h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It was in the middle of a documentary about debutantes (which in itself was a bizarre ritual), made about 12 years ago.

The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (Andrew Cavendish and the former Deborah Mitford, both now brown bread) were talking about the balls and parties that Joe Kennedy used to throw when he was the American ambassador in London before the war. They talked about JFK, and about his sister Kathleen, who married the Duke's elder brother and would have been the duchess had her husband not been killed four months after their marriage, on the Belgian front (and she died soon after the war in a plane crash).

Any road up. The conversation somehow got around to Prince Aly Khan, and it then took a sharp turn to the surreal. I'll try to reproduce it here as best I can - there's much talking over each other going on, and they're being completely serious about it all.

Duchess: And then he married beautiful Rita Hayworth, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life I think. She had charisma, would you say? But I suppose Jack [Kennedy] of all the people we've ever known had the most.
Duke: As had Winston.
Duchess: Winston.
Duke: Yes.
Duchess: Charisma?
Duke: Yes.
Duchess: Do you think?
Duke: Oh certainly, yes.
Duchess: Oh. *Slight pause* Lester Piggott.
Duke: Oh no.
Duchess: He's got charisma.
Duke: Oh no, no.
Duchess: Oh he has, he just has.
Duke: Oh he certainly hasn't.
Duchess: He has. I suppose Uncle Harold [Macmillan] in a sort of way did.
Duke: Well he had style, it's not quite the same as charisma.
Duchess: No, that's right.
Duke: He certainly had style.
Duchess: He was beautiful to look at, and erm... oh well, Elvis of course. Although I never met him.
Duke: He was your hero.
Duchess: Yes, he was my hero.
Duke: Was it better not to have met him?
Duchess: Yes that's what I wonder. Is it better, perhaps.

Lester Piggott? Elvis

I also find it interesting that Deborah describes Rita Hayworth as the most beautiful woman she's ever seen when her sister Diana, who married Oswald Moseley, was widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in Britain.

Here's what I was picturing while reading that conversation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gwXJsWHupg

Good woody sort of word, charisma.

Now I can't stop saying to myself:

"EROGENOUS ZOOOOOOOOONE!"

I hope you don't do that at work

Or anywhere except behind your own, locked, front door really

That's what I'm worried about - I'm afraid I'm going to start muttering it without thinking!

HAH!... me too.