A View From a Broad by Bette Midler Read Free Book Online

all. We read our Shakespeare. We boned up on Blake. We read Milton till we went blind. I did so want to impress you all. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Arabic. Well, at least I haven’t had any trouble with the metric system. We’ve gone metric too, you know. It was a difficult transition to make. So many of us had been thinking in inches for so many, many years. And you know, while we’re in London we’re hoping to meet the Royal Family. I don’t know why it is, but every time I hit a town the blue-bloods all seem to flee to their summer residences. I can’t imagine why. I’m just crazy about royalty, especially queens. Your Queen, for example, Elizabeth the Second . . . Elizabeth the Tooth, we call her. My dears, she is the whitest woman of them all. She makes us all feel like the Third World. I only have one question to ask Her Maj:
    “What have you got in that handbag?” . . . Oh, I tell you, I love her. I’d kill to get my hands on one of her hats. Such unerring taste. Who do you think makes those hats for her, anyway? She’s probably got a little hat fairy chained to the basement saying, “Queenie’s gonna love this one!” His specialty is special hats for special occasions. I was lucky enough to see one of them. It’s called The Last Supper. It has twelve little apostles about the brim and little pieces of matzoh hanging down about the ears. It’s her Easter number. . . . And of course, I just adore Charles. Do you think I stand a chance in this hot dog suit? I read somewhere that he can marry a commoner. I guess he wouldn’t want someone as common as my own self. . . . Well, some of us are losers and some of us are wieners. But you know, my very favorite of all is Princess Anne. Such an active lass. So outdoorsy. She loves nature in spite of what it did to her. Oh, my God! Did I say that? I didn’t say that. Dare I go on? . . . All right. How many of you would like to see my impression of Princess Anne? . . . Hmmm. Now, if I can only get out of this sausage drag. . . .

• THE MOUTH OF THE THAMES •
    E ver since I first saw Greer Garson show Laurence Olivier how to shoot an arrow in Pride and Prejudice, I have been an avid Anglophile. So you can imagine how I looked forward to seeing all those famous English landmarks that had excited my imagination for so long: the Tower, with its cache of royal jewels I not only adored but coveted; the brooding moors where Emily Bronte walked in gloom and sensible shoes; the Albert Memorial with its stirring salute to Engineering; and, of course, Stonehenge. To my amazement, I soon discovered that they were all hundreds of miles apart from each other. I guess before one actually visits them, everyone tends to think of their favorite countries as one grand Disneyland filled with national monuments and historical treasures conveniently laid out for easy viewing, when what they really are filled with, of course, is people going to work, laundromats and places to buy rat poison. The realization that England was not just an efficiently organized museum was at first disappointing, then exhilarating, then disappointing again as I counted how few days I had to see it all. Faced with such a plethora of things to see and do, I had to decide where to go first. And I had to decide fast. Charles Jourdan seemed like a good idea.
    Donning a gray knit cap that hung somewhat awkwardly down one side of my jaw, a pair of sunglasses that hid my eyes and a long woolen scarf which completely covered the lower half of my face, I stepped sweating into the English sunshine, blind as a bat and unable to breathe, but completely unrecognizable.
    I felt these precautions necessary because of the tremendous success I had been in that tasteful town of swans and swains. In fact, when I wasn’t busy doing TV shows or radio spots, I was aflitter with parties and celebrations given in honor of my recent ascension to the English Theatrical Throne, an ascension which had taken