The nearest I get to reading a newspaper these days is on-line and even then I despair at what I am reading. Today’s papers, with the possibly exception of the Financial Times, are interested in nothing other than Harry Windsor. The headlines run something like this:
- ‘Harry killed the Queen’
- ‘War hero attacks Harry’
- ‘Harry dodged drugs test’
- ‘I got frostbite on my cock’ says Harry
- ‘Harry responsible for all violent crime, climate change and the NHS crisis’
- ‘My brother’s luxury bedroom was bigger than mine’
And so on. Actually, I was wrong about the FT. They’re reporting that the royal family has suffered a dip in popularity. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Who’d have thought a giant, sprawling, dysfunctional and insanely wealthy family, paid for by struggling taxpayers, might not be quite as popular as they used to be?
It’s all I can do to have even the vaguest level of interest in the royals given everything else that’s going on in the world. Nothing in their lives bears the slightly resemblance to mine or the lives of anyone I know. And certainly no one I know has a job which appears to be little more than being chauffeured around the world in order to shake hands with people and to cut ribbons to open things. And now they’re having a bizarre and tin-eared public argument while people are dying in hospital corridors, always assuming they make it to hospital in the first place. Kids going without food, severely disabled people turning their heating off? That’s not news. But Harry’s idiotic whinging and the establishment’s barely concealed racism directed at his wife make this a repulsive spectacle.
It’s weird. I used to be of the view that the royals were a complete waste of time and money, but at the same time most people seemed to like them. I felt there were other, far more important things to which I should pay attention, things that actually mattered. I’m not so sure now. You don’t need me to tell you what a mess this country is in and then compare it with this shit show of a royal reality TV show, which is what it feels like. I honestly don’t care if the brothers almost got into a punch up as one goaded the other. I mean, I’d rather they didn’t, in the same way I wouldn’t want anyone to get into a punch up, but it has no effect on my life. I’ve managed to get this far without saying that I volunteer at a food bank – oh, sorry; there I go again – but like many of you, I do have an idea of what the real world is like and the struggle people have just to stay alive. Anyway, I’m starting to think it may be time to make some changes to the royal family, perhaps like putting them to work, like everyone else has had to do.
I’m not even sure that the boost they provide for the British tourism is worth all the hassle anymore. So much of the proceeds go to tat sellers on Oxford Street and poxy hotel chains anyway. I’m sure we could cope without some of them. And there must be some other things for Johnny Foreigner to look at when he visits the UK. How about slimming down the numbers so the only ones we pay for are those who are likely to succeed King Chuck and Chuck himself? Surely they can live in a few less houses? Most of us live in just the one, some don’t have anywhere to live at all. Maybe we could turn a few of them into affordable housing?
I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have a modicum of sympathy for Harry given what he went through as a child, losing his mum in terrible circumstances and then being forced to walk the streets of London in front of thousands of gawking death tourists at her funeral. That probably explains his more than occasionally weird behaviour and, as we say, his tin-eared lack of understanding of how other people lives their lives.
It was an act of crude stupidity for Harry to publish his memoirs, given how crass some of the content appears to be. But then, watch those books fly off the shelves when ‘Spare’ is out there. I think Harry is a bit of a dick who has invited criticism and ridicule, but has also had to endure his wife suffering from a tirade of unpleasant abuse, based on pure racism.
Every time I think Britain has hit a new low, we manage to fall deeper. And this national obsession with the lives of the rich and famous who were largely born into their roles, such as they are, is just embarrassing. In other words, it’s our fault. We buy the papers, blog about it (!), watch the TV and buy books. Maybe we – including me – should show less interest?
