Prince Charming and cheese toasties
Royalty. The word conjures up a lot of associations; for me a lot of them have to do with the Disney films of my girlish youth, but certainly wealth, status and class are among them.
With Wills-The-Royal-Dreamboat recently dropping anchor at New Zealand ports and the round of official royal visits and apparently gatecrashable BBQs accompanying such, it had me assessing my own ability to be royal.
Now, when say my ability to be royal I'm not talking about having a sense of entitlement, an obscenely large monthly budget, and a head that carries a tiara well (though I fancy that I do at least have that last one). As I watched the news the other night and saw Prince William engaging in chitchat around the BBQ with John Key, I couldn't help thinking that I'd be rubbish at that...and not just because I'm a chick (who by rights at a BBQ should be in the kitchen doing things with potato salad).
At the age of 27, Wills has been making polite conversation with foreign dignitaries for years...because it's his job. No doubt it's a job with many perks but that doesn't change the fact that if I had the misfortune of being in his position there'd probably be an international "incident" every other week. I can see the headlines now "Princess Moata rolls eyes at foreign PM's knock knock joke", "Royal request at banquet - tomato sauce?", "Heir to throne uses profanity with preschoolers" and so on. I don't want anybody to get the idea that I'm a royalist (though I do love a good wedding with an overblown froufrou dress and a lot of bridesmaids so let's just say that I'm not immune to the allure of Hello magazine) but purely on the basis of all the glad-handing and schmoozing it's a job that I think I am happy not to have.
I mean, imagine having to appear to be genuinely interested in everyone you meet, from organic farmers to model train enthusiasts and everyone in between. Moreover you have to tell them that you think their country/town/hovel is lovely, even if all things being equal, you'd rather be in Philadelphia, or Barbados.
Just speaking for myself, I have finite reserves of "niceness" which sometimes are enough to get me through the trials and tribulations of life and other times the well runs dry and you get what you get. I try my best and am always civil but sometimes less than charming, because quite frankly that stuff is hard to maintain for long stretches. So whatever else might be said about Wills, he seems to have princely skills in that area at least.
The other thing I found myself wondering about Prince William yesterday was whether or not he owns a toastie maker. And if he does own a toastie maker, what sort of fillings would he favour. And then I started to wonder if Julia Roberts, George Clooney or Meryl Streep have toastie makers. And then I imagined a TV show along the lines of MTV Cribs, in which I visit the homes of the rich and famous and let them make me toasties, drawing conclusions about what kind of person they are from what ingredients they use as fillings. That's not really related to the rest of this blog post but I think it's a question that has the potential to uncover great and fundamental truths about human nature...and also it has made me want a cheese and sweetcorn toastie but I can't have one because I don't have a toastie maker.
So, how do you think you'd manage making nice with strangers all the time and not being allowed to sarcastically say "you've had gall bladder surgery? Oh, yes DO tell me all about it". Who's the most charming person you've ever met? Do you have a toastie maker? Best filling?
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Making nice with strangers? Is very very difficult sometimes. I try and I fail all the time, but I think overall I get better as I get older and more mellow - more patient and tolerant, and less likely to rise to the bait. I still don't suffer fools well though.
Of course I have a toastie maker - It's an old one that properly seals in the filling so you can enjoy the experience of burning your lips on boiling molten cheese in the comfort of your own home. I also have one of those old ones you hold over the fire (jaffle iron?) for that added smokey flavour. Favourites? ooooh so many! Chese+onion+corn+chutney. Baked bean+cheese+ham, Leftover savory mince+cheese. nom.....
You're one step ahead of me, Moata - I have an industrial-sized head and the tiara would perch precariously, threatening to fall off and impale my subjects at an inopportune moment.
All that niceness would indeed be tough. I can't even handle a whole evening of politeness at parent/teacher interviews. Generally by the end of the night I'll crack and before the parents have even sat down, I'll declare that their son is a pest and is hindering the learning of the entire class. Hmmm - no princess dreams for me.
hrm off topic but we all know how much Moata likes shoes! www.christianlouboutinonsale.com .. I am drooling.
I have a mate who used to work on the super yachts in the Med and worked for the royals yachts for a while. Prince William would come and stay for with his mates and they'd hit the booze hard and party into the night, spend the days racing around on jet skis. If you had that stuff to look forward too then i guess all the mundance "Hello how are you, yes thats very interesting thanks" he has on a daily basis would be worth it.
Toastie makers also remind me of a mate i went to uni with who'd go to the pub, come home plastered and if there was no bread he'd just put all the fillings into the maker, cook it and eat it out with a spoon.
My fav filling is cheese, onion and pineapple
Top marks to the gate crasher for bringing sizzlers to that royal party, double cheese even ... now thats the real kiwi experience.
Im glad you decided to talk about cheese toasties - how did you know today is international cheese toasties day?? we have a line up of about 3 different toastie makers at work, and it has to be cheese ... and pretty much anything else will do. i went through a phase of adding chunky onion but im pretty open minded about these things.
Vegemite and egg. Get the timing just right where the yolk is still runny, but starting to firm up....Stunning.
Potato, cheese, bacon, onion.
I totally do not find Prince Will attractive. I don't know what you all see in him. Good to hear he is pretty cool about being hit with rugby balls by kids, having his BBQ crashed and (worst of all) having to chat with John Key.
Also a woman's job when there is a BBQ is to tell the men "Hurry up! I want a sausage!" and then hit them for being rude about it. They want potato salad, they can make it themselves.
I like my toasties with (watties) spaggetti and cheese. Or ham, tomato, onion and cheese.
And then for dessert, a caramel apple toastie . . . sliced apple, good sprinkle of sugar, a cheeky wee knob of butter, and just a hint of cinnamon. Try it, it's seriously good stuff.
@ Thalia #1 My ex was exactly like that too! It used to drive me absolutely crazy, because he would be saying things to people that I knew weren't true or that I knew he didn't believe in just to keep up a polite conversation.
Best toastie is cheese, onion and pineapple or baked beans and cheese.
My ex is the most charming person I have ever met, but then again he has to make people like him (some weird compulsive thing he has going on) so he will literally talk about anything and be sympathetic and pretend to engage totally so you think he is genuinely interested where as he is more like homer simpson and his mind is far away engaged in much simpler things. Enough about him though.
Yes I do have a toastie maker.. its at least fifteen years old.. eep its a wonder it still works. I like Cheese, Chicken and Tomato (sometimes with avocado) in mine but usually its something like Cheese and Onion.