When you’ve been reading royal gossip for years, you do get a sense when the narrative starts to shift, and when certain royals are being “punished” by the palace. That’s absolutely happening right now to the Princess of Wales. Kate thought it would be a keen idea to overshadow King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to the Chelsea Flower Show and she’s been paying for it ever since. To be clear, Buckingham Palace hasn’t gone Full Anti-Kate – they’re not trying to destroy her, they’re just trying to “put her in her place” and ensure that she gets some bad press. What’s also funny is seeing how the royal rota is furiously trying to make it sound like that’s not happening in plain sight. From this past weekend’s episode of “Palace Confidential” from the Mail:

The Princess of Wales’ popularity is ‘unsettling’ for King Charles and Queen Camilla – but the Palace see Kate as a ‘great model for the monarchy’, royal experts have claimed.

Kate Mansey’s take: Mansey insisted that the Princess of Wales ‘was not competing’ with her in-laws with her top-secret engagement. The expert said: ‘I think she’s a great model for the monarchy [and] for the Royal Family and they appreciate that. They wouldn’t have had her there if they didn’t think it would be brilliant so I think there’s a way they can all exist.’ What’s more, the royal expert noted that the King and Queen were in Northern Ireland where they’re engaging in ‘high level diplomacy’. Kate added: ‘So a bit of glam and glitz from Catherine [is welcome]. There’s room for everybody!’

Richard Eden’s take: Before the Queen passed away, the royal expert highlighted how there were royal aides who wanted Charles and Camilla to complete as many engagements as possible with William and Kate.He explained: ‘I think that was a chance to show that this was the future of the monarchy and it’s in safe hands, that sort of thing. Now that [Charles and Camilla] are King and Queen, it is slightly different. They want lots of attention for their causes and the things that they feel strongly about so it could be a bit unsettling if they don’t get that attention.’

[From The Daily Mail]

“A bit of glam and glitz from Catherine [is welcome]. There’s room for everybody!” – Mansey is literally saying that to Buckingham Palace. She’s telling Charles’s musty courtiers to ease off on the Kate attacks. I believe Robert Jobson did the same – it’s like the courtiers are giving Charles and Camilla a pep talk, “it’s okay sir, Kate will get attention, it’s good attention!” Except the problem is the suggestion that Charles and Camilla don’t have enough glitz and glam on their own, that they need Kate running around in Sister Wife dresses and Shamble Wiglets to provide a dose of royal glamour. And yes, Charles and Cam are “unsettled.” You might even say they’re angry, short-sighted and punitive.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

The British media will sometimes make up stories about the Sussexes to comfort themselves. That’s what I believe – sometimes, there isn’t some conscious projection or long-term strategy at play, it’s that the British papers are sad that they’ve been cut off from the Sussexes so they’ll make up dumb stories about how, any day now, Prince Harry will leave Meghan and come running back to them. It’s pathetic more than anything else. Camilla Tominey recently tried to convince people that Harry is constantly renting hotel rooms just to get some peace and quiet… which sounds more like something William would do, but I digress. Now Richard Eden’s Mail column has this little tidbit called “Home alone Harry.”

The Duke of Sussex, who attended his father’s Coronation without his wife, Meghan, cuts an increasingly lonely figure back home in California. Or, that, at least, is the claim from well-connected journalist Petronella Wyatt, daughter of the late Queen Mother’s confidant Lord (Woodrow) Wyatt.

‘Friends of mine who live near Harry and Meghan are always bumping into Meghan at parties these days,’ Petronella says.

‘She tends to leave Harry at home.’ Saves paying for a babysitter…

[From The Daily Mail]

I’m reminded of the fact that the paparazzi believed that Meghan would attend the Ms. Foundation event in New York solo, and they were surprised when Harry joined her. Whatever they had planned that night, they planned it for Meghan. Maybe. Anyway, as I said, these people are just desperately trying to convince themselves that Harry and Meghan are having problems or that Harry will somehow “return” to the UK. Speaking of, they got some random butler to talk about how the Sussexes could “come back.”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could be planning a move back to the UK, a former royal butler has claimed. There are claims the couple could be looking to set up a base in Britain by buying a property so they can visit more often.

King Charles’ former butler, Grant Harrold, told the New York Post: “I’d never say never, it’s always possible that one day he might want to come home, it’s possible that he might buy [a property] here if he wanted to come over [more] and Meghan didn’t want to come over. Meghan doesn’t really have any family here as such, all her family are in the States and that’s where Harry has decided he wants to set up his home.”

