‘Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar,’ was the verdict of the late Lord Charteris on Sarah Ferguson. He did not, I think, mean it as a compliment. But her subsequent career has shown quite how liberating such a disposition of character can be. Combine a complete lack of class or taste with a resoundingly innocent love of money, and there’s really nothing you can’t do. Or won’t, perhaps.
Fergie says she was “surprised” to get a pair of corgis rather than jewellery or money
Hence yesterday’s Mail on Sunday headline, which offered welcome relief from all that stuff about oil prices and collateral damage: ‘Fergie’s Plot to Clone the Queen’s Corgis for Reality TV.’ The newspaper has discovered claims that after receiving two of her Majesty’s corgis – Muick and Sandy – in the late Queen’s will, our gal set about finding ways to monetise the bequest. Where there’s Muick, I dare say she may have mused to herself, there’s brass.
Accordingly, she apparently discussed the idea for a reality television show, starring her, which would follow her attempt to make money out of the corgis. Double-bubble: if all went well, she’d make money from the corgis and make money from the TV show about her making money from the corgis. As one source familiar with the situation told the Mail on Sunday: ‘Sarah seemed to be up for anything provided she was paid – and particularly if she could do some travelling in the process and meet rich aristos who might like to own a corgi.’
After several meetings with production companies, a pitch document was drafted. For connoisseurs of TV-production bollocks, it’s a bit of a beaut. Note the would-be arresting use of the present tense, the inevitable ‘bold and controversial’ (TV shows have to contain what they call ‘jeopardy’), ‘navigates the complex world’ (it’s a journey!) and, of course, ‘personal demons’:
‘When Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is bequeathed two of the Queen’s beloved corgis, she decides to embark on a bold and controversial business venture – cloning the royal pups. But as she navigates the complex world of genetics and royal protocol, Sarah must also grapple with her own personal demons and strained relationship with the royal family.’
It’s a source of some regret, I think, that the whole thing came to nothing. But if we are determined to disapprove of the alleged plan (‘unbelievably grotesque and utterly bizarre,’ says one royal-watching rentaquote, when ‘amusing’ and ‘delightful’ were right there for the taking), I don’t think Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, blessed be her memory, entirely escapes blame. Fergie says she was ‘surprised’ to get a pair of corgis rather than jewellery or money in the late monarch’s will. I’m not surprised she was surprised. Her Maj had many years to get the measure of her former daughter-in-law, and by all accounts those wretched corgis were among her most precious things. What did she think Fergie would do with them?
Were bookmakers to have been taking bets on the matter, the odds-on favourite would have been ‘cloning them for a reality TV programme’, with ‘bottling their farts and selling them by mail order to Americans who like the Paddington movies’ coming in only a close second.
Fergie’s representatives have admitted that she received the proposal from a production company but that she did not progress discussions and subsequently declined the proposal. She denies having ‘any intention of monetising the corgis.’
While Fergie’s response seems to put the matter to bed, if she had proceeded as claimed must we disapprove? Who is to say it would have been the worst thing in the world anyway? Cloning corgis is as far as I understand it a non-invasive procedure, and the chance to own an exact replica of a corgi once owned by the Queen of England would give immense joy to a certain type of person. All those corgis kinda looked the same anyway, so the presence in the world of a few authentically identical ones wouldn’t devalue the currency in any significant way. Meanwhile, the chance to look down on the one-time Duchess of York’s money-grubbing antics on a reality TV programme would delight another type of person – principally, the type who write newspaper columns. The whole thing would have been a giant win-win, and I dare say the corgis wouldn’t have cared a bit.
To ascend to a slightly more philosophical plane, now that the Divine Right of Kings has gone out of fashion, isn’t genetics the very essence of the hereditary principle? If she had agreed to the proposal, wouldn’t Sarah Ferguson, in her whimsical but clumsy way, have been putting her manicured finger on the heart of something both important and a little absurd about our monarchy?
Think of cloning the corgis as a trial balloon for something infinitely thrilling. After all, we have come to accept as a matter of course that the descent of the crown through the generations is accompanied by a slight but perceptible deterioration of the genetic stock. Her Majesty, to pick just a single example, had a splendid head of hair right to the end of her long life. The King is pretty bald. The Prince of Wales is even balder.
Wouldn’t we all, in our secret hearts, and respect his Majesty though we do, prefer it had we been able to install an exact clone of the late Queen on the throne in his place? The technology wasn’t there at the time, and it isn’t there yet. But one day, it seems likely, it will be. Think how grateful Prince George and his descendants will be to be let off the prospect of doing that thankless job, while Queen Elizabeth III is followed by Queen Elizabeth IV and Queen Elizabeth V and so on. Extra money could be made, to relieve pressure on the public finances, by selling spare clones of Her Majesty to other countries in need of a monarch of proven quality.
The monarchy, it has long been said, is in need of modernisation. But all the so-called modernisers ever think of is combining a few administrative functions, mothballing the odd marquisate, or trimming the civil list. Yet here, vulgar, vulgar, vulgar, Sarah Ferguson could have pointed the way to true modernity. Plus, as I mentioned, the corgis wouldn’t mind a bit.
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