the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Most of the news coverage regarding Prince Harry’s engagement hasn’t been news. Well my idea of what constitutes news, anyway and clearly print and media editors don’t share this opinion.

The only newsworthy thing about this can be summed up in a sentence, possibly even stretch to a paragraph if one is feeling extravagant. “Prince Harry yesterday announced his engagement to Meghan Markle, and they plan to get married sometime in the spring of next year” That’s it. That’s all that needs to be said about it. How I wish for the good old days of 1986, when the Independent newspaper carried news of the announcement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson tucked away in the news in brief section.

Instead now we get the most toadying sycophancy not seen since the last royal wedding. The Queen and Prince Phillip are reportedly ‘thrilled’ that their grandson had become engaged. How is this news exactly? What would be news would be if the Queen and her embarrassment had indulged in a foul-mouthed tirade of vitriolic abuse upon hearing of the engagement. Grandparents being happy for the grandson’s forthcoming nuptials? Not so much news as fluff. As with other friends and lickspittles who all find new ways to say the same thing to a compliant media, who lap it up in the same way a dog will lick its own vomit. Although much kudos must go to Prince Charles in this regard. In the clip on the BBC 6 O’Clock news last night of him being asked to give his reaction, he displayed as much emotion as a man who has got up from the toilet, has a look at the contents the bowl and upon seeing it floats, is pleased with what he see’s.

Well I thought so anyway.

But then I think that the monarchy is well overdue for abolition anyway, given that they are constant reminders that in this age of austerity, not everyone is equal. Will for example, Prince Harry be doing a royal version of “Don’t tell the Bride’? I mean when you’re getting married in a chapel in your granny’s castle at Windsor you’re not exactly down on your uppers, are you? Will he have a limited budget, unlike his brother whose wedding is reported to have cost $34 million? $32 million of that was on security; a large part of which I guess was spent on making sure the Queen wasn’t seen smiling. (She’s a bit like Victoria Beckham isn’t she? Never smiles. Although the queen does smile on occasion, mostly at something with four legs that’s won her some money.)

Speaking of money brings me on to the thorny issue of who exactly is going to pay for all of this? If it is the taxpayer we are all a bunch of pricks, because as the Guardian reported earlier this year:

The Queen is in line for a near doubling of her income to more than £82m due to a government decision to increase her funding to cover “essential works” to Buckingham Palace.

The Crown Estate, which owns most of Regent Street and swaths of St James’s as well as thousands of acres of farmland, forests and coastline, made £328.8m profit in the year to the end of March 2017, an 8% increase on the previous year.

The Queen’s sovereign grant, the amount she receives from taxpayers, is calculated as a percentage of Crown Estate profits. In November,  it was announced that the percentage would rise for 10 years from 15% to 25%.

If she can’t find the money, what with living on state benefits and all, perhaps she might try looking in her offshore account? Just a thought. Otherwise the taxpayer stumping up the cost of yet another royal beano would be the icing on a cake we’re paying for!