Well, it looks like Prinny and Megs are likely to become the latest in UK’s very distinguished list of emigrants to favour the New World over the old; which induces me to wonder why? Of all things Canada is, warmer isn’t. And, I mean, bears, darlings! They have bears – not nice, cosy, bovine tuberculosis-ridden badgers, or attractive dustbin-raiding urban foxes, but real, live bears. Bear with attitude, bears that don’t just upset your trash, they lay claim to it. They brook no argument, don’t bears.
It is true, domestically speaking, that Harry and Meghan will be taking up residence in an indoor environment that is temperature controlled, as opposed to one in which control of any kind is a constant battle. To the virgin resident of a stately English pile like Frogmore (Cottage?) there can be a refreshing romance to an east wind that appears undaunted by the interruption of glass and blows so noisily through the TV room, but the gloss must wear thin, after a time. There is no consolation, eventually, in acknowledging that this is the origin of the legendary British stiff upper lip – and the British stiff neck, and the arthritic hip, and that greatest of all national attributes, concealed alcoholism.
They leave behind two distressed grandparents – Frau Lizabet and Phil the Greek, at a critical time, a move in which I’m convinced Meghan’s showbusiness friends, with their penchant for the over-dramatic, must have had a say. Personally, as long as she avoided French chauffeurs and the Holborn underpass, I think she would be all right.
The nub of this move, seemingly, is Harry’s desire to protect his wife…
“Harry, we’re moving!”
“Yes, dear.”
“NOW, Harry!”
“Yes, dear.”
…from racism and the ravages of the British Press. We do have this thing about racism in UK, to a point at which most restaurant menus now exclude chicken and no-one is allowed to make a joke about Muslims. “This Imam walked into a bar…” See? There’s a black van at the end of my street already… Now maybe I’ve missed something, but I’ve never read, or heard a racist attack on Meghan. Granted, the UK sports a small racist sub-class, and there are some people who would find racism in a church raffle; nevertheless, generally, the UK is one of the most racially tolerant nations in the world, so the royal couple may be missing something there.
The Press, though, is another matter: newspapers in UK do not report news, they support opinions, usually those of their millionaire owners. The government-sponsored media run whichever cause they espouse at a particular time mercilessly to ground, and having reduced it to grovelling in its den they harass it perpetually, never once allowing it to get free.
Spurious, biased, debased, puerile, vengeful …think of your own adjective. And some of those rabid teeth found their way to assault Ms Markle, of that there can be no doubt.
So maybe Prinny and Megs are right to sever as many links as they can from the Royal whipping post. I find it quite exciting – two upper-tier Royals wanting to support themselves; two members of the nobility the common tax-payer no longer has to finance. I think they should take up farming – their father is quite expert in that department, and there’s nothing like growing your own to develop character. Meghan and turnips, a marriage made in heaven!
Good luck to them! I’d like to believe there is a hostelry somewhere at which our Greater and Gooder exports share conviviality: Lewis Hamilton shoulder to shoulder with Reg Dwight, Sean Connery entertaining Sir Cliff Richard with an Irish joke or two, Michael Caine insisting Daniel Day Lewis should only blow the bloody doors off…and in walks Harry Windsor, Duke of Sussex, shaking his collection box…
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