Well, That Didn't Last Long
Ok, first things first, I'm playing serious catch up here so you'll have to bear with me if I'm covering things that are in the dim and distant past for you all now. As you know I had one heck of a time trying to regain access to my account then, when I finally did get it back, I caught the flu so have been laid up with that for the past few days. I'm just going to go over the things that have happened as they occur to me and give you my take on them. Here goes:
Yes, no sooner had they landed back in sunny Montecito and heard the news and seen the subsequent portrait of the royal quartet, Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood shot back with an image of herself and husband Saint Henry of the Wounded Ego taken during their soiree into Manchester for her appearance as the keynote speaker at the One Young World Charity. I'm not a computer whizz but the doctored images doing the rounds are a hoot and well worth a look. I'm sure their "friend" photographer Misan Harriman who took this and other heavily photoshopped (tree of life anyone?) images of the couple would approve. Since the release of the above portrait, it seems that the "charity" which calls itself a "global forum for young leaders" is being investigated for paying Kate Robertson and her daughter Ella McKay almost £2 million in 5 years, some of it during the lockdown periods of Covid when no summits were being held. The Charity Commission is investigating remuneration packages for senior management personnel at One Young World and, although I may be allowing bias to take precedence, looking at the pair in charge, I can only say, why didn't happen sooner. I should point out, there is no suggestion of any impropriety from the Harkles or any celebrities associated with the "charity". One Young World, Markled it would seem. However, back to the point of the photo, it was a knee-jerk reaction to release it when and how she did. It was a fuck you, we're still royal or at least one of us is and we're not going to let you forget it. What it has served to do, is to remind everyone just how bitter Ms Markle can be.
Katie "I saw Him First" Nicholl has a new book out, "The New Royals" and is desperate to plug it and get as many sales as possible. To that end, and with no context whatsoever, she "let slip" a story about Prince George supposedly telling another child at school during a bit of toing and froing "watch out, my dad's going to be king". This opines Katie, makes young George a bit of a brat. The twittersphere went crazy, tumblr went mental, social medias everywhere went into meltdown and poor old Katiekins felt the need to defend herself saying her words had been "taken out of context". Yah think Katie? Would that be because you didn't give them any context? As many of you know, Katie works for Vanity Fair, she very often seems to be a fair minded, even handed, intelligent human being. However, when her mask slips as it did in this instance, you see her for what she is, a mean girl interested only in fame and making money using someone else's name. Remind you of anyone?
Archetypes with Meghan is back *shudder* after a short break following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. This time round, our girl was discussing the stereotyping (someone really should explain the meaning of both words and the differences between the 2 to her) of Asian women in film. By Asian women, Meghan was referring solely to Chinese, Korean and Japanese and possibly Thai, completely ignoring Indian, Pakistani, Israeli, Iranian, Turkish, Lebanese, Sri Lankan, Syrian, Bahrainian and Cambodian to name just some of the 48 countries not including dependencies which make up the continent of Asia. Is her racism showing again? Anyway, this time round, before her guests, Margaret Cho ( Korean-American Comedienne, Actress and Activist) and Lisa Ling (Taiwanese-American journalist, author and television presenter) were given the chance to talk about themselves (and Margaret has had a pretty interesting life, she's a survivor of familial sexual abuse, dated Quentin Tarantino and was openly bi-sexual at a time when it was frowned upon by everyone!) everyone had to endure the thrilling installment of how Doria used to take Flower to the Korean Spa and all these naked women from 9 to 90 would be wandering round waiting for their treatments. Now, all you internet detectives worked out that she had lifted this from a kids cartoon show called Big Mouth (plagiarism is as plagiarism does) but what interested me was did she say what year this was because we know that Doria dropped out of her life for at least 10 years. She did say she was hitting puberty so if our maths is correct, she was definitely with Thomas then and if rumours are to be believed, Doria was incarcerated. Even if she hadn't copied the story from a show she's probably caught one morning, things just don't add up. One minute they're saving up to go eat at a Sizzler and the next Doria is taking them both to a Korean Spa for the works? It's like Judge Judy says "if you tell the truth, you don't need to have a good memory". The best thing about all of this, they've employed a fact checker. On her show. This really tickles me. That girl is going to be so busy, she won't know if she is coming or going and I think she will have a very hard time separating the truth from fiction when it comes to Ms Markle because she has told that many different versions of "her truth" over the years.
Harry has a new Law Suit. It must be Thursday. Yep, Harry, Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost and, most notably, Baroness Lawrence have all filed suit against ANL with allegations including the planting of listening devices, paying officials and accessing bank accounts. The accusations listed by the Duke's solicitor's Hamlins LLP alleges the following: The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people’s cars and homes’; ‘The commissioning of individuals to surreptitiously listen into and record people’s live, private telephone calls whilst they were taking place’; ‘The payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside, sensitive information’; ‘The impersonation of individuals to obtain medical information from private hospitals, clinics, and treatment centres by deception’; and ‘The accessing of bank accounts, credit histories and financial transactions through illicit means and manipulation.
As we all know, Harry does not handle the press well at the best of times and unlike his brother, has been unable to build any sort of working relationship with them (unlike his wife). To him, they will always be the enemy, they will always be the reason his beloved mother died. He and William were both "hacked" by the Sun newspaper group back in the day and what is happening now has echoes of that. Even if ANL is innocent of everything they are being accused of, in Harry's eyes they will always be guilty. I think this is one of the main reasons he has them in his sights as often as he does. I doubt winning the cases matters to him, he just wants to cause them as much upset and distress as he can.
On a lighter and brighter note, after their visit to Wales where they were a resounding success, the new Prince and Princess of Wales made a surprise visit to Northern Ireland.
Catherine seemed to be gifted ALL the flowers, she deserves them, she does, I just hope she had enough people on hand to help her carry them. The pair had fun competing to see who made the best cocktail in the quickest time, Catherine won (natch), I hope they got to drink them, especially Catherine after being accosted by the lady in the crowd telling her it would have been nicer if she was visiting when Ireland belonged to the Irish. Didn't she handle it well, a quick smile and then on to the next person, my message to the lady in question, wait until the politicians are in town and take it up with them. I should say they started their day at PIPS which provides crisis support for people at risk of suicide or self-harm (think they definitely earned those cocktails).
William got accosted by a pair of cocker spaniels who really, really, really wanted him to know what good boys and girls they were.
The last visit of the day was to Carrick Connect and Catherine got to hold another baby (William was smiling but was he also looking a bit worried at that gleam in her eye?)..
That's it from me. I will try to post more. I'm still battling the flu and trying to catch up with everything I've missed from everyone's blogs. Oodles of love, Tilly