Mike Tindall has promised that it is ‘quiet ones from now on’, as Zara Phillips arrives in New Zealand ahead of schedule to keep her newly-wedded husband in check. She has moved across the globe with the fearsome, sweeping diagonal movement of a valuable chess piece, threatening Mike’s weak defence of pawns and drunken dwarves.
Since the CCTV footage has emerged of Mike’s inebriated fumbles with a beguiling entity only referred to as ‘a mystery blonde’, it is her identity that has so far deftly evaded the despairing tackles of a media scrum. It is as if she has side-stepped the entire Journalist Barbarian XI, coasting past The Sun at full back and gifting into the corner. All eyes are now on the big screen and each one of us is suddenly in the position of video referee. I am opting for ‘No Try’, as Mike’s actions appear far from any traditional courting ritual, unless wiping a girl’s face with a serviette is some ancient intimate act in the South Sea Islands. He seemed to be mauling her features at times, appearing as insensitive as Val Kilmer’s portrayal of a blind man in At First Sight, who attempts to draw a mental image of Mira Sorvino by pawing at her nose. Whilst dipping his head near her cleavage, Mike was probably picturing nothing more sexual than a claustrophobic ruck and a prop forward’s buttocks.
Much has been made of the dwarf-throwing contest at the Altitude Bar, probably as it is the activity second most alien to Buckingham Palace; the first being topless darts. A small fraction of the mind can imagine a sherry-crazed Prince Phillip jutting his jaw out in pleasure at a garlanded display of Honululuian Pygmy Limbo, only because there is something Royal Tournament-esque about it. The dwarf-tossing detail was what made Martin Johnson’s sober comments about ‘just a few lads having a beer’ seem even more absurd. When he implored that: 'You've got to have a balance in your life’, the billed Mad Midget Weekender seemed unlikely to provide much ballast and stability.
It wasn’t until the intriguingly groomed and camp nightclub bouncer, Jonathan Dixon, waded into the fray, that the whole affair gained a sinister, treasonable angle. Dixon publicised the CCTV footage and with it, attracted the police’s interest. But there was something comically lost and uncertain about Dixon’s appearances in front of press semi-circles, as if he had taken PR lessons from Murray Hewitt in Flight of the Conchords. During one, he seemed to issue the shaky warning of ‘Don’t do a Tindall’, then became childishly obsessed with a ‘rude cat’ representing Radio New Zealand, before distractedly mumbling ‘where are my mates?’ Then he unsuccessfully attempted to blag a lift from an apparent stranger in a green Hyundai Estate.
Dixon had previously issued inflammatory statements as if in an effort to rouse Dominion rebellion, referring to all manner of Queenly items such as bank notes, national anthems and beheadings. In the light of these musings, Her Majesty suddenly appeared as threatening as the Queen of Hearts, absent for the time-being, but once disturbed, capable of meting out swift and disproportionate justice to disloyal subjects.
The upturned, hollow eyes of Mike Tindall’s blood-spattered head displayed on a spike would act as a lasting deterrent to other potential royal philanderers, but he is too vulnerable to befall such a mean fate by the press. Even if we are quick to condemn, there is some sort of affectionate connection to him; some humanity amongst sovereignty. He could be a likened to Falstaff, all brash, bawdy and slightly brutish, but balanced with a pathos and an unexpected RADA-trained eloquence. As he shambles around after Zara, holding her luggage forlornly and apologetically, his character comes across as even more condemned and marginalised; perhaps Tindall could be a battlefield extra in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, chain-mailed under the weight of a regal emblem, heavily and unfairly outnumbered and sacrificed under a hail of sniping arrows.
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