Yahoo Sports Laugh at Prince Harry – to keep yourself sane
In bringing his costly legal action, the Duke of Sussex says he wants to “save journalism as a profession”. That is his first, but most definitely not his last, mistake. Journalism is not a profession, it’s a rough old trade. Some of us in the posh papers may fancy ourselves privileged spectators of the human scene, perched at the front of the Dress circle crafting elegant bon mots with our quill pens.
In reality, we are all in the pit with the groundlings, hurling cabbages at whichever deluded prince happens to be strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage. In a free society, you wouldn’t want it any other way.
What the Duke might prefer is a press that lavishes uncritical attention on him and his wife, never pointing out how their “feelings” are occasionally in tension with the facts. We may think, for example, of the Sussexes’ recent “near-catastrophic car chase” in which at least one pigeon got a bit flustered.
To be fair, the Duke does make a kind offer of help to us guttersnipes. Rare is the day at Telegraph Towers when some grizzled veteran on the newsdesk doesn’t spit out his Nicorette, and stick it to his screen for later, saying to the assembled hacks, “Cor, I don’t ‘alf wish we ‘ad that Prince ‘arry wiv ‘is D in Geography to show us ‘ow to do journalism!”
Imagine how wonderfully well the Duke’s appearance at the High Court would have gone, if only he had been able to report it himself:
And breathe. It’s a lot, right?
I was referred to as Your Royal Highness. I know my grandmother sort of ruled out using the HRH thing when Meg and I made our historic bid for freedom away from all the abuse, intrusion and hate here in rock-bottom Britain. But, you know, I am still fifth in line to the throne, even if Willy has been bumped up to Number 2. I mean, how is that fair when he got the bigger half of the nursery with the window?
Meg and I have dug deep into our hearts and pencilled in a period of reconciliation with the fam this year, now that we’ve sold their secrets, but none of them will reply to my texts. Weird.
I called Pa to see if I could stay at the Palace, but he didn’t pick up. His equerry said His Majesty was “walking in Transylvania” and all the bedrooms at Buck House are “under restoration”. All 52 of them? Seriously, those stiff old white dudes are so guilty of unconscious bias.
“You’re just going to feed the beast. Silence is the best option,” the comms team at Kensington Palace used to tell me when I said I wanted to sue the pants off the press. Well, how wrong were they? Just look at me now!
The court appearance was a BIG success. I was immense. Strong, angry, precise.
I left them in no doubt how much we’d suffered. How I spend most of every day, from the moment I open my eyes until long past midnight, trying to work out how to protect the woman I love.
Funny Meg hasn’t replied to any of my texts telling her how great the case is going. Weird. I called the house, but the nanny said Meg was out at the Getty Museum. Again. She’s got really interested in illuminated medieval manuscripts. So much more cultured than me, honestly, she’s amazing, I’m so lucky!
To think that Piers Morgan said he didn’t believe a word that came out of Meghan’s mouth and that she’d damaged the monarchy. That swine got 41,000 complaints and only about 35,000 of those were from me, I swear.
Even if I don’t win the case, Meg and I know we are the real victors. That’s our truth.
I’ve done my bit to save journalism from vile Royal reporters. And It’s goodbye and good riddance to hate-filled, racist UK!
The Six Stages
In response to my column about how all the wrong people are getting knighthoods and damehoods for their lockdown errors, Steve sent me a joke which he says was once commonplace within the engineering world.
The six stages of a major project:
1 Enthusiasm
2 Disillusionment
3 Panic
4 The search for the guilty
5 Punishment of the innocent
6 Rewards for those who took no part
Very funny, Steve, but I’m not laughing until we know for sure that Professor Neil Ferguson and his “models” are banned from a role in any future pandemic and Matt Hancock has a job worthy of his talents. Behind the till in Mac Fisheries.
TWATs
Such is the difficulty persuading people back to the office (especially civil servants for some reason), that I hear a new acronym has been coined to describe their working practices. TWATs or Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
I knew the country was headed back to the Seventies, but surely we can do better than a three-day week? I’m regrowing my Farrah Fawcett flicks just in case. Crocheted poncho, anyone?
