What about that royal Caribbean tour, eh? Talk about a publicity minefield. And no, I’m not referring to the so-called throwback colonial implications in pictures of outstretched arms through Kingston fences or in the reanimation of that Land Rover. No, it’s worse than that. It’s the Viagra incident.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were flown to the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas where, during a traditional fish fry, the couple were offered the chance to sample a conch “pistol”. The delicacy is said to be the conch’s male genitalia (if I’m working for royal PR at this point, I’m already in the background at the fish fry, waving several red flags while mouthing, “No! No! Abort! Abort!”). It is also known locally as “nature’s Viagra” (“Emergency! Abandon tour!”).
Kate downed the tiny male genitalia in one while joking that she was “a little bit more adventurous” than her husband (I’ll say). William apparently laughed and said, “I can handle it!”, presumably referring to the condition of being married to a more adventurous partner rather than the physical act of grappling with the minuscule tackle of a marine gastropod. He then drifted over to the bar where he gulped back a hefty glass of Gullywash (and you don’t even want to know what was in that, although rumour says it was just coconut water and condensed milk), presumably relieved to have dodged the offer of free Viagra and, more importantly, the attendant global headlines that its acceptance would’ve generated (there’s got to be a “King Willy” pun in there somewhere).
The prince, however, will be 40 this summer, which means that he’s got ten blissful years remaining before he is truly overwhelmed with offers of Viagra. How do I know this? Because I turned 50 in January and on the very morning of my birthday I noticed that the tone and the nature of my banner ads online, as well as the phishing mails in my inbox, had drastically changed. “Not easy to talk about, but easy to treat,” was the first slogan. Then there was an ad slapped right in the middle of an interview I was reading online, and it told me that from now on I could “say goodbye to performance anxiety”. By the time
I deleted the umpteenth email announcing that I was entitled to free next-day delivery and that I would experience the same success rate as “over 80 per cent of men” and that, ultimately, I would “last longer in bed” (finally, just what I need, a lie-in!), the penny suddenly dropped. I had officially become, in some brutal digital, algorithmical classification of humanity, an old fart.
And it’s not just the Viagra. I am inundated, mostly since hitting 50, with ads for hair dye, bald-spot treatment and even big-button remote controls! What’s next? A quad cane, a stairlift and a one-way ticket to Dignitas? It’s the Viagra, however, that’s the most impertinent. I was so outraged by the ads, that I was tempted to write to Pfizer and tell it what to do with its Viagra. Although, based on recent estimates, with revenue figures from the so-called little blue pill in the “tens of billions” (according to Fortune magazine), Pfizer appears to know exactly what to do with its Viagra, and do it well.
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And so, in the words of all good break-ups, it’s not them it’s me. I need to find a healthy way of dealing with being targeted by erectile dysfunction medication manufacturers. I need to be able to live in a digital world that treats me like a drooling dolt (and not the thrusting bike-riding libido machine that I am) and be comfortable with that. I need to say, in the words of Prince William, I can handle it.
What I’ll do to save money
Rishi Sunak’s ratings have tumbled and the Tories are in peril, and all because the cost-of-living crisis is biting hard. How hard? Well, I knocked over my Apple iMac last week, and the screen smashed. Normally, panic-stricken and in tears, I’d pay for another one (at roughly £1,600!). But this time, feeling the pinch, I found a replacement screen online (for £280) and, via some handy YouTube tutorials, fixed it myself. Easy. All I had to do was heat up the broken screen, separate it, via a special plastic blade, from the backboard, disconnect the wires, then reconnect with the new screen, reapply adhesive, squeeze in place, discover that I’d actually broken the computer in the process, spend five days in hell before realising that a tiny wire called a thermal sensor was needed, cut open the screen again, connect the sensor, disconnect and reconnect the cables and, hey presto, it worked! And I saved more than £1,300! And it only gave me trauma-level stress and a mild heart attack! Take that, cost-of-living crisis.
That fast-moving dot is my dog
Livestock deaths in Wales have apparently risen since the ban on e-collars for dogs was introduced. The collars (they deliver an electrical shock if a boundary is nearing) were deemed cruel and yet I’d contemplate shocking my dog if it would stop her escaping. She’s in season and constantly on the hunt for hot canine hunks. She has a GPS collar, which means I can only watch helplessly as a tiny blue blip on a digital map races across a screen, far away from me. My daughter recently pranked me by taking the dog’s GPS on a school trip to Bristol. Imagine my horror when I looked at the digital map and screamed, “Darling! The dog is on the M5! And she’s doing 60!”
