What that? Apart from telling those of us who live somewhere that dispensed with Royalty more than a century ago that their adoptive country did the right thing, give or take the odd assassination or two, it props up the myth of a people prepared to support the monarchy because, well, it’s written, that’s why. And nowhere is it written more grovelingly than the Daily Mail.
The Dacre Doggies’ venture into Tedious Maximus territory is presented as “6 pages of sparkling tributes”. Perhaps you need to have necked a bottle of Méthode Traditionelle before reading it. There is the inevitable “Republicans foretold end of monarchy - they were wrong”, just to tell readers which side of this debate is the right one for the Mail’s Kind Of People.
But the real purpose of the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker is to use the first anniversary of the Queen’s passing as an excuse to put the boot in, once more, on the Sussexes. The Mail has to hate someone, and today’s two minutes is directed at Haz. “Ahead of first anniversary of our late Queen’s death, proof the reconciliation she longed for is as far away as ever … WARRING ROYAL BROTHERS STILL 100 MILES APART”.
For someone who the press claims is no longer relevant to the Monarchy, Haz sure generates a lot of copy, most of it entirely made up, such as the “reconciliation she longed for”, for which we are supposed to take the Mail’s shower of Royal “experts” (ho ho ho) on trust. Yeah, right.
There was more. “Harry, 38, made the whirlwind trip to the UK minus his wife and children [Boo! Baddie! Cue rift stories!] and without seeing any of his immediate family, including his father who is in Scotland [Boo! Bad boy!]. He attended an awards ceremony on behalf of WellChild, a charity supporting terminally ill youngsters and their families”. Not even the Mail can diss that.
Nor does it sneer at “He will fly on to Dusseldorf to attend the Invictus Games for injured service personnel, which he helped to found, and where he will be joined by wife Meghan next week”. Oops, hold the rift stories. Leave them to devalued, desperate Dan Wootton at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). Oh hang on, there’s a Sack The Sub moment.
“Harry will be launching the bi-annual games on his own in Germany as his wife Meghan remains home in California with their two young children”. But we are left in no doubt that Haz, who has taken out a lawsuit against the Mail titles, don’t forget, is in the wrong, whatever he does.
“Yesterday the brothers were less than 100 miles from each other, undertaking public engagements, but have no plans to meet before Harry heads to Germany tomorrow”. If they did meet, it would result in yet more knocking copy, more obsession from the terminally devalued Wootton, and yet more obsession from former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, whose fixation on Megs for blanking him is beyond creepy.
If the press carries on with this obsession, it could end in the thing they want to avoid at all costs: the end of the monarchy. Careful what you wish for, eh?
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
10 comments:
Without the media coverage, how many people could have named the day she died? Very few.
Someday there will be an end to the Windsor von Saxe-Coburg und Botha von Battenberg ruritanian soap opera.
Proper Charlie 3 better hope it doesn't temporarily stutter the way it did with Charlie 1's head rolling down Whitehall and Charlie 2 stuck up an oak tree.
But best not upset the Micawberist lower middle class as they twitch the curtains, sweat in fear of actual progress and absorb the latest lying muck from Britain's best selling Rothermere Volkischer Beobachter. And there's always Der Murdoch Stürmer.
As I have often said, the monarchy serves but two purposes for most. Firstly, to offer a perceived sense of order and to keep the class system in place. After all, if you can defer to Charles Windsor, you can do the same towards Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, irrespective of their unsuitability for public office.
Secondly, the Windsor family are a real life soap opera. Useful fluff in order to be used in order to keep the masses easily satisfied on the one hand and a distraction away from far more important matters on the other.
Fair play though, Tim. The Mail has the weight of its own history and traditions on its back.
Rereading Homage to Catalonia last week (set text for my eighth degree, Mark), I was reminded of Orwell's comment on one example of the scurrilous rag's reporting of the Spanish Civil War:
'We all remember the Daily Mail's poster: REDS CRUCIFY NUNS'
Bertie, that quite appears nowhere in "Homage to Catalonia".
The point stands though, I give you that.
'Quite', Mark? No idea.
However, the *quote* appears in Appendix I, formerly Chapter V. of the First Edition, p215 of Penguin Classics 2000 edition, and it's in big BLOCK CAPITALS so you really shouldn't have missed it.
Still, good of you to be on your toes in trying to protect Zelo St readers from apparent calumnies directed at the poor old Mail. I give you that.
I'm sorry to say that Mark is right B, it doesn't appear in it and the edition you mention doesn't even exist.
Curious.
Curious indeed.
I don’t know what methods you and Mark are using to persuade yourselves that some words I am looking at in a book in front of me are not in fact there. Either you're doing it from memory, you’ve both just re-read this quite lengthy book very, very quickly and missed the relevant line (why would you bother?) or, rather more likely, you’ve used some research tech which has just demonstrated (unknown to you) that it doesn’t actually function too well. Lessons to be learned either way, I’d say.
All I can suggest is a *careful* re-reading of the book, no hardship anyway, and as to whether or not my edition exists, Mr Amazon can set you right on that one for the meagre outlay of £7.85.
Homage to Catalonia: George Orwell (Penguin Modern Classics) Paperback – 30 Mar. 2000by George Orwell (Author), Julian Symons (Introduction)
There's a temptation to say that I can't find it also as a wind up. But after 1min googling I found the edition you mention Bertie. Just checked my 1986 Penguin edition, 1st time in 30 odd years I've looked at it, and found the appendix and the relevant statement. I might be in a muddle though as I only have 2 degrees also.
I should add that I don't believe two degrees is a small amount - I only have one - just that I assumed, I still believe rightly, that Bertie didn't have so much as one.
I can see I am not welcome here. I am proud of my work and don't like to see it defamed. Sorry for any offence I may have caused along the way.
I will still read here. Tim does some fantastic work.
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