Gentle reader,
A new show called Secret Princes, about four young princes looking for love, debuted on TLC the other night and I’m sure you’re just dying to hear about it. The premise is wonderfully simple. They fly in to Atlanta where they’ll live in a rundown old house, work minimum wage jobs and pretend to be regular guys because, you see, busboys get chicks way easier than European princes.
This might be a good time to point out that, despite the title, two of them aren’t actually princes at all. One guy is a hunky British underwear model named Lord Robert Walters. Those familiar with the titled aristocracy will know that the use of “Lord” is murky at best, especially when followed by the first name and more considerably when the guy is an underwear model. The Honourable Ludovic Watson is also a Brit who isn’t a lord but still outranks Lord Robert on the title scale because his father is a baron, though one never addresses a British baron as Baron X, only as Lord X, which is all rather confusing. Hailing from a big, bleak-looking country house in Yorkshire, he arrives in the ATL wearing a silly tailcoat, which annoyed me more than it should, probably because I was likely to do the same in my youth when many of my friends were lords and “Hons.,” like those on the show.
L to R: Salauddin Babi, Robert Walters, Francisco de Borbón, and Ludovic Watson
The other two seem to be actual princes. Chubby, smiley Prince Salauddin Babi of Balasinor comes from western India where he lives in a big compound he’s named the Garden Palace when, from the looks of it, it should really be called the Drywall and Stucco Palace. There’s also Prince Francisco de Borbón who seems pretty American save having an enormous crest on his jacket and fully staffed houses all over the world. Oh, and being descended from the royal houses of Spain, France and Germany. It seems like this could’ve been the perfect Battle of the Eurotrash Douchebags, but these guys are all very cool and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens now that they’re settled in.
