No Publicity, Please, We're British

If you broke into my lavish yet tasteful home and held a gun to my head, I would have to confess that I've only been dimly aware of the visit of Prince Charles and the former Camilla Parker Bowles to America. The good news is, dim awareness seems to be what the couple and their handlers are going for -- a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that only six percent of Americans are "very interested" in the royal walkabout, with a three percent margin of error. This means, statistically speaking, that you could drive around your neighborhood playing your car radio too loud and you'd impact a broader swath of US public opinion than the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. It isn't all the prince's fault, either. The wife, poor thing, is still fighting something of an image problem. When The Daily Mirror's man in New York showed her picture to people in Times Square, some of them took her for Barbara Cartland. Ms. Cartland, it should be noted, passed away six years ago. So if wowing the States with the glamour of the monarchy is the goal, well, these two may not have the stuff. The only "Wows" they seem to be drawing are the kind contained in sentences like "Wow, could those people we don't care about be any dowdier?" or "Wow, Barbara Cartland came back from the dead!" Even an apparent strategy to light the couple up in the reflected glow of "a good cross-section of interesting and influential New Yorkers" seems ill-conceived when you consider that one of them is Kim Cattrall. ("I see. You acted in a terrible program on the telly and now you foist your fading sexuality on people in Barnes & Noble. How terribly interesting.")

Mr. Irresponsible yields to no one in his admiration for Britain, which has managed to sustain a relatively civilized culture even as its standing in the world has dwindled from titan of the seas to last-kid-picked-for-the-softball-team. But you know what? The next time the Brits want to make a splash on the American stage, they should send us Eddie Izzard. He's witty and he looks good in pearls.