Harry was born in raised in Britain and Grant thinks his ties to his home country will be too tough for the duke to sever. He explained: “He’ll want to have that association with Britain just in case one day he does want to come back and I don’t think Harry will want to sever ties.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

Harry has literally spoken multiple times about his desire to visit the UK with his family, so that his children can know his homeland and his side of the family. That was the whole reason why the Sussexes kept their lease on Frogmore Cottage and why they paid back the extensive renovation costs for that dilapidated shack: so they would always have a home in the UK, so they could visit family and do charity work in the UK. Then King Charles evicted them from their family home. So… yeah. Whatever, peeps.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn broke up in March/April after more than six years together. Everyone wondered what happened between them, but then Swift jumped bajingo-first into a relationship with The 1975’s Matt Healy, a Nazi-saluting British rocker with a long list of racist comments and problematic behavior. The Snake Fam has been in the trenches and Taylor’s team has been trying to downplay and ignore the backlash against Taylor for this Healy relationship. How would Taylor wiggle her way out of this one? Well, last week, Taylor released a new song from her vault on the “Til Dawn Edition” of Midnights. The song is “You’re Losing Me.” This, apparently, is Taylor’s version of what happened between her and Joe Alwyn. In-between a chorus of “Stop, you’re losing me,” she included these clues about what went down:

Every mornin’, I glared at you with storms in my eyes
How can you say that you love someone you can’t tell is dyin’?
I sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick
My face was gray, but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick

And the air is thick with loss and indecision
I know my pain is such an imposition
Now, you’re running down the hallway
And you know what they all say
“You don’t know what you got until it’s gone”

How long could we be a sad song
‘Til we were too far gone to bring back to life?
I gave you all my best me’s, my endless empathy
And all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier
Fighting in only your army, frontlines, don’t you ignore me
I’m the best thing at this party (You’re losing me)
And I wouldn’t marry me either
A pathological people pleaser
Who only wanted you to see her
And I’m fading, thinkin’
“Do something, babe, say something” (Say something)
“Lose something, babe, risk something” (You’re losing me)
“Choose something, babe, I got nothing” (I got nothing)
“To believe, unless you’re choosing me”

[Lyrics from Taylor Swift’s “You’re Losing Me”]

“And I wouldn’t marry me either” has apparently convinced the Snake Fam that Taylor is once again “the victim” in love, that Taylor and Joe broke up because Joe didn’t want to marry her, because he wouldn’t fight for her, because he didn’t want to fight for their relationship. Maybe that’s the case. I have no idea. But I do know that following the release of this song, no one’s talking about Matt Healy being racist anymore!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

A week ago exactly, the Princess of Wales made a big unannounced visit to the Chelsea Flower Show and posed for photos with the schoolchildren she had bused in. The photos made the covers of many of the British papers the next day, and you would have thought that she was the only royal at the Chelsea Flower Show’s MEDIA DAY. Except that King Charles and Queen Camilla were also at the show and their visit was totally overshadowed by Kate’s keenery. The rest of the week featured back-and-forth stories about Kate feuding with the king and queen, and stories about how Charles was not pleased whatsoever. We knew that Charles and Camilla would find some way to punish Kate. Well, this weekend’s papers were full of shady exclusives, and this Times piece was probably the worst one for Kate and her entire family. You know how the court had to step in and sell off the Middletons’ business because Party Pieces was on the verge of bankruptcy? Well, funny story – the Times has a wealth of information about just how broke the Middletons are and how they got a pandemic “loan” courtesy of the British taxpayers.

The Princess of Wales’s parents took out a coronavirus loan for a children’s party business that will leave the taxpayer facing a loss after the business collapsed this month. Carole and Michael Middleton received a taxpayer-backed loan from NatWest to support the company when lockdowns prevented family gatherings.

Party Pieces, which they established in 1987, has now entered an insolvency process. The bank is owed a balance of £220,000, according to documents seen by The Times. The taxpayer is liable to pay 80 per cent of any amount owed to NatWest under the terms of the government’s coronavirus business interruption loan scheme.

Party Pieces has now been sold through a so-called pre-pack administration deal to the entrepreneur James Sinclair for £180,000. The sale proceeds will therefore not be sufficient to pay off the loan in full. The lending is unsecured and will not be given priority over other unsecured creditors such as trade suppliers.

