Harry's Wondrous World

Prince Harry is a twat. He's a massive douchebag. In fact, he's a colossal, walking arse that just goes around bumping into things and spewing crap all over the place. He is, in short, as dumb as a plank, and I don't like him.

Honestly there's not much else I'm going to say in this post. I really, really do not care about the Prince of Thickos but the news has been so saturated with coverage lately I've decided to get things out of my system.

Actually that's a good lead-in point. Not so long ago, I would have some considerable praise for the Princes for their charitable donations in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. I also felt that there was abundant evidence that the UK media had been hugely unfair in their coverage of Harry and Megan. And that point is probably still true, but the thing is, just because there are two sides to a story doesn't mean that either is correct. In this case, I'm pretty sure that they're both shite.

What I mean is, when H&M decided to up-shop and migrate to America-land, I didn't much mind that they gave an interview to Oprah, even if it was a pretty useless and massively overrated one. Fine, you're giving an interview about how much you hate the press - but that's less ironic than it seems. By all means, get it out of your system. I totally get that. Tell your side of the story and move on. Fair enough.

But... after that, you have to shut the hell up, or your point is null and void. That's just how it works.

Did they ?

No. They've courted the media spotlight with determination that would shame a pimp. Instead of getting an actual job, they've thrived on spewing their boring tale about how much the media hates them by selling their story to the media.

Sigh.

I've not watched any of the interviews nor read the book, and I'm not going to. But I do very much like this unusually unrestrained review from the BBC :

Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, is part confession, part rant and part love letter. In places it feels like the longest angry drunk text ever sent.

What other royal recollection would cover losing his virginity behind a pub, or go into such prolonged detail about a frost-bitten penis? This royal appendage gets more lines than many of his relatives. Maybe there should be a spoiler alert for the special cushion that's made.

He describes his lonely life at home, self-medicating with psychedelic drugs, drying his clothes on a radiator [my god, really ? a RADIATOR ? my heart bleeds] and planning shopping trips like military raids, to be carried out in disguise and at speed.

What's missing from the book is any sense of awareness of any wider context of the rest of the world outside. It's as if he has been blinded by the paparazzi flashlights. No one worries about paying gas bills in this book. He's back and forth to Africa like he was going a few stops on the Northern Line.

Although, that would have been more exotic for him because he says the only time he got on a Tube train was on a school trip.

He just seems to be degenerating into ever-more incoherent nonsense. That first point is for me insurmountable : you can't credibly claim to hate the media and then go on to whore yourself out to the media, it's just not possible. But then for good measure he also does things like say that his remarks about the Taliban were "taken out of context" without providing any context, blames everyone else for him leaving the royal family despite him being the one to insult everyone in public, and claims that writing the book was "therapy" without realising that writing and publishing are two different things, and claims that he was systematically abused when all that seems to have happened was some modest unpleasantness, and somehow expects that by doing all this in public things will get better because sure, everyone loves having their dirty laundry exposed for all to see. That's definitely going to have them come crawling back to poor Princess Harry.

Oh, and just like the rest of the media, he calls things "leaks", when in fact what happened was that the book was published in Spain. In no sense can actually releasing the book in a different country be called a "leak". You wanted that information in the public domain - forgetting that some people can speak different languages doesn't mean there was any impropriety here. Good grief.

Get over yourself, FFS. He's properly mental. Sure, he's experienced tragedy, but haven't we all ? You don't get unlimited passes for that. You certainly don't deserve a humanitarian award for having done pretty much sod-all.

Or more likely, he's doing it all for money. I mean, he's got all the time in the world but the book was bloody ghost written. This is stupid. What's more likely : he's making an earnest attempt at reconciliation with his self-estranged family by having someone else write a book about how awful they are, or he's a money-grabbing, attention-seeking twat ?

Now I'd despite all this, I'd describe myself as a monarchist... but not a royalist. I mean, I'm comfortable with the idea of there being a monarchical figurehead; I won't say it's the ideal system (that's another conversation altogether), but it's certainly not the worst. Having some rich twerp wave their arms and wear a crown is a lot better than an actual despot, even - perhaps especially - an elected one.

But I'm no fanboy of the royals themselves. I have as much interest in their tedious antics as the most vehement republican. I think the national anthem is a dirge and if I had to choose between listening to the William Shatner's terrible, terrible album on repeat or watch rolling news coverage of the birth of yet another stupid royal baby, it'd be even-stevens at best.

Likewise, as by now should be clear if it wasn't before, I enjoy hyperbole. I find Franky Boyle frequently hilarious. Cards Against Humanity has me in stitches and the more offensive the content, the better (more relevantly, perhaps, I find The Windsors hilarious). Laughing at jokes that would make Jimmy Carr blush does not mean I endorse the content in any way, because, you see, I'm not an imbecile. I'm perfectly capable of laughing at things precisely because they would be absolutely awful if they were intended with any seriousness, not because I secretly believe that all gingers should be drowned at birth and have finally found an outlet for my hitherto-supressed anti-ginger bloodlust.

... that Harry is in fact very very ginger, is a coincidence, I swear !

But, just as monarchist <> royalist, there's a distinction to be made here : this has to be done in its proper place. Hence I don't find anything offensive about Jeremy Clarkson's recent comments about Megan, because this was so bloody obviously not intended as anything serious (even if Megan herself was perfectly entitled to be outraged). That people are often incapable of making this rudimentary distinction is further support for my theory of psychology that holds simply that People Are Stupid.

What I mean is, by all means have your terrible feuds. Call each other whatever awful names you want. But while people too often can't see that something is not intended with any degree of seriousness, what is harmless enough in private can be genuinely damaging in public. So Harry, please, just shut the fuck up already. Leave us all alone. And, more importantly, media, stop paying him the slightest bit of attention. "Literally entitled rich dude is unhappy" is not a headline-worthy news piece. Stephen Colbert I'd hope would have known better. Sigh.

There, I've got it out of my system. As per my stipulations, I will say no more about Prince Harry, his silly wife, or their no-doubt awful children any further. Now if only everyone else would kindly do the same...