Saturday, April 15, 2017

Living Large, Living Royalty

We all have a housie. I think. Some have a gardener, security guard plus a driver while the superrich might also have a chef, waiters and waitresses.

I have met with royalty - King Oyo, Kabaka Mutebi and Kyabazinga - not because they invited me to lunch or afternoon tea at their palaces, but because they happened to be in the same room as I at a function. Let me rephrase that latter part of last sentence just in case I am accused of belittling royalty and say, I was in the same room as King Oyo, Kabaka Mutebi and Kyabazinga. I have also stood next to Prince Charles and William - only on a visit to London’s Madame Tussauds wax works.

Kabaka Ronald Mutebi
Royals also have housies except, they have more - gardener, armed protection units, butlers, footmen and secretaries. Inside their palaces, they live a life of riley that is so detached from that of the rest of the world and one which we humble plebes, can only marvel at.

While we can’t be certain what excess Mutebi, Oyo and Kyabazinga indulge in, what we do know and on good authority, is that back in the day, Oyo, who is a dog lover, had their food sourced from Sheraton hotel.

King Oyo
In 1908, Henry Pu Yi, the last Chinese Emperor succeeded to the throne as a two-year-old. As Emperor, he was pampered to the hilt in the Forbidden Palace with servants at his beck-and-call that, when he was thrown into goal by the Communist’s as an adult in the 1950s, he still had a lackey to hold his wee wee for him as he took a pee. For real! 

Pu Yi
Like Yi, in the UK, Prince Charles had a beck-and-call servant upbringing in Buckingham Palace. As the future King of England, there was nothing that he had to do for himself because, Servant was there to grovel up to him whenever summoned. A recent expose in The Daily Mail newspaper, listed some of the privileges that he has enjoyed and still enjoys as heir apparent.

Come the morning, while most of us squeeze Colgate out onto our toothbrushes, no so Prince Charles. Charles has Servant who does that rather mundane task for him. Servant does the squeezing, hands the brush to him, then steps back until he (Charles) is done. Servant then rinses the brush and puts it away – or tosses it?

Servant will then run the tub. While Charles has his bath – not quite like Eddy Murphy had in the movie, Coming To America (we hope), Servant lays out a selection of shirts, suits, ties, socks, shoes and boxer shorts.

For breakfast, he has freshly squeezed orange juice, specially made muesli, granary toast and six types of honey - all presented on a silver tray. When he travels, he only eats food prepared by his personal chef, and the food is transported in cool boxes – even when he goes abroad. He does like sandwiches – but, they must be exactly 8cm in diameter, sliced in half and the crust must be cut off.

Prince Charles
The most Housie does for me, is of course, to wash and iron my clothes, wash the ride, polish shoes, with the one extravagance – if it is indeed an extravagance, to lay my bed.

But I wasn’t done with Charles just yet. What Housie does for me, was just to break the conversation -to give you time to digest what you just read and go, “TB, are you for real?”  And get this. Wherever Charles goes, apart from packing his own food, Chef also packs – wait for it, wait for it, his own salt which, as you may guess, Waiter will present on a silver tray.

But the winning move - and you had better be sitting down with a muzinga of Ug Wa in hand and the cat out of range of getting a kicking. Housie doesn’t just polish shoes. Housie also IRONS the shoelaces, laces up the shoes then takes them to Charles. WTF! Over to you Kyabazinga, Mutebi and Oyo! 


Pictures: Bukedde, New Vision, Internet   



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