Maybe it's time to flush the royals.

I’ve always been a fan of the British royal family. To be honest, it’s hard not to love a well-groomed group of snooty, non-essential foreigners with cool accents whose main goals in life are wearing hats and marrying well. For the most part, the Windsors have achieved these objectives admirably with the exception of: 1) Prince Charles, who married Trigger’s ugly sister, Camilla Parker Bowles; and 2) Prince Andrew, whose over-extended ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, recently tried to sell him on e-Bay for a half a million pounds. The buyer was a reporter who secretly filmed the entire transaction, thereby providing Sarah with an exciting opportunity for a reality show on the Oprah network, although I’d be very surprised if anybody seriously wants to watch this.

Which brings us to today’s big news story. In 2004 Queen Elizabeth apparently requested assistance from a government fund that provides subsidized heating to low-income Britons when the cost to warm her palaces spiraled past $1.5 million per year. Apparently Her Majesty’s application was quietly turned down by the government (mostly to avoid the crappy publicity) and then forgotten until a British newspaper published the correspondence today after obtaining it through a freedom of information request. Palace officials confirmed the account.

The Queen is one of the wealthiest women in the world. She has royal residences across Britain, including Balmoral Castle in Scotland, Sandringham House in eastern England, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and St. James’ Palace in London. Buckingham Palace has been the official London residence of Britain’s monarchs since 1837. While it has magnificent gardens and grand state rooms with priceless paintings and furniture, large parts of the sprawling 775-room palace are considered to be cold and drafty.

I recommend that Queen Elizabeth sell a few hats, trade in the solid gold coach (above) and invest in space heaters from Sears. Thank you for reading this.