Rinses For Princes

I think I've had enough of the Grand Prince Ruprecht Evil-Merodach Eavesdropping Scandal to last me all of my nine lives. The soothsayers are still talking about it as if it were The Most Important Thing In The World, but I suspect that their loquacity on the subject is really a veiled admission of their own complicity in the dirty and unfruitful works of darkness of their Merodachian fellows. It's all a conveniently useful distraction.

Meanwhile, the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) - under the dynamic and hallucinogen-fuelled leadership of the crackpot Emperor Jose Borracho and his trusty half-witted henchman Hermit Rumphole - has been busy plundering the hapless provinces, twisting the arms of the Franks, the Westphalians, Danes, East Saxons, West Saxons and the Northumbrians to cough up yet more groats to throw at the benighted Greeks - who are already drowning in an ocean of debt they haven't a hope of honouring. What these power-crazed idiots have failed to understand is that there isn't an infinite amount of money to go round - and as it is, the remaining provinces in the Evil Empire are experiencing solvency issues of their own.. But in their magic mushroom-addled mental processes, money is never a problem. After all, you they always thieve it from the pockets of hardworking citizens under threat of death, and spend it on self-serving frivolous projects and lavish lifestyles for themselves and their fellow illusionists. They need an ice-cold bath in reality - but somehow I believe that they're so detached from it that they'd be unable to recognise it..

Talking of idiots, I hear that one of the sons of King Alhfrith (all hail) and the potty-mouthed Queen Hillida has been causing trouble. Prince Agbert is the one hundred and twenty seventh in line to the coveted Northumbrian throne. Having dressed in a soldier's uniform as a young buck and subsequently become bored with the constant posing, he's been spending considerable time gadding about, sailing the seas to visit foreign potentates with unpronounceable names and sampling roast camel kebabs under the desert sky. This - I understand - has been described as furthering the Kingdom's trade interests. Unfortunately he hasn't been too fussy about the company he's kept, and has eagerly sought the attentions of shady psychopathic kings and hideously wealthy eccentrics who pull the wings off butterflies. Since Caedmeron is terribly anxious to project Northumbria's image as an 'ethical' province (despite the fact that the very concept is foreign to both him and all the other politicos), Prince Agbert has decided he ought to hang his boots up. Discretion is the better part of valour.

I know where he could do a splendid job. I gather from the Abbess Hilda that the latrines at the Abbey need some intensive cleaning; the monks already have too much to do. The exercise could be a valuable means of grace spiritual cleansing for the Prince.. and it can't be any worse that what he's already been up to...