The Prince, the Pea-brains and the frog

Tony Mochama
This week, the whole world —  and by ‘whole world’ here I mean the sorts of folks who followed Princess Di’s funeral to the ‘D’ and were sad that the death of Osama knocked the British royal wedding off the front pages three Mays ago — has been watching.
But after the long Kate wait we now know that it’s a royal prince.
Now, any one of my fortunate readers who are expecting a baby (‘fortunate’ to be expecting a baby, not to be reading me) will readily tell you that their lads are precious … and their lasses are all princesses.
Bundle of joy for a baby girl, I understand, especially if you then call her Joy. But ‘bouncing baby boy,’ which crazy Doc is that who decided to dribble the boy, to see if he bounces?
But I digress. The point being many of the women who make columns like this one possible, and necessary, come with the in-built belief that life should be like a fairy tale, and end with a prince, a white horse, and a sunset to gallop off into. It is my job to bury these castles, and write a little ‘real’ into the twilight.
But what if the fairy tale is real, that you’re really a prince?
Great zeal
Okay, here we go then. Once upon a time, there was a prince whose father had founded a kingdom which, while not paved with gold (it was paved by Chinese), was certainly a kingdom of good citizens and great promise.
The Old King died, and after some time, during which two different monarchs ruled the nation, the Prince rose to the throne – but not without strife – for he had to fight a popular and great General for the throne.
The Prince had made a promise to buy some shiny toys for all the children of the land, and set upon this task with great zeal.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whom one asks, the children would have all the time to play with this shiny baubles the Prince was pro-offering unto them, for all the instructors in the land had gone on strike, demanding more silver from the Prince’s coffers.
The Prince coughed and made them offers, but they mumbled amongst themselves and rejected those offers.
For the Prince’s pea-brained nobles had recently awarded themselves vast amounts of gold from the kingdom’s treasury, so the instructors said: “If the nobles can take the pork off the fork, then surely, why can we not eat of the Fat of the Land?”
The Prince, in his wisdom, knew the land was no longer that fat , that lean times loomed over the horizon.
Food tax
So he made a decision to get more money for the coffers, by increasing the food tax and the tax on paper, for which his subjects depended on for physical and mental nourishment.
The peasants and paupers were outraged, and brayed: “Who kisses our Prince, to maketh a frog?”
But this being a fairy tale, they all moved on, and lived happily together after, in a little house, in the woods.