It is understood that Carole Middleton stepped back from the day-to-day running of Party Pieces in 2019. She became a brand ambassador for the business and a new management team was put in place. She remained a director and returned to help run the company’s operations this year to help secure its future. The pandemic led to a decline in sales for Party Pieces that ultimately prompted the owners to call in advisers from the restructuring firm Interpath. Revenues fell from £4.5 million to £3.2 million in 2022, and the company made a net loss before tax of £900,000.

In a report for creditors, the administrators said: “Management attributed this to the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in reduced social gatherings and a reduction in discretionary spend due to the cost-of-living crisis. This caused constraints on the company’s cash flows. The company was both loss-making and under creditor pressure. In the absence of new funding or a solvent sale, the company was insolvent on a balance sheet and cash flow basis. The existing investors of the company had injected ad hoc funds to meet critical payments and no further funds were available from this source.”

Sinclair’s company Teddy Tastic Bear bought Party Pieces after Interpath approached 175 possible buyers. Interpath received one potentially solvent offer for Party Pieces but found it could not be delivered “after significant effort”.

Party Pieces held discussions with creditors over its “tightening liquidity position” but found that there would be no support available to “defer or deal with the highest-pressure creditors”.

[From The Times]

There’s more background at the Times about the pandemic-era loans, which seem to be similar to the PPP loans we had here in America. The government handed out billions of dollars to businesses to keep them afloat during the pandemic. I’m honestly not surprised at all that PP got a loan, but it’s hilarious to me that Party Pieces still owes the bank £220,000. I am surprised by some of the other details – Party Pieces was sold for only £180,000? That’s literally what Kate spends on fugly coatdresses in a year. It sounds like Carole and Mike are up to their eyeballs in debt and selling off Party Pieces was just a failed attempt to stop their financial bleeding. I can’t wait for Buckingham Palace to reveal even more about Kate and the Middletons as punishment for the flower show thunder-stealing.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

SPOILERS for the finale of Succession.

The entire raison d’être of Succession was in the name of the show. Succession creator Jesse Armstrong gave fans something unique in the third episode of the last season: the death of Logan Roy. Then we got to see the messy, chaotic fight for who would win the game of thrones, which sibling could wrest control of the sprawling company, Waynestar Royco, in the wake of Logan’s death. It was clear that none of the kids should have it, that they were all incompetent idiots, although one could make the case that Kendall was the arguably the best candidate. I worried that the finale would be Kendall getting everything he thought he wanted and realizing too late that he couldn’t do it, or that he only wanted it because he wanted to screw over his siblings. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case.

Kendall did come close though. He came within one board vote. It all came down to Shiv and… wow. I didn’t expect it to go down the way it did, with Kendall, Shiv and Roman literally brawling in the office. That scene… Roman repeating what his father said about Ken’s children, Roman motioning to Shiv and telling Ken, “she’s the bloodline.” Kendall’s argument of “I am the eldest boy” which… he’s not. Ken grabbing Roman by the face, Shiv marching back into the boardroom to vote for the GoJo deal (off-camera!!). It was all perfect.

The scene between Alexander Skarsgard’s Lukas and Matthew Macfayden’s Tom Wambsgans was perfect too, an excellent payoff for the weird sexual energy between Shiv and Lukas. Ultimately, Lukas doesn’t make business decisions with his d–k. He didn’t want to install an American CEO he wanted to sleep with. Lukas wanted someone morally neutral, compliant and yet somewhat connected to the family. Tom was truly the perfect candidate. Tom won the game of thrones and… he was the right choice. The scene in the car between Tom and Shiv was amazing too. And the scene on the phone, earlier in the episode, where Shiv basically asks Tom if they could possibly stay together but for real.

Anyway, I loved the characters brought back for the finale. It was great to see so much of Caroline, for Stewy to have some scenes, for Roman to freak out when he saw Gerri. I loved everything at Caroline’s house although we could sense that those sibling good-vibes wouldn’t last. They did not last an entire 24 hours. I’m not sure they lasted 12 hours? It shows that those good vibes are not their natural state. Their natural state is “at each other’s throats.”

Also: Kendall sitting alone on a bench, staring out on the water… big Michael Corleone vibes. Except that Shiv freed them all.

