SWhatever you think of King Charles’s much-vaunted vision of a “lite monarchy”, its injury problems suggest it could be addressed by buying another striker. If that’s not the case, then it’s clear that many die-hard loyalists, despite believing themselves to be the world’s greatest football fans, are simply unhappy with what they see on the pitch and are voicing their increasingly hysterical displeasure . . As the King’s cancer treatment coincides with the Princess of Wales’ recovery from abdominal surgery, social media is abuzz with bizarre and cruel conspiracy theories, with many in the #BeKind ranks specializing in them. Traditional media is trying to lose its dignity, but – as has so often happened before – failing miserably.
The royal family itself is playing second-team football, with the implications of that perhaps most dramatically exposed this week at a memorial service for the former king of Greece. Prince William, the godson of Constantine, was scheduled to attend a reading, but canceled at the last minute due to “personal issues.” So, bring the U-70 B.
Who is the one sprinting to the front of the family gathering, smiling and leading the way next to his ever-estranged ex-wife Fergie? Could it be Prince Andrew, a man who has officially been living in the wilderness for two years (the 30-room royal villa in Windsor Great Park, as well as several staff cabins)? Does a man think this most extravagant, cruel and unusual punishment is enough to pay millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement to a trafficked woman he didn’t have sex with when he was 17? Yes, I think it can. Not that Andrew relished the opportunity to be on stage, but pictures outside the church gave the impression that he was almost walking the Lambeth Walk. The moving sequences are a little more forgiving, but the mood is that the actor playing Hamlet fell ill, and was replaced not by an understudy but by a particularly lackluster contest winner. Hopefully Andy will show more restraint when it comes to actually serving the man the media refers to as King Constantine of Greece, even though Greece doesn’t have a king and hasn’t had one for 50 years. But what do newspapers know?
Their general consensus seems to go far beyond. Less than six weeks after Kate was admitted to hospital for planned surgery, much of the media here and around the world has completely exhausted its legendary patience and is demanding detailed updates on the apparently unwanted woman’s health.
Although Kensington Palace said from the outset that Kate was “unlikely to return to public duties before Easter,” Kate’s feelings didn’t seem to matter. With that date almost exactly a month away, some are already turning to the bizarre events that erupted in the wake of Princess Diana’s death. Especially the unreal part when the late Queen returns from being bullied at Balmoral Castle – where she engaged in more real things, comforting her bereaved grandson – to comfort the nation. “Show Us You Care” requires a typical headline (in this case the Daily Express) that somehow lacks the imagination to understand that a child who has lost his mother is worse than a child who didn’t even know Diana and was less than two weeks old We took every obviously invasive paparazzi photo of her before people mattered more. I’ve always liked what historian Ben Pimlott said about madness: “A private crisis has become a public crisis, even though no one knows what it is.”
Today, no one really knows what happened, with one Daily Mail columnist declaring that Kate’s current absence from public life “feels almost like bereavement.” (No, there isn’t.) “The King has been very open about his cancer diagnosis,” another impassioned cry came out. “Why can’t Kate reveal her surgery?” Uh-huh. I guess it’s because she doesn’t want to do this? The general gist of these articles that quickly snowballed was that your nosy neighbor showed up shortly after you had some surgery you didn’t want to have, despite your clear ban on visitors, and screamed through the letterbox: “You’re in What’s it like there? I’m a well-meaning friend!” The entire exchange was then posted online.
Ironically, as to what “well-intentioned” royalists do want from the unwell people they claim to admire, some kind of global privacy tour seems to be the answer. Of course, they could not admit this position, preferring to express it in terms of their “needs” as subjects of the King. But isn’t that just nonsense? People don’t really “need” anything at all, they just really like it, which is not the same thing.
Yet we live in an era where the main challenge facing the royal family is itself. All crises come from within—death, divorce, illness, flight to America. Ultimately, the trouble with royals is that you need those die-hard fans on your side. The foundations must be reset. As Queen Elizabeth II said, “You have to see it to believe it.” Perhaps the monarchy will finally consider the wise move of slimming itself down to the point where it might almost trigger the fear of intrusive falsehood from one of those other classic headline templates: “Fear over a painfully thin royal family – friends say its health campaign has gone too far.” In the meantime, can someone urgently replace Prince Andrew, or sell him to Saudi Arabia in the transfer window? ?
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Marina Hyde is a columnist for The Guardian
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