John Now this is a screwball tip. So when you’re in the hospital, you listen to a lot of books on tape.
Adam Is that what you do? How about podcasts? How about the best podcast in the universe?
John Well, I would listen to that, but books on tape go six hours one after another. But I have to say, you wouldn’t expect this to be the one I was going to pick. It’s called Elizabeth II, Life of a Monarch.
Adam Wow.
John I have to say, this was stuck on the phone. Jay was setting me up with some books to listen to and somehow this got on there. I don’t know. Who gives a crap about Elizabeth?
Adam But Jay insisted?
John No, no, she didn’t insist. It just was on there. And I couldn’t get something else to play or wouldn’t download or you can’t stream in the hospital, whatever. So I ended up starting to listen to this thing. Now see, the problem is if you go to Amazon, the editor’s pick, which is Elizabeth the Queen, Life of a Modern Monarch is an audiobook only. And then there’s Elizabeth II in Private. There’s a bunch of different ones. And the one that shows up on the title here exactly is Elizabeth II, Life of a Monarch. This may be a hit or miss. I’ll tell you, it’s fascinating.
Adam Really?
John It’s absolutely fascinating. It’s like; what? Every single, the little details, all these details about when they were kids and what they would wear and what they would throw at each other and that Margaret, the younger one, the sister was a biter.
Adam Oh, she was nuts.
John And it talks about Charles, all kinds of details that you wouldn’t think were interesting but it’s absolutely fascinating.
Adam Have you ever watched The Crown on Netflix?
John No.
Adam It’s in essence the same monarch and what always struck me, I don’t know if this is in the audiobook, is how obsessed the entire family is with the press. It’s always about the press. How did I come across? You stole my thunder in the press. Does that come across in the book?
John It’s a little bit of that, I’d say.
Adam Those people are sad, don’t you think? Gruesome and wicked, I think. Wretched. Wretched was the word I think I used.
John Well, Elizabeth seems like actually kind of a nice person but they mention a documentary that was done by I think the BBC.
Adam That was Charles’ deal. He wanted to do a documentary of the family.
John Is this the one they buried?
Adam No, eventually. It aired once but then they couldn’t stop it and it came back and it’s all over the place.
John There was a couple of them that were done. I think the recent one is the one you’re talking about but there was one done a long time ago that they played it and they just said, no, we can’t have the fact because it was mostly inside information. In fact, when Elizabeth moved into Buckingham Palace as a little nine-year-old or something, I can’t remember when this first happened, she said they thought it was cool but the place was crawling with mice. Mice were everywhere and it was tattered.
Adam Yeah. As our president would say: “it was a shithole.”
Yeah. That was in The Crown as well. The mice and everything was a mess. Wow, that’s an interesting tip. So for those of you going in for open heart surgery, there’s your tip of the day.
