Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, on Wednesday, March 6, 2002

HER MAJ, THE PREZ AND ME

AT 75, my mother is the same age as the Queen and my father was the same vintage as Prince Phillip - compelling evidence as a child of a mystical link between the Ryans and the Royal Family, to the extent that I confidently expected the Queen to pop in any time for a cuppa. She never showed up and the psychological damage may later have driven me into the arms of the Republican movement. You never know. Yet somehow or another, I was on the guest list at last week's State Dinner for QEII at the Festival Centre - who compiles these lists anyway? - and I rang my mother beforehand to ask if she had any message for Her Maj? ``Tell her not to forget the telegram.'' Likely as not, given they both appear to be in robust health, they will be swapping telegrams at 100. Security being what it is these days, I got nowhere near close enough to QEII to give her the message. From the back, I could not even see her tiara until she stood up to speak. She read out one of those standard royal speeches about how great we Australians were, padded out with statements of the bleeding obvious such as ``the way Australia evolves over the next 50 years is in your hands''. Being the royal speech writer must be a special kind of hell. A couple of nights earlier, in a big week, I also had ``An Evening with President Clinton'', at the Entertainment Centre. I asked my mother if she had any messages for Bill? ``No, but keep your distance. You do not need any more bad habits.'' I do not even smoke cigars. I was a lot closer to The Prez than I was to Her Maj, within lunging distance in fact at the next table. Alongside me was Doug, ``The Presidential Aide'' according to his card, who was liverish about a story in The Australian which had said Clinton commanded a routine fee of $300,000 per speech and he had been going around Australia giving the same speech. Doug quoted The President as saying: ``If that's what I am getting paid, we need to have a quiet word with my agent.'' Doug said the fee was not even a third of $300,000 - crumbs for someone with post-Monica legal bills. The official introductions kept saying what an honour and a privilege it was to have Bill in town. But the departing Premier Rob Kerin trumped everyone by saying: ``We are in awe of what you have done.'' On that we are unanimous - even my mother agrees. Next came a standup comic but a lot of his best local jokes - the ones about Alan Bond, Harold Holt and Kerry Packer - had to be explained to The Prez through the host Gerald McGrath whispering in his ear. However, a line about Dolly Parton being able to breastfeed all of China immediately cracked him up. With his remarkable blue-grey bouffant hair, he was the celebrity turn alright, whether talking about global warming, AIDS, ``East T'Moor'', or Albert Bensimon's Hoo-Ha Party and the peculiarities of the Australian political system. He should talk; Doug was from Florida. Quite a coup, though, having both President Clinton and Queen Elizabeth as headline acts in this year's Fringe.