So You Want To Be A British Aristocrat?

Mohammed Al-Fayed, the international sleazeball and megalomaniac, is making a bid for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers in Britain, continuing a never ending quest to become "down" with the thoroughly bigoted British Upper Class system.

Hey Mohammed: When was the last time you saw a dusky member of British Commonwealth contributors in the House of Lords? Are there any Kenyan or Trinidadian Earls? Dukes? Meriticracy be damned in Britain, says The Corsair.

In this quixotic endeavor, Al Fayed has left no stone unturned. From across the pond, as a Ugandan born former colonial of England, the travails of the Egyptian-born Al Fayed strike The Corsair as somewhat sad, almost touching. Eminent sociologist VF Calverton called what Al Fayed is going through as a "colonial complex," like Madonna adopting a British accent as a sign of having reached the "upper strata of existence." The BBC profile of him strikes the right tone:

"Why won't they give me a passport? I own Harrods and employ thousands of people in this country.

"Mohamed al-Fayed
Ever since he arrived in the UK in the early 1970s, Mr al-Fayed has barely concealed his desire to be accepted into the establishment of his adopted country.
It is an ambition that has seen him donate millions of pounds to British charities and assume control of Harrods, the London department store which was once a by-word for Britishness itself.

"(Fayed) has resurrected the satirical magazine Punch and also moved into the mainstream British pursuit of football, buying Fulham FC, and earlier this year offered up the club's manager Kevin Keegan when the English national team was managerless.

"Yet, like an over-zealous schoolboy desperate to muscle into a select gang, it seems the harder Mr al-Fayed has tried for acceptance, the more he is brushed off. "

Brushed off is the key here. The British aristocracy, like a job at Ambercrombie and Fitch is a white only affair. We have better chance of seeing an African American in the US Senate withing the next election cycle than seeing Al Fayed accepted in with the swells.

A note to Al Fayed: Getting a lordship and sitting in the House of Lords might be easier if you didn't accuse the Royal family of killing your son and Princess Diana. Just a friendly tip from The Corsair.