Chance Meeting with Royal Couple: Top 3 Topics to Avoid

Secretly hoping for a chance meeting with the royal couple when you "just happen to be in London" this April? Or, perhaps, you disdain all things royal and really do just happen to be headed to London when Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are taking their vows. How incongruous should you be the one to have a happenstance encounter with Harry and Kate.

In the event of a chance meeting with the royals, this list of the top three topics to avoid will help you refrain from blubbering something inane or insensitive. Can't have you giving Americans a bad reputation, after all.

"Prince Charles" by Christine Lavin

Anyone who ever listened to folk singer Christine Lavin sing "Prince Charles" ought to be astute enough to figure out that it's no tribute. In this spoof song, penned about the time that Prince Charles announced his intention to marry Lady Diana, Lavin laments her lost opportunity to meet and marry the bachelor prince. The song refers to Prince Harry's late mother in unflattering terms. With sour grapes wit, Lavin also takes swipes at Charles for marrying a woman younger than him:

"Oh maybe, you got panicky
Thinking you were losing your looks
Well confidentially Chuck
You got no looks to lose"

Another stanza the royal couple would not find endearing is this one denigrating grandma:

"Any girl looks good when she's nineteen
But think about her thirty years from now
When she's an old and ugly queen.

Oooh - Take a look at your mother boy
And you'll know what I mean."

Even Christine Lavin has virtually abandoned this song in the wake of Princess Di's untimely death.

Prince Harry's RAF Extracurricular Helicopter Excursions

While avoiding mention of extracurricular helicopter excursions, it'd also be prudent to stay away from the topic of learning from past mistakes. Harry apparently doesn't. In case you missed the brouhaha, Prince Harry was sharply criticized for flying a Royal Air Force helicopter to a bachelor's party with his brother Prince William in 2008. The outcry had barely begun when Harry took to the air in another extracurricular RAF helicopter excursion, this one to Kate Middleton's garden.

Aunt Fergie's Drinking and Bribing

Among other topics best-avoided in a chance meeting with the royal couple, aunt Fergie's alleged alcohol-influenced acceptance of a bribe to provide a News of the World reporter access to her ex-husband and Harry's uncle Prince Andrew earlier this year.

The weather is always a safe topic.