqp]

"4. The Pacific war was a US show just about all the way.

Posted by: Bill Henderson | May 04, 2007 at 03:28 PM"

Rubbish. It was the Aussies who stopped the Japanese advance in Papua New Guinea. The US was still running around screeching like a little girl after the Pearl Harbor bombing.

[Andy]

It is quite acceptable to take a photograph of the Royal visitor, but you must ask permission first. For example, "Excuse me, your Maj, do you mind if I take a quick photo of your regina?"

[WillBatten]

The writer formerly known as CC,

we Aussies have the same problem, noone appreciating our war efforts. Especially with WWI. Everyone remembers how we got ours arses gloriously kicked in Turkey, noone (including many Aussies) remember the battle fought and won on the Western Front.

But as for the queen, I hope it goes better than when the premier of China visited the States. Oh, that was hilarious! As long as anti-British hecklers stay out of the way and they call her country by its proper name, they'll be doing much better.

*snickers*

[Howie]

I reckon you could come up with a good joke about this:

The effect of meat consumption on body odor attractiveness.

* Havlicek J,
* Lenochova P.

Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Husnikova 2075, 158 00 Prague 13, Czech Republic. jan.havlicek@fhs.cuni.cz

Axillary body odor is individually specific and potentially a rich source of information about its producer. Odor individuality partly results from genetic individuality, but the influence of ecological factors such as eating habits are another main source of odor variability. However, we know very little about how particular dietary components shape our body odor. Here we tested the effect of red meat consumption on body odor attractiveness. We used a balanced within-subject experimental design. Seventeen male odor donors were on "meat" or "nonmeat" diet for 2 weeks wearing axillary pads to collect body odor during the final 24 h of the diet. Fresh odor samples were assessed for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity by 30 women not using hormonal contraceptives. We repeated the same procedure a month later with the same odor donors, each on the opposite diet than before. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense. This suggests that red meat consumption has a negative impact on perceived body odor hedonicity.

PMID: 16891352 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmedcmd=Retrievedopt=AbstractPluslist_uids=16891352itool=iconabstritool=pubmed_DocSum

[Mark]

Mind you, try the same with GWB or others of the "high command". You'll have guys with curly wire in their ears asking serious questions.

The queen doesn't really have much power, so if you don't like the Royal Family, just ignore them. It's not as if she can put you in the tower for being somewhere else.

Politicians on the other hand, DO have power. Chuck eggs at 'em, take the piss. Go to town. You'll get worse treatment than you'd get if you did the same to the queen and the politicians reall do have the power to get you put in the slammer.

[Bruce]

- How far can Prince Charles glide with those ears?

Goddammit, now I gotta clean the coffee off my monitor! :D

[Mark]

Mind you, try the same with GWB or others of the "high command". You'll have guys with curly wire in their ears asking serious questions.

The queen doesn't really have much power, so if you don't like the Royal Family, just ignore them. It's not as if she can put you in the tower for being somewhere else.

Politicians on the other hand, DO have power. Chuck eggs at 'em, take the piss. Go to town. You'll get worse treatment than you'd get if you did the same to the queen and the politicians reall do have the power to get you put in the slammer.

[amitabha]

After seeing Act 4 of Return of Mr. Bean I knew about the things not to do before her Majesty. In the episode Mr. Bean meets Queen Elizabeth II in a royal premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square cinema, but is quite unprepared (his nails and teeth are dirty, his breath smells, and his shoes are unpolished). He manages to rectify most of these problems to his satisfaction (using spit to polish his shoes, folding back the corners of a postcard to serve as a pocket handkerchief, and using a loose thread from an sherette's uniform to floss his teeth), but when he uses his trouser zipper to clean his fingernail, the zip gets stuck, and he only manages to force it back up just before the Queen greets him. Preparing for a bow, Bean accidentally head butts the Queen, who is knocked to the floor. During the confusion, Bean makes a run for it.

[Crashed]

Don't mention her horrible anus. Or was it annus horriblus? One or the other...

[Crashed]

Ask her why they put all those extra vowels in their words over there. Editors paid by the letter? - Robby

Maybe we should get her to ask your Bush why you take out all the proper vowels? ;)

[El Esteban]

Tell her that you heard the current queen of Scotland is a real bitch.

[Kevin Carson]

How about this: "Is it true you used to work in a Tijuana donkey show, but got fired for rotting the dicks off all the donkeys? Bee-atch."

[Andrew The Great, Formerly Known as Andrew the Great and Humble]

Wave a little flag of a union jack with the St. Andrew's Cross in front instead of the English one. There's nothing the queen of England likes better than some Scottish Nationalism. Or, better yet, give her a bouquet of White Yorkshire Roses - The OTHER side of the war of the roses. Extra points if she smiles and thanks you without realizing what they are.

[Dall]

We Canadians do not use extra vowels. It is not our fault that Noah Webster (an American) decided that most Americans were too stupid to know how to correctly spell and enunciate their words.

Colour, not Color. That pisses me off to know end.

[Dall]

Please ignore any comment made by a purported Canadian that in any way disparages the Queen. Despite her idiot son we in Canada still respect her immensley and are very glad for her continued presence on the Throne.

P.S.- Dallas Stars can suck my balls
GO SENS GO!

[admiral krunch]

NEVER say anything from dilbert, or for that matter anything that may have come from scott adams (Douglas adams is fine though)