(Above: world's leading futurist and environmentalist smiling in harmony despite the hideous architecture planted behind him by terroristic modern architects).
One of the sweetest and funniest ironies for Oz republicans is that Prince Charles will, no doubt soon enough, become King of England, under the title Charles III (thereby forming an undistinguished trio) or perhaps, in seeking to escape the right royal Charlie strain, under the tag George VII (joining a more acceptable, if still mixed, bunch of monarchs).
The book, to be published by Rupert Murdoch's New York house HarperCollins, will be a plea for a revival of "the lost balance between Man and Nature and to follow a more philosophical path which reconnects humankind with ancient wisdom and intuition". It will bring together the various strands of his belief in a need for caution and conservation, with climate change as its focal point.
The sting of the work is likely to be directed on this occasion at big businesses that have damaged the environment in their insatiable drive for profits. In a statement, the prince set out his desire to "rediscover that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature".
Then, he went on, "we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit - at no cost".
After all, with the Queen already playing a good knock at 83 (and celebrating her birthday a couple of days ago), her innings will probably come to an end sooner rather than later - though I guess we should remember that her mother did score a couple of runs over a tidy century in a handsome display.
Anyhoo, as the Queen plays a firm dead bat, and the young clown princes find ways to explore their love lives and make fools of themselves, talk that Prince Charles might be cut out in favor of the younger clowns has died away.
Which means of course that Prince Charles will one day soon enough become King of Australia, to the eternal delight of monarchists and the despair of Republicans. With the Rudd government putting the republic on the back burner for the moment (the excuse being the GEC, GFC, whatever), it would truly be a blessing if we could see Charles make it to the top before the notion gets put back on to the front burner.
Charles is of course a barking mad environmentalist, and it will be enormous, tremendous fun to see conservatives writhe under the twin burden of supporting an irrelevant institution while listening to the good Prince talk about ways to save the world.
Talk about activist Governor Generals? What joy to have an activist monarch.
This was prompted by the exciting news that instead of talking to plants, Prince Charles is next year going to bring out a book and a film under the title Harmony.
Hah, even the title is enough to send a Janet Albrechtsen into a paroxysm of fear and loathing. Let's hand the story over to The Guardian and Ed Pilkington's Prince Charles set to help save the planet:
The sting of the work is likely to be directed on this occasion at big businesses that have damaged the environment in their insatiable drive for profits. In a statement, the prince set out his desire to "rediscover that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature".
Then, he went on, "we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit - at no cost".
If you like, you can catch more details here at the Prince of Wales website, as well as pick up a handy pdf of the Prince's Rainforests Project Report, going by the name An Emergency Package for Tropical Rainforests.
That's right, Charlie boy is going to turn himself into a Brit monarchist version of Al Gore, and to rub it in, he intends to film largely in America, with its fine examples of environmental pillage. And that Rupert! Will his campaign to save the earth this April never end?
The funny thing is that over in the UK Daily Telegraph, Ed West is writing a fervid plea for the Prince to save the world from modernist architects. Only Prince Charles can save us from the wretched 'starchitects', he moans.
The Prince so irritated some architects with his conservative views that some of them wrote to the Sunday Times telling him to stay out of the democratic consultative processes in place to consider development plans, and to stop using his privileged position to undermine their work (Top architects attack Prince Charles - again). They even managed to drum up the likes of Renzo Piano and Frank Gehry to sign the open letter.
Now let's not get involved in this particular brawl - though it's hard to have much fondness for the excrescence called Heathrow - so much as salivate at the thought of the harmonious Prince Charles getting out and about in Australia with his Harmony road show.
Perhaps he can four wall it throughout the land - he should be able to afford a decent p. and a. - as well as doing a couple of major showcases (complete with ladder in the approved Gore style) in Sydney and Melbourne.
After all he's apparently gone to Cumbria just yesterday to help save the Red Squirrel by launching a trust.
What fun it's going to be. My fervent hope is that Australia will remain a constitutional monarchy. In fact I might just write to David Flint to see how I can join the monarchists. Why that way we'll get to irritate the commentariat and save the world. I can see Christopher Pearson falling down frothing and foaming at the mouth, while Ian Plimer runs around and around in hysterical circles as he tries to decipher Charlie's scientific credentials.
I'm even thinking our very own fat owl Piers Akerman might don a Guy Fawkes mask, V style, and agitate for a republic, just to get rid of our GG Quentin Bryce and our bonnie prince Charlie.
Come to think of it, perhaps we should quickly build a tower of Sydney (rampant with magpies) as a place in which to throw climate deniers and members of the right wing commentariat who unharmoniously speak out against harmony ...
And don't go writing in saying how you were a republican all along. He's your future king, and in his spare time pretty handy as a tampon I hear.
Live with it ...
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