One of my American correspondents finds it deeply shocking that Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a party. I do not think this is the right word, for it suggests surprise, and there is nothing surprising about it. Born into that family, it was quite likely that he would turn out to be an arrogant, ignorant, stupid young man, and had already given some indication that indeed he is just that.
No-one seems to have pointed out that his elder brother, the heir to the throne, was also at the party and was perhaps the only one there who might have had the authority – and the nerve - to say Get that kit off, you prat; but evidently he didn’t, and this may not be surprising either.
I blame the parents, you know. And the grandparents. The stupidity they could have done nothing about, but the arrogance and ignorance must have come from his upbringing.
Later: It now emerges that William actually went with Harry to collect their costumes, so he is evidently just as ignorant. These clowns were educated at our expense—can we have our money back please?
3 comments:
Ah, Robin. I think you are asking me for an opinion on The People's Princess, and I have to be very careful what I say. Seven years ago I lost a few American friends when they sent me condolences and I replied to the effect that while of course it was tragic that any young mother should die, if a couple of celebs had to go I could do without Dodi and Di, and that sobbing in the streets and all the shops shut for the mistress of a dodgy Egyptian playboy seemed a bit excessive. (A few years earlier I had also upset American friends who complimented me on our great leader and couldn't understand when I said that for me Thatcher had done more harm to Great Britain than anyone since the Luftwaffe).
But I digress. One can have some sympathy for a child coming from the ghastly Spencers and then getting involved with the appalling Windsors, but I had always thought she was awful - sly, manipulative and utterly self-absorbed.
And I could never participate in the general adulation of her. There is a magazine called The Big Issue sold on the streets in aid of the homeless, but I have never bought a copy since they made her Woman of the Year; leading a life of unimaginable luxury and privilege, like all our royals, what she spent on hairdressing alone would have housed a hundred. How close all her charities were to her heart was revealed by her will, which left nothing at all to them but merely added to her sons' multi-millions.
I was simultaneously amused and appaled by this letter to the editor in today's San Francisco Chronicle defending Prince Harry's choice of costume. The writer absurdly castigates Harry's critics as "snobs" and "stuffed shirts", as though the Prince were being accused of some plebean breach of social protocol!
As for Diana, here's one Yank who shares your dim view of her and her death cult.
Obviously Harry's education has not provided him with the right context or is his generation "getting over" that whole Nazi holocaust thing.
Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps our great grandchildren will be fighting WWII all over again only this time with Weapons of Mass Destruction.
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