BILLY CONNOLLY once said that the Queen thought everywhere smelled of new paint as, just before her arrival, the walls had been given a touch-up.
Equally, people laugh heartily at your jokes, however lame, and respond with “amazing” to the most pedestrian of anecdotes.
That’s life in the royal fold.
But in the cold, business-like world of commerciality — where money is king and not your dad — you succeed or fail based on results.
As Prince Harry is rapidly discovering.
Consequently, his and wife Meghan’s lack of commercial prowess has been humiliatingly exposed by senior Spotify executive Bill Simmons who, shortly after they lost their lucrative podcast deal with the platform, referred to them as “the f***ing grifters” — aka small-time hustlers.
Simmons added: “I’ve got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.”
The mind boggles. But if I was a betting woman, I’d hazard a guess that it involves our very own Hooray Harry being clueless about the hard graft involved in making a podcast successful — ie something that people actually want to listen to.
So, “Archetypes” — the podcast in which Meghan helped women “to be our authentic selves” and uttered meaningless woke platitudes such as “I want to hold a space for you as a guest to define yourself” has been put out of its misery after just 13 episodes.
For while Meghan and Harry’s word-salad preachings might be tolerated in the upper echelons of the US dinner scene, where hanging out with a “dook and duchess” might raise your social standing (stop laughing), the general public isn’t quite so gullible.
What’s more, one of the guests — New York journalist Allison Yarrow — revealed that she wasn’t even interviewed by Meghan, whose comments were edited in afterwards. In other words, a producer and then editor did the hard graft.
So, what would a fly on the wall of the couple’s Montecito mansion be witnessing right now?
Well, firstly a lot of bafflement, one suspects.
After all, they’re so altruistic, down-to-earth and endlessly fascinating, so why aren’t others rushing to listen to their every utterance?
Secondly, there must surely be some mild panic as to where the next pay cheque is coming from?
Particularly given the vast home they took out a £7.5million mortgage on, the chauffeurs, round the clock bodyguards and legal bills associated with the zillions of court cases they’re currently embroiled in.
And following the unceremonious dumping by Spotify, perhaps it’s now dawning on them that The Tig— the lifestyle website Meghan closed down when she met Harry but is now reportedly thinking of rebooting — might never reach the dizzy heights of Gwynnie’s lucrative Goop?
And what of their “multimillion dollar” deal with Netflix? Now the milk of the royal teat has been tugged dry, what else of interest is left for them to say?
So perhaps the “juggernaut of hype” — as one PR described it, has finally hit the buffers?
Which, lastly, leads one to wonder if Harry is now secretly regretting dishing the dirt on his family for money?
For even if he hasn’t quite burned his bridges with his father and brother and they welcome him back in to the royal fold with open arms, there’s another slight issue.
The British public might not be quite so forgiving.
Briefs to win again
REBEKAH VARDY is disputing the £1.8million legal bill from Coleen Rooney’s lawyers for the Wagatha Christie trial.
It includes a £1,994 stay in a London hotel for one of Ms Rooney’s team (plus £225 for breakfast and mini-bar), while another claims to have worked just six minutes short of a 24 hour day, which Ms Vardy says “is not credible”.
Plenty of industries have been hauled over the coals in recent years for lack of transparency and surely the legal profession’s practice of totting up hours without always specifying the breakdown of what was achieved in that time is ripe for further inspection?
In the meantime, Ms Vardy should perhaps consider that arguing the toss over the bill will end up costing her even more in fees.
As ever, when arguments go down the legal route, the only real winners are lawyers.
Class clown
A TEACHER at Rye college in East Sussex has been secretly recorded calling a teenager “despicable” after she said that girls have vaginas and boys have penises and “that’s it”.
The discussion was sparked by another pupil saying they identify as a cat.
Sigh. Meanwhile, another teacher may have to remortgage her home to cover legal costs after losing her job for refusing to use the “he” pronoun for a Year 4 pupil (aged 8-9) born female.
She argued that it could be harmful to encourage the child’s belief that they were “in the wrong body” and was sacked for it.
She says: “Teachers are being bullied not to question trans-affirming policies when evidence shows that the actual result of the approach is to put the welfare of children at serious risk.”
Which is why you end up with another teacher quashing debate and buying in to the concept that one of their pupils might now wish to be seen as a cat. Purrfect madness.
MINUSCULE thongs are out this summer and big bottomed bikinis are in.
Hoorah (says every woman over 50)
Though for some of us (i.e. me), thanks to an excess of morning pastries on my recent trip to Croatia, my big-bottomed bikini still resembled a thong.
Ek of a way to have fun
BRITT EKLAND says actresses are better protected these days thanks to the #MeToo movement, but doesn’t think they have as much “fun” on movie sets.
“We were always in a bikini and all these people were fully dressed,” the 80-year-old, here in 1965, says.
Ah yes, the good old days. Such, er, fun.
HAVING given up on ever getting to see an actual GP at my local surgery, imagine my surprise to receive a text from them advising that I should “drink plenty of water” in the hot weather.
Ye gods. Spare me the AI-generated “concern”. Just give me a bloody appointment when I need one.
GORDON RAMSAY has sparked anger online by posing with the “Rolls-Royce of saucepans” which will set you back £735 for a 13-piece set.
“A month’s rent on pans?” blasted one, while another nods towards the cost of living crisis with, “who can justify spending that amount these days?”
The simple answer is, don’t then. It’s not compulsory – duh.
What about Kyle?
FOOTBALLER Kyle Walker’s ex-fling Lauryn Goodman has hit out at his wife Annie on social media for being “cruel, vindictive and nasty”.
It follows a post by Annie showing her and Kyle’s three sons enjoying their dad’s recent Man City victory in the Champion’s League final with the caption: “Nothing and no one will ever take that from you. We’ve got you 3.”
Lauryn, who had a brief relationship with the defender while he and Annie were on a break in their marriage, took this as a slight against her and Kyle’s three-year-old son Kairo.
“Kairo has done nothing wrong and Annie cannot eradicate him from existence . . . (Kyle) doesn’t just have three sons. Annie needs to accept that.”
Oh dear. It’s the age-old scenario of two women being at each other’s throats while the man whose choices actually led to the complications seems to get away scot free.