We tried to go ice skating at Hampton Court Palace, but the rink was all booked up, so we went for a wander round the palace. This was the second time I've been in the last few months, but I managed to find some new things to look at and still enjoyed it.
They have guides dressed up in historical costumes and it amused us to imagine coming along in period dress, hanging around and then giving tourists loads of false and lying information about the history of the building.
Maybe I actually am Dom Joly.
Though, to be honest, what I find amusing about the idea is that it should never be recorded or broadcast or even written about in any way. That is the true future of prank comedy. An incident that comes and goes and is only amusing for the practitioner and confusing for the "victim". Hopefully in this way the tourist will go through the rest of his or her life believing Diane's story that King Henry VIII's costume was covered in bits of cotton wool because he suffered from sinus problems and used the decorative swabs to mop up his nasal effluent. They'd have to. A person in historical costume told them it was the case. That would be true comedy terrorism. Of course, now I have written the idea down and already totally destroyed it. But then it's a thin line between being an experimental, secret comedy terrorist and just a mental person giving bogus sermons and history to visitors to our country.
We took a tour through the Queen's apartments, and the guide pointed out what appeared to be the figure of a child in the corner of a painting of Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria. This was, he told us, the last court midget (the guide's choice of words, not mine) in England, Jeffrey Hudson. He was less than two feet tall apparently (though he had a growth spurt later in his life and got up to about four foot, which must have been annoying as being little was how he made his living). He was presented to the Queen hidden inside a pie, which probably wouldn't happen these days. If I had been Jeffrey Hudson I would have been a bit nervous about getting into a big pie. Even if you really trusted that the person who put you in there wasn't actually going to cook you, there would always be the danger that some over-zealous servant would pop you in the oven to warm you up. If Jeffrey had been found cooked alive in the pie that might have taken the edge off the "joke". Though you never know these crazy royals might have found it more amusing - they were clearly nasty people who deserved to be overthrown by puritans.
Jeffrey Hudson was a bit of a wanker according to the guide (my choice of words though, not his) and killed a man in a duel, after his opponent laughed and assumed the tiny man had a toy gun. So that made it one-all for 17th century disabled rights. "That's right, you like everyone else assume that just because i'm small that everything I do must be funny. Well, bang, bang, who's laughing now?"
I like Jeffrey Hudson and think I might do a bit more research into him. I love the peripheral characters that history throws up (or puts inside pies).
Though now I stop and think about it, it all seems a bit unlikely. Who's to say that was a real guide and not just a prankster in a hired outfit?
