Megxit

However you look at it, ‘freedom day’ turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. So thank goodness for Prince Harry who managed to squeeze in some good news to cheer us all up. His formerly-royal highness is to publish his memoirs. It’ll be an ‘intimate and heartfelt’ account no less, written, he tells us, ‘not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.’ I can’t be the only one barely able to contain my excitement. One tantalising question is what more Harry still has to reveal. Having spent a tempestuous couple of years desperately seeking privacy in between pouring his heart out in a series of podcasts and high profile interviews, is there really anything about Harry we do not already know?

Nothing duller for those of us not in therapy than listening to people who are in therapy talking about it, something they seem to like to do incessantly, at every opportunity. For this reason, my heart sank during the Oprah interview — which I’d been looking forward to tremendously — when early into his appearance, Prince Harry made an unsmiling reference to the ‘many years’ he had spent ‘doing the work — and doing my own learning’. Here we go, I thought. Sure enough, not long later he was telling the ludicrously softball interviewer of his family, his father, particularly: ‘they only know what they know. I’ve tried to educate them, through the process that I’ve been educated.’ Difficult to imagine how much the Windsors must have enjoyed that.

Amid the ongoing fallout from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive Oprah interview, Charlie Hebdo seems to have done the impossible: it has united Team Queen and Team Meghan in outrage against it. In response to Markle’s claims that she was pushed out of the royal family by racism, the fearless French satirical magazine published a front-page cartoon of the queen with her knee on Meghan’s neck. The cartoon is titled ‘Why Meghan quit the palace’, to which Markle answers in a speech bubble, ‘Because I couldn’t breathe any more’.

If bouquets and Bollinger were winging their way to Montecito last night they were well deserved. When Harry and Meghan met Oprah, the trio turned in the performance of their lives. From dramatic pauses, wiping away tears, hand-holding, Diana-reminiscent eye make-up, the English country garden-style backdrop interspersed with scenes from the chicken coop and shots of little Archie running along a Californian beach, to accusations and big reveals – everything was performed with absolute perfection. The build-up was justified. This did not disappoint. For Harry and Meghan, no doubt poring over press coverage, the success of their interview will be measured not in advertising revenue, or in viewing figures, but in public sympathy. In this, they’ve played a blinder.

When it comes to Harry and Meghan, is it time for everyone to take a collective deep breath? With the build-up to the ‘tell-all’ Oprah interview and the recent disclosure of bullying allegations, it feels like hysteria around the couple is at fever pitch. In the war of the Waleses, is there room for a middle ground? The more vicious Meghan Markle's critics are, the more her supporters portray her as an almost Christ-like figure. Her detractors then become irritated by the virtue-signalling, her defenders cite racism and sexism, and the vicious circle continues. Every action just seems to entrench each side’s position until there is no room for manoeuvre.

What a hole The World Health Organisation added processed meats to its list of ‘known’ carcinogens. A few of the other things which have been claimed to be linked to cancer in the past fortnight: A hole built into the wall of a NatWest bank branch in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, became an unlikely tourist destination with five-star reviews on TripAdvisor. Some other surprising attractions: — The Bude tunnel is a 230-yard Perspex tunnel linking a supermarket to its car park in Bude, Cornwall. It started to gain five-star reviews when it was decorated with Christmas lights.

It’s good to be the queen, but it’s hard to be a prince. It’s getting harder still for Meghan and Harry, two ex-Royal Highnesses in search of a day job as of Saturday. They thought they could cash out, but now they’re being cast out. It’s going to be a hard Megxit. This can’t be what Meghan and Harry imagined would happen when they surprised the world — and surprised the British royal family too — by announcing that they were ‘stepping back’ from their royal duties in order to step into branding opportunities abroad.

Here we go again. Just when it seemed that the rancor might abate and wounds might start to heal, along comes another express train of controversy to divide Britain. Brexit has been replaced by Megxit (as the tabloids are calling it) following the bombshell announcement by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that they want to ‘step back’ as senior members of the royal family while continuing to have their cakes and eat them — or, rather, ‘work to become financially independent.’ Suddenly, those who strive tirelessly to rid Britain of its monarchy altogether have been galvanized. So man those ramparts! Re-arm! Let the venom flow once more! Some on the left are even calling for a referendum on the matter.

It’s the showbiz showdown of the century. In the red, white and blue corner, the heavyweight champion of bare-knuckle monarchy, Her 93-year-old Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, still undefeated despite all the sucker punches from her children, her grandchildren and the Russian Revolution. In the other red, white and blue corner, the gutsy lightweight king of the silver screen, 91-year-old Mickey Mouse, trained from beyond the grave by Walt Disney.It’s the Monarchy versus the Mouse, the Old World against the New. The prize is the monetizing of Harry and Meghan.

You win, America.First you broke away from us, but, frankly, we could live with that. Colony or no colony, Britain remained the world’s strongest power and we were happy to let you explore the barren landscapes of your nation while we got on with exploring the rest of the globe.Slowly but surely, though, you began to overtake us. Even the Great Depression could not halt your progress and after you came to our aid in World War Two, and our empire collapsed around our ears, we were forced to acknowledge that you had surpassed us economically and militarily.But we still had culture right?