Charles’ Hot Streak

King (formerly Prince) Charles is on a hot streak.

He finally got to become King. It only took 73 years of training. I thought that eight weeks of Army Basic Training would never end. Five decades as Prince of Wales must have seemed an eternity.

Netflix’s “The Crown” did a 180 on him. In previous seasons, the young Charles was portrayed as a priggish twerp while Diana was shown as an innocent victim. The actors in those roles resembled the young Charles and Diana that we all remember. Charles looked like he had just been squeezed out of a toothpaste tube and Diana was gorgeous.

The current season of “The Crown” is set in 1991 when Charles was 43 and Diana was 30. That may seem like a huge age difference, but Donnie is twenty-four years older than Melania and look at what a love match that is. In the current season, Charles and Diana haven’t divorced yet but the marriage is on the rocks.

Suddenly, Charles is soberly consulting with the Prime Minister on how to save the monarchy and devoting his time to charities while Diana is a neurotic twit with a personal astrologer, acupuncturist, and chiropractor.

To fit the revised characters, Charles is now played by handsome Dominic West, best known as Jimmy McNulty from “The Wire”. If you can’t get Brad Pitt to play the lead in my life story, Dominic West would be better anyway. Diana is played by an unknown New Zealand actress who despite the fabulous hair and clothes would have been known at Central High as “Horseface”.

Now that he is King, the producers of “The Crown” probably decided to “suck up to Chuck”.

The producers of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” had no such reservations. In last week’s episode, they revealed that Charles always travels with his “personal throne” — a royal toilet seat. “I’m feeling the urge, Jeeves. Replace the commoners’ seat on the nearest “loo” with mine own.”

Anyone who has visited a Girl Scout camp latrine or a construction site Porta-Pottie can understand Charles’ desire for his own seat. It really doesn’t make Charles relatable to his subjects though. Frankly, I can not envision Dominic West insisting on his personal toilet seat.

By Ed Dufton