Monday
I’m not sure I can bring myself to actually read it, but the publication this week of Entitled: the Rise and Fall of the House of York, by Andrew Lownie, promises to enliven a dead patch of summer with – putting Jeffrey Epstein aside – a wealth of petty revelations, a jog back through Prince Andrew’s most ridiculous episodes and an opportunity to use the phrase, “the disgraced Duke”. Shall we?
Lownie’s unauthorised 400-page book goes deep into the history of the royal family’s biggest liability, a man who, per the author’s sources, screams at his staff (sample quote: “who’s the fucking idiot who cut the meat up?”) in a way reminiscent of no one more so than that other, famously rude member of the royal family, the late Princess Margaret. It covers the Battle for Royal Lodge, in which the late Queen’s second son is depicted as hanging on by his fingernails to the 30-room property in Windsor while behind the scenes, Prince William works to get him out.
Disappointingly, there are no specifics as to the exact nature of the “rude” remark Andrew allegedly made to Kate, the Princess of Wales. But the duke’s many eccentricities are itemised, including the stuffed animals on his bed well into adulthood, the daily “air showers” in which he sits on the balcony with his eyes shut sucking in air, and the enduring oddness of his relationship with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, whose long life of grift and overspending, according to Lownie, includes running up £4,000 in extra baggage charges by taking 25 suitcases on holiday. Ryanair would never allow it.
On Andrew’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein the author writes, shrewdly I think, that “the prince was a useful idiot who gave [Epstein] respectability and access to political leaders and business opportunities”. Per the book, Andrew is venal, thick and often just nasty. One story recounts a camping trip he took at the age of 13, during which he threw his friends’ groundsheets in the river as a joke. “He thinks he’s funny, handsome and clever,” says the source of the story. “And he isn’t … He was a tosser.” Which, funnily enough, if Lownie is to be believed, is the same word used by Prince William to describe his uncle.
Tuesday
To the country’s second royal family, the House of Beckham, where trouble comes this week in the form of the latest round of hostilities between eldest son Brooklyn, and the rest of the clan . It’s now jumped from online snubs and coded insults to IRL estrangement as Brooklyn renews his wedding vows in America in a ceremony to which none of his family are invited.
The real story, however, continues to play out most forcefully on Instagram, a mirror world in which the family arguably lives their fullest and most meaningful life. It’s no trivial breach, in these circumstances, that Romeo and Cruz have blocked Brooklyn on the platform (they have also blocked Brooklyn’s wife, Nicola Peltz). It’s hugely significant, as the Sun noted this week, that Cruz dropped the comment “wrong brother, mate” when a follower teased him on Insta for changing jobs every five minutes.
And now, this: Victoria Beckham, who has been faithfully liking her oldest’s son’s interminable cooking videos even as the rest of the family has held firm and ignored him, has finally hit her ceiling. At the time of writing, Brooklyn’s mother hasn’t liked any of the photos of the renewal ceremony to which she and the rest of the Beckhams were excluded.
Wednesday
Hang on to your attention spans, a second season of With Love, Meghan is coming down the pike on Netflix and promises to be even more enchanting and whimsical than the first. Per the trailer, it looks as if Mindy Kaling is out after appearing to irritate Meghan in the first season, and her rival lifestyle influencer Chrissy Teigen is in to help Meghan get out of her “comfort zone” by slicing a loaf of bread and handling a salad. The show also promises “a confession about Prince Harry’s diet”. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t like lobster.)
To followers of the Archewell story, meanwhile, it might come as a surprise to learn that a second season has been ordered at all, although the volume of hate watchers of the first season probably pushed it towards modest success. But season two comes at a moment when Netflix is, reportedly, downgrading its relationship with the couple by moving from an original deal reported to have been worth $100m, to a less lucrative “first look” arrangement after a slew of projects never came to fruition.
Thursday
It’s A-level results day and while teenagers celebrate their results and weather the opinion pieces, Tatler magazine puts together a helpful reminder of royal exam success over the ages. Let’s start with the king, bless him, who had a notoriously rough ride at Gordonstoun, where he passed five O-levels and two A-levels, achieving a B in history and a C in French.
A generation down and the country’s most expensive education won Prince William three A-levels, in geography (A), art (B) and biology (C), while his brother managed two, a B in art and a D in geography – and unlike his father, made the sensible decision not to use the royal wild card and use these results to go on to Cambridge. And while it isn’t known what grades Prince Andrew achieved with his six O-levels and three A-levels, in 2008 the Duke’s daughter, Princess Eugenie, succeeded in gaining by far the most impressive A-level tally of any recent royal with two As and a B in art, the history of art, and English. As Tatler notes, the palace was so thrilled by this anomaly “they actually sent out a statement so they could tell the world”.
Friday
An alarm call put out by English Heritage announces the demise of the traditional British pudding, and until recently I’d have said not a moment too soon. I am just old enough to remember someone putting a steaming bowl of yellow slop in front of me and calling it “spotted dick”. Young people who grew up eating Shake Shack frozen custard have no idea what “custard” used to mean, or encountered the spirit-sinking associations that come with the phrase “hot pudding”. Anyway, after eating an amazing sticky toffee pudding innocently ordered by my 10-year-old on the Isle of Wight last week, I have completely changed my mind and am joining the campaign. Save humid sponge-based puddings with gluey sauces before it’s too late!
