the brilliantly leaping gazelle

As if to underline how radically different our society is since the election result, yesterday the BBC reported that,

The Duke of Edinburgh has spent the night in hospital after being admitted as a “precautionary measure”.

Can you imagine any other pensioner being able to rock up at hospital and being admitted as a “precautionary measure”?

Mind you, I suppose it does help if that hospital is the private King Edward VII one and not a chronically under-funded N.H.S one. One where as long as you can pay, you can stay; except in this case, it’s you, me and every other taxpayer who’re paying. I wonder if ‘precautionary measure’ is some kind of euphemism or else a coded message, because I can’t think of what possible precaution the ageing Greek gigolo might need?

Anyway, according to today’s Guardian

 The Duke of Edinburgh is expected to stay in hospital for a few more days while receiving treatment relating to a “pre-existing condition”.

According to reports, the move follows a spell of ill-health. The Sun quoted a royal source as saying that the 98-year-old duke had had a fall recently, while the Mail reported he had been battling a flu-like condition.

How exactly is this news? An old man has some of the same problems many other old people do. But rest assured,

The duke’s condition is not considered serious enough for the Queen to change her schedule. She left Buckingham Palace for Norfolk by train on Friday, to begin her traditional festive break on the Sandringham estate, where the duke has spent much of his time since retiring from public duties in 2017.

So clearly the problem being all alone in a cold house for Christmas like so many other old people on benefits isn’t one of them.

Hang on, I’ve just that last quote again, about him ‘retiring from public duties in 2017’ and I can’t help but wonder what on earth were these public duties? Did he help out as a hospital porter when he wasn’t being a fireman? Or work as a teaching assistant at an inner city primary school and then do a quick change,  don a hi-vis jacket to be their lollipop man? Going on holiday and opening civic centre’s isn’t a public duty, people aren’t depending on him to do it, unless of course the definition of what duty means has changed?