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Photos courtesy of HBO/Succession, Cover Images.

Last week, I made this Pajiba explainer the lead story on the links page. The explainer was for the weeks-long controversy over ITV’s This Morning cohosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. Holly and Phillip were longtime cohosts and friends, and she supported him when his marriage (to a woman) fell apart and he came out as gay back in 2020. But something shifted over the month of May – there were rumors that Holly and Phillip had a huge falling out, there were rumors of a high-level coverup, there were rumors that Phillip had behaved inappropriately with a coworker. Well, now we know what was behind all of the British euphemisms and open-secrets: Phillip Schofield groomed and engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a much-younger male employee. This is why ITV suddenly fired Schofield and why everyone connected to Schofield professionally and personally is in ass-covering mode.

Phillip Schofield has quit ITV after admitting he had an affair with a younger male ITV employee and lied to cover it up. The ex-This Morning host said the relationship with his junior colleague was “unwise but not illegal”. In a statement to the Daily Mail, Schofield said he “met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television”. He apologised for lying to colleagues, employers, the media and public.

An ITV spokesperson said they were “deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit” made by Schofield and confirmed it had cut all ties with the host. It means the 61-year-old will no longer present the British Soap Awards next month. He will also not front a new prime-time series which ITV had said last week they were developing with him.

Schofield left his role at This Morning last week after reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby. He said his departure from the show was unrelated to the affair with the colleague, who the BBC is not naming. The TV presenter was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe at the time of the relationship. They separated in 2020, after Schofield came out as gay.

Schofield said he was “so, very, very sorry” for being unfaithful to his wife, and for lying to his colleagues, agents, employers, friends, the media and the public. The TV host said he would reflect on his “very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it”.

An ITV spokesperson said: “The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust. Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.”

Some former ITV daytime figures, including Eamonn Holmes and Dan Wootton, have suggested the network has questions to answer about how much managers knew about the relationship and what action they took.

[From BBC]

ITV had to release a second statement in which they explained that they “investigated” the rumors of the relationship back in 2020 and both Schofield and this much-younger man repeatedly denied everything. When the story broke on Friday, Holly didn’t say anything, although it’s widely assumed that she was a big reason why Phillip was pushed out of This Morning. Then, on Saturday, she posted this on her IG Stories: “It’s taken time to process yesterday’s news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It’s been very hurtful to find out that was a lie. Holly.”

So, yeah – I haven’t followed the drama, but I was aware there was a drama and that it was all very hush-hush for weeks. It feels like Holly learned something big (perhaps the totality of Phillip’s lies and behavior) about a month ago and she began the process of cutting ties with him and trying to salvage her professional reputation. Will that work? I truly don’t know. It’s also interesting because this scandal really was an open secret among many in the British media, including some of the worst royal reporters. How many Schofield defenders have egg on their face? How much did ITV know and when did they know it?

Schofield has finally been caught out … But he’s not the only guilty party. 4 high members of Itv management knew what sort of man he was …and NEVER once took action to prevent him controlling or taking advantage of his position over young people.

— Eamonn Holmes OBE (@EamonnHolmes) May 26, 2023

Hopefully the uproar around ITV’s alleged coverups will lead to other offenders in the media industry, particularly those who think they have gotten away with the most stomach-churning of crimes, losing their ring of protection, too. Time to put morals over money.

— Omid Scobie (@scobie) May 27, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

On Monday, the Princess of Wales made an unannounced visit to the Chelsea Flower Show, where she had bused in schoolkids and arranged for a picnic and photo-op. All week, I believed that Kate brought her own photographers to document the photo-op – she did not. She just made the “picnic” arrangements for Media Day at the flower show, so there were dozens of photographers already on site when she arrived. Of course all of the photographers booked it to her event. Those same photographers didn’t pay much attention to King Charles and Queen Camilla’s appearance at the flower show just a short time later, and it was Kate who appeared on the cover of most of the British papers. This royal thunder-stealing has been a major story all week, with various royal sources going back and forth about whether Charles is seething about being upstaged by his daughter-in-law. Richard Eden’s sources say that Charles IS furious. Robert Jobson’s sources said of course Charles is totally fine with it. What say Tom Sykes’ sources? Well, it’s interesting. Some highlights:

Upstaging the king: “Charles is unlikely to be amused,” a friend of the king’s told The Daily Beast. “Gardens are very much his thing, and given that it was always his mother’s big pre-Trooping the Colour day out, I think he has a right to be annoyed.”

