WATCHING Prince Harry’s latest televised attack on his family, one thing is clear.
Getting him to understand his role in the whole sorry mess would be like trying to argue with a pigeon.
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For here is a man (some might say man-child) whose bitterness blinds him to any perspective other than “woe is me”.
Everyone hates him, apparently, and of course there’s a mass conspiracy to make sure that he and his family never set foot on these shores again.
What juvenile bunkum.
Or, as Court of Appeal judge Sir Geoffrey Vos so politely put it last week: “The Duke’s sense of grievance does not translate into a legal argument.”
Quite. For anyone in blissful ignorance, Harry has been in court fighting against a decision to strip him of his routine “working royal’ security and, after paying his lawyers a reported £1.5million to represent him, he has lost the case.
But instead of giving a philosophical “the law has spoken” shrug, he’s given a palpably seething TV interview and, like the entitled, out-of-touch princeling that he is, played the professional victim who, once again, has been wilfully slighted by a cruel world.
The usual suspects — the British press and the general public — got our routine pasting but, quite frankly, do any of us really care? Our lives won’t be affected one jot by what Prince Harry thinks of us.
But unforgivably, he has dragged his fractured relationship with his father back into the limelight at a time when King Charles is trying to juggle the demands of his royal duties with cancer treatment.
“There is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands. Ultimately, this whole thing could be resolved through him,” he told the BBC.
But a source close to the King pointed out: “His son suing the King’s government in the King’s court over a decision taken by a committee that decides on the King’s security makes it incredibly tricky for Charles.”
Harry, however, clearly views life solely through the prism of himself, so ploughs on with “his truth” regardless of the consequences to the family he claims he still wishes to reconcile with.
The actual truth is that Harry hasn’t lost his security completely — it will merely be decided on a case-by- case basis depending on why he’s visiting the UK.
And let’s face it, if the Sussexes were landing en masse at a private airfield right now, we’d all be none the wiser. So what’s the big deal?
If they were staying at any of the royal residences, there would already be strict security in place and, if they weren’t . . . well, that’s their choice and they should make private arrangements.
But seeing his aggrieved expression during the interview, one wonders whether this has less to do with security measures and more to do with Harry struggling to comprehend that the luxurious trappings of royal life are a perk of the role, not a transferable privilege.
And that when he decided to drop that role and exit stage left to California in a fit of pique, the monarchy took him at his word when he said he wanted to live a normal life in private (stop laughing at the back.)
But now, it seems, he doesn’t want that either.
He’s made his bed in a Montecito McMansion. Perhaps it’s now time for him to lie in it and try to enjoy the life he’s chosen.
THE first-ever “world flat pack” championships has taken place at Grand Designs Live at London’s Excel centre.
Entrants had to build an Ikea Billy bookcase and were judged on the finish time and sturdiness of their effort.
Perhaps next year they could introduce a couples category?
And the winners are whoever’s still together by the end.
RACING champion Lewis Hamilton has closed his vegan food outlet Neat Burgers after six years.
Meanwhile, a vegan takeaway near me has also closed its doors just two years after opening.
Could it be that many of those who publicly proclaim to be vegan in public are secret meat-eaters behind closed doors?
MEN’S POTTY SPORT
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FOLLOWING a similar crackdown by football and cricket chiefs, snooker bosses are looking at banning trans players from the women’s game.
Having a biological strength advantage in football or cricket isn’t fair, but can the same be said for potting balls on a baize table?
Back in 2014, the then-chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association pointed out there were no barriers for women playing the game alongside men because “it’s not a strength sport”.
So surely common sense dictates that, in the case of snooker, there shouldn’t be a barrier for trans women playing alongside biological women? Or perhaps they’re now considering psychological advantages too?
Over to former world snooker champion Steve Davis, speaking back in 2014 in an interview unrelated to the trans debate.
“Women lack that single-minded determination in something that must be said is a complete waste of time – trying to put snooker balls into pockets with a pointed stick,” he said.
“Men are ideally suited to doing something as absolutely irrelevant in life as that.”
I think we can all agree on that.
DEATH A SAD RIDDLE
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IN 2019, Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre posted on Twitter that she wasn’t suicidal and suggested “too many evil people want to see me quieted” (sic).
The post has resurfaced since she reportedly took her own life on April 25 and, along with certain conspiracy theorists, her father Sky Roberts has now suggested foul play.
“There’s no way that she did. Someone got to her,” he says. But her post was six years ago.
Since then, the 41-year-old had become estranged from her husband and a restraining order prevented her seeing him and her children.
“It’s the worst pain in the world to not have access to your children,” her brother said before her death.
Indeed it is. So no one really knows the truth and, sadly, now they never will.
MORAL VOID
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HUW EDWARDS has ignored all pleas by the BBC to hand back the £200k he was paid before it became known he’d been arrested on paedophile charges.
BBC chairman Samir Shah says: “We’ve been asking him and asking him and asking him. We’re getting legal advice on it.”
The figure is equivalent to the licence fees of 1,146 pensioners who, until 2020, were able to watch the BBC for free.
But one supposes it’s pointless appealing to the moral code of someone who doesn’t appear to have one.
END TO TREND
A SWEDISH mother has been fined just over £1,500 for cracking an egg on the head of her five-year-old daughter.
The unnamed 24-year-old pretended to start baking with the girl, then posted the egg prank footage on Snapchat where it was viewed more than 100,000 times.
Apparently, it’s part of a “trend” (yawn) that originated on TikTok.
The mother mitigated that she had no intention of hurting her child, but Swedish judges convicted her of child molestation after taking into account the public exposure the girl had been subjected to.
Parents routinely invading their innocent children’s privacy on social media in the wanton pursuit of “likes” from complete strangers is now an unsavoury fact of modern life.
Perhaps this legal crackdown will spark a global trend to finally put a stop to it?
BRITISH pensioner Ethel Caterham is now the world’s oldest person at, gulp, 115. She says her secret to long life is “never arguing with anyone”.
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By that measure I’ll be slipping this mortal coil any day now.
LET’S HOPE MUM CAN CROSS THE OASIS DIVIDE
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OASIS brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher will reportedly have separate backstage green rooms for their reunion tour.
“Depending on which brother you got your ticket off, it’s their green room and after-party you’re invited to,” a band source tells the Bizarre column.
“So if you’re on Noel’s list but fancy going across to say hello to Liam, it’ll be a case of trying to blag entry.”
Though one hopes that the lads’ mum Peggy will have an “access all areas” pass to bridge the great divide.