From Today’s New York Times.

24 May 2010 //

Picture by Klem

“I have not got a bean to my name. I’m a taxpayer, a British taxpayer, and I left the royal family for freedom, and in freedom it means I am bereft. I’m hopeless.”

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.

Categories Not About Goats

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Grumbly Stu says:

24 May 2010 at 11:05 am

Hopeless is the mot juste.
dearieme says:

24 May 2010 at 11:48 am

She was doing what so many Labour politicians were caught doing just weeks ago. I dare say that Con and Lib politicians will be at it in 5, or 10, or 2, years time. Lloyd George was notorious for this sort of bahaviour. He was also famously an old goat.
Grumbly Stu says:

24 May 2010 at 1:07 pm

My take on Fergie is that she’s like many of the Roval family – maladroit and ill-advised, the only extra ingredient in her being vulgarity.

I dunno, maybe as an American I’m just behind the times. Unlike in the past, many Britons nowadays seem willing to overlook the vulgarity component. I’m judging by the not unsympathetic responses to Fergie’s newest faux-pah! by a few passers-by accosted this noon by a reporter on CNN. The tenor was “she’s just fallible, like we all are”. I shudder to think what must go on behind the curtains of the middle classes, given that this doesn’t ruffle them.
Grumbly Stu says:

24 May 2010 at 1:13 pm

Not that I’m against vulgarity as such. I have merely admired the English in the past for their ability to distinguish between vulgarity and non-vulgarity. This is not possible in America.
Grumbly Stu says:

24 May 2010 at 1:21 pm

What are Whorf-Sapir’s Eskimos with their many words for different kinds of snow, when compared with the dozens of fine gradations between U and non-U of the English ?
dearieme says:

24 May 2010 at 1:43 pm

Her vulgarity goes without saying, GS.
Grumbly Stu says:

24 May 2010 at 2:03 pm

It was probably vulgar of me even to mention it. Sigh.
des von bladet says:

25 May 2010 at 8:55 am

It’s not as if she was cut off without a cent particularly, is it? More that her means are not such as she would knowingly choose to live within.

Still, always sad to see an (ex)prinsess fall on hard times.
bruessel says:

25 May 2010 at 9:26 am

Small misprint: the name is Ferguson with one s.
Also: any particular reason why you chose such an old picture of her?
A. J. P. Crown says:

25 May 2010 at 9:52 am

Thanks, Bruessel. The reasons: a) she’s talking to the viewer, which worked with the quote b) it’s a wiki image that I ‘m allowed to reprint.

Des, one thing I don’t get is why her divorce settlement was only for ₤15, 000 a year.

It’s oddly paradoxical that the courtier thought her vulgar but pretty clearly doesn’t find the other royal stuff — the ermine-and-velvet robes, the gold and diamonds, the Rolls Royces — vulgar. Since 1714 vulgarity has been a consistent trait of the British royal family, but it’s on such a massive scale that it seems to be invisible to many people. Perhaps Grumbly and others can come up with an English word to mean “royal vulgarity”.
A. J. P. Crown says:

25 May 2010 at 10:11 am

It could be that “vulgar” smacks to the courtier of the country-bumpkin, and that he would prefer to think of the royal family as sophisticated but merely “tasteless”. I think they’re vulgar (not that there’s anything wrong with being vulgar, I’m vulgar myself in some ways).