HRH Charles

**Received through Bookbridgr**

I would not call myself a Royalist, but neither would I label myself as a Republican, either. Growing up in a Working-Class household, the Royal Family was just a pointless exercise in wasting money. However, since I have become my own woman and saw Prince Charles sing along to 'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life' I can firmly say that they are tolerable and sometimes amusing. Coupled with various Stephen Fry anecdotes, they're not as aloof and out-of-touch as I was always led to believe.

"In his later years, Shakespeare stopped writing plays and concentrated on poetry instead, which effectively meant he was going from bard to verse." Page 104

Charles_HRH is the Twitter handle of a parody Prince of Wales Twitter account. I already follow Queen_UK, another parody of a member of the British Royal Family. The fact that these accounts haven't been taken down and the perpetrators be-headed makes me like the Royal Family a little bit more. If they did do that I might even love them.

Britishness is my kind of book: humourous, self-deprecating and actually very interesting. It includes proper real facts about Great Britain, it's history and people with some very funny misnomers thrown in. These misnomers, or utter untruths, are in the book because it's main purpose is to offer itself a guide to tourists and those wanting to know more about Britain, and the best way to do this is to lace them with carefully placed lies. Any actual British person should be able to sort the fact from the fiction and find them funny in their own way, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, and any non-British person will probably already know and believe in the lies in the first place. It takes the mickey out of Great Britain, our ways, culture and the Royal Family itself. It's all over bonkers.

"The greatest unanswered question in life still remains: "At a British cinema, which armrest is yours?" Page 120

A few gripes came and went, but that's to be expected. A secondary font was used to portray handwriting which was completely undecipherable unless you really concentrated and the layout of the page wasn't "justified", as the term is, but layered to be left-sided and looked unprofessional. There was also a huge paragraph error in which a appendix-style add-on was plonked right on the middle of a page, even though it had appeared in small print on the previous page. It also got slightly old and less humorous towards the final few pages, but I find that happens with pretty much all books because of the promised end.

All in all, it's a fantastic read if you want to learn about Great Britain whilst also being thoroughly entertained.… (más)