AN American friend has a word to describe Me-again Markle and her hapless husband Harry.
“Irrelevant”.
Meghan Markle has done an at-home interview with a magazine called The Cut
Senior royals appear to be making the exact same mistake they made when Princess Diana was struggling as the family newcomer
Which, one suspects, is the former (some might argue current) actress’s greatest fear and why, every time she opens her mouth to a journalist, she knows that her woe is Me-again comments will grab headlines.
Her latest invasion into her own precious “privacy” is an at-home interview with a magazine called The Cut (nope, me neither) where, after softening her up with a few ego-stroking questions about her charidee work, the journalist gets to the real reason she’s on the cover — her marriage to a British prince and her unabashed habit of dishing out her “truth” about her short-lived experience at the heart of our Royal Family.
This time, there’s a comparison to Nelson Mandela and she recites Harry saying, “I lost my father,” which has been interpreted as him referring to Prince Charles but might also mean he was talking about Me-again’s estranged (aka cast asunder) dad Thomas.
As ever with the titbits she passes on that should rightly stay private if, as she repeatedly claims, she just wants to be left alone, “recollections may vary” and they’re open to interpretation or just not true.
MEGHAN'S CLAIMS
Meghan blasted over apparent claim British press called her kids the n-word
Such as her fear that doing the school run in the UK would involve “40 people snapping pictures” when she knows full well there are strict rules in place so this doesn’t happen and that Prince George being left alone is proof of that.
“I have a lot to say until I don’t . . . sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song,” she says with her usual embroidered cushion insight.
She adds: “I can talk about my whole experience and make a choice not to.”
Seriously? Some might say she hasn’t stopped talking about it since the day she took the prince and ran.
But . . . despite Meghan’s inclination towards victimhood, there’s the nagging sensation that, with a little expert handling and TLC, the outcome might have been very different.
Instead, senior royals appear to be making the exact same mistake they made when Princess Diana was struggling as the family newcomer — by sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending it’s not happening.
LACK OF HELP
Diana died 25 years ago today and tape recordings have re-emerged of her pouring her heart out for royal author Andrew Morton at the height of her misery, when the husband she adored was freezing her out through what seems like awkwardness and embarrassment rather than wilful coldness.
She talks of needing “rest and patience and time to adapt to all the roles that were required of me overnight” and adds that “the system” treated her as an “oddball” when all she wanted was “for people to understand the torment and anguish going on in my head”.
Much of it is a carbon copy of what Meghan says she struggled with after joining the Royal Family — the sense of isolation, the lack of help, the failure to understand how she was feeling.
The difference being, of course, that Diana claimed Charles emotionally abandoned her while Harry has supported his wife wholeheartedly.
Also, Diana was a naive teenager with no life experience when she joined “The Firm”, while Meghan was an opinionated, independent woman who declared, in so many words, “sod this for a game of soldiers” and exited stage left. And who can blame her?
But worryingly, a quarter of a century on, Harry and Meghan’s increasing sense of estrangement from his father suggests lessons have not been learned and that a simple “we hear you” (rather than acting tone deaf) might make relations a whole lot better.
Let’s hope that when the time comes, the significant others of today’s royal children will find life behind the palace walls a much more understanding place to be.
THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF HANDSOME HORSEMEN
FEMALE visitors to Warwick Castle (and perhaps a few men too) have been lusting after a handsome jouster in a War Of The Roses re-enactment.
Will Arnold, 32, says: “I knew something was up when I started to get loads of messages from women out of the blue.”
Female visitors to Warwick Castle (and perhaps a few men too) have been lusting after Will Arnold, a handsome jouster in a War Of The Roses re-enactment
When the gaucho dismounted he bore a closer resemblance to the diminutive Lord Farquaad from Shrek
And online video clips of him in action have now been viewed more than a million times.
Will is indeed a handsome chap, but there’s also something extra attractive about a man on a horse. A couple of years ago, a friend and I were holidaying in Patagonia and, a keen rider, she signed up for a lesson with a “gaucho”, as the skilled local horsemen are known.
Her enthusiasm trebled when a man resembling the love child of Brad Pitt and Paul Newman galloped towards us on a powerful stallion.
But sadly, the second he dismounted he bore a closer resemblance to the diminutive Lord Farquaad from Shrek.
FIT THE TIME TO CRIME
ANTHONY SMITH tortured his 41-day-old son so badly he suffered multiple fractures, dislocations and blunt trauma to the face.
Tony, now seven, suffered organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis, and after being left untreated for ten days, had to have both his legs amputated.
Anthony Smith tortured his 41-day-old son so badly he suffered multiple fractures, dislocations and blunt trauma to the face
His mother Jody Simpson was also convicted of child cruelty.
Smith was sentenced to ten years in 2018 but, guess what, he’s up for release next month.
Now Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has stepped in and blocked the move using new powers introduced earlier this year. He has referred his case to the Parole Board to review if Smith is safe to release.
How can you do just four years in prison when you’ve committed such a heinous, life-changing crime against your own child? It beggars belief.
If punishment fitted the crime in the first place, there’d be no need for “special powers”.
A BRUM DEAL IN FRANCE
RESEARCHERS gave a French vocabulary and grammar test to almost 500 people who took an exam in the language at school between 1970 and 2020 and discovered we can still remember most of what we were taught.
Et moi aussi.
Particularly if you ask me where I live, how many siblings I have (“Je suis un enfant unique”) and my dog’s name.
This rote learning sets me in mind of the time when, after five years of studying French from 12 to 17, my mum took me on a “booze cruise” to Calais and told me to ask a passer-by where the nearest supermarket was.
“Excusez-moi,” I purred. “Est qu’il y a un supermarché près d’ici?”
He replied: “I dunno, love. I’m from Birmingham.”
STATUE CAN OF WORMS
A PROPOSED statue of the playwright Joe Orton in his home town of Leicester has been shelved, partly because “changing public attitudes” might prompt protests over his admission of being sexually interested in teenage boys in the 1960s.
No doubt, the protests against “fascist, racist and sexual predator” Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the same city were at the forefront of the decision too.
A proposed statue of the playwright Joe Orton in his home town of Leicester has been shelved
“I think when you put people under the microscope, everyone will become problematic,” says a disappointed supporter of Orton’s statue. Indeed.
Those who organised Les Dawson’s statue in Lytham near Blackpool no doubt fear the arrival of a placard-waving posse of mother-in-laws.
ACTRESS Keeley Hawes – star of pretty much everything you’ve ever seen on TV in the past 15 years – has declared, “I don’t want to do it for ever.”
She adds: “I’ll be 50 in a minute. There might be other things out there for me.”
Actress Keeley Hawes is the star of pretty much everything you’ve ever seen on TV in the past 15 years
Cue every actress across the land putting out the bunting in celebration that, finally, they might get one of the leading roles she usually hoovers up.
REBEKAH VARDY’S former agent Caroline Watt is reportedly being wooed by three streaming giants to give her side of the story in the “Wagatha Christie” saga.
Hang on. If she refused to co-operate with the trial because of concerns over her mental health, how come she can supposedly assist a documentary maker?
