Tuesday 5 June 2012

Concussion is apparently indistiguishable from Jubilee Fever

I cut my face open by accident the other day. These things will happen. If you’re me, which I am, and if you’re prone to forgetting you had a fork/pen/cat in your hand, which could also describe me quite fittingly. In this instance it was a fork. I had just been feeding my dogs and I had dropped the fork. Along with being pretty damned exciting to my dogs, it had also got the fork all dirty and made me have to crouch to pick it up. My ridiculous fringe flopped into my eyes and I, fork now in hand, swiped it away, cleverly skewering my forehead as I went. Wonderful. When it comes to wounds to the face, I want only the best treatment. That means whatever I can find in the cupboard that has a trace of antiseptic and doesn’t look to crusty around the lid. Amongst the empty shampoo bottles and the calamine lotion which had calamine lotioned itself to the shelf, was my saviour: Dettol. Oh! The very scent of it brings back every disgustingly messy head trauma, every scraped knee, every split lip I ever witnessed by siblings sustain throughout our childhood (as a sickly and bookish creature, I rarely found the opportunity to wound myself horribly – at least not until I grew up).

After cleaning myself up (swearing quite creatively as I did), I ran a cloth over the bottle to ensure it wouldn’t meet the same fate as the other crusty antiseptic creams and lotions. As I did this, I noticed a large Royal Warrant on the back label.

What? Does Queen Elizabeth II slice her head open with a silver fork while feeding the corgis? Or perhaps His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh often accidentally stabs himself in the knee with his fountain pen? Maybe His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales occasionally accidentally flings a cat sort of awkwardly at himself because he forgot he was carrying it?

But, as this site, tells me, it may not be the good old bottle of Dettol Her Majesty uses. Maybe she uses their hand sanitiser after being forced to shake the hands of countless commoners. The makers of Dettol can put the Royal Warrant on any product they like, once they’ve got it.

Anyway, this all got me thinking; if any product the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, or Prince of Wales uses for over five years can earn the Warrant, what other products have it?

Oh-ho! Ever prepared, the British have a site for that!

Having access to information like this inspires my curiosity like you wouldn’t believe!

First, it was about the fancy stuff. Who makes her jewellery? What about her tableware and glassware?

Then it got a little more … esoteric? Who provides her musical instruments? Who makes flags for the Queen? Does the Queen have Christmas crackers?

Then, more mundane. Who makes her mothballs? What toilet cleaner does she like? Who paints when she wants a change of colour scheme?

Then I thought ‘Why the hell do I care?’ and I realised I’d taken a blow to the temple, with a fork and I should probably go lie down a while.

No comments:

Post a Comment