Kate’s friend thinks the whole thing is pathetic: However a friend of Kate’s disagreed with that characterization. Referring to a report in the Daily Mail which quoted a Palace source as saying it was “a shame” that Charles and Camilla’s visit “received less coverage than might have been expected” and suggested they might be “disappointed,” the friend told The Daily Beast: “It’s pathetic. It’s the media whipping up another feud. Kate has been going to Chelsea Flower show with her family since before she was a royal, and she often used to go as well as the Queen [Elizabeth] in recent years. It wasn’t a secret that she was going.”

But Kate didn’t coordinate the visit with Buckingham Palace: Asked if that meant the visits would have been actively co-ordinated between their offices, the friend said not, but added: “William and Kate are now very senior figures as the coronation made clear. Charles wouldn’t have needed the queen’s permission to attend the Chelsea Flower Show and Kate doesn’t need Charles’ permission to go to the Chelsea Flower Show. It’s a massive storm in a teacup. Charles couldn’t care less.”

Kate insists it was a “private visit,” lmao: Kate’s camp have been keen to stress that the unannounced Chelsea visit was made in a private capacity, but this has cut little ice with the media as she attended on the official press day. One photographer, Richard Pohle, who wrote an entertaining account of the chaos and panic that attended Kate’s last-minute trip to the show in The Times, addressed this when he said that a rumor photographers would be prevented from photographing Kate had irked them. He wrote: “This was press day, our day. We had been invited to photograph everything that happens. Now a royal was arriving and we were supposed to ignore it? Thankfully this rumor was quickly crushed.”

The real story is that the two royal courts aren’t communicating: Intriguingly, however, Robert Jobson did appear to suggest, at the same time as smoothing ruffled feathers, that the Chelsea double-booking was a situation that would not ideally be repeated, writing: “The Palace is conscious that with less so-called ‘working royals’ the grid system of engagements must complement each other.” This is the real point here, and it is an eloquent example of the lack of communication between the different individuals’ offices.

Why Charles is irritated: The lack of communication between Charles and Kate’s people, another friend of the king and queen told The Daily Beast, is probably the most irritating thing about the events of this week for Charles. “It just looks ridiculous if they both turn up separately to the same event, and Charles understands that. It gives the media the chance to stir things up. But after everything he has been through with Harry over the past few years, Charles has an enormous appreciation for William and Catherine and the work they do. No-one thinks this is the beginning of a new war between their courts.” Maybe not, but it would be unwise to allow the existential silliness of a story about rivalry at a flower show to occlude the simple truth that Charles would have rather Kate had not been at Chelsea on the same day as he was.

The Wales court is leaner & more fancam-happy: Their courts are distinct; Charles’ operation is more wily, grand and formal, while William and Kate run a leaner, call-me-by-my-first-name operation, and one that is, as the recent post-coronation Instagram video showed, significantly more clued-up when it comes to online. Their staff are youthful, with a smattering of digital natives who would find using the very term “court” to describe themselves almost hilarious.

[From The Daily Beast]

“It’s pathetic. It’s the media whipping up another feud” – don’t you know that’s Kate’s job??! Kate is the only one who gets to whip up feuds, which is why she arranged for Black and brown children to be bused into the Chelsea Flower Show ON MEDIA DAY, knowing that the king and queen were scheduled to appear as well! Call me crazy, but I actually think Charles and Camilla have every right to be irritated by Kate. Perhaps it is petty and jealous, but it’s also just, like, girl, be real. Kate knew what she was doing. Kate didn’t even inform Buckingham Palace about her plan, because she knew they would try to shut her down. Kate is feeling herself, that’s the real story – she doesn’t care that she upstaged the king and queen. And that alone is hilarious.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Here are some photos from Day 2 of King Charles and Queen Camilla’s “surprise” visit to Northern Ireland this week. Day 1 saw them opening up a public garden and staggering around a garden party. Day 2 saw them visiting a library, attending some multi-faith church thing and meeting with immigrant children. From what I’ve seen in the British papers, the king and queen’s visit didn’t get too much coverage. Perhaps that’s a good thing, judging from the photos and this Times article. Camilla looked like she was getting sh-thoused at one of the stops, and she told the immigrant children that they “speak very good English.” Deep sigh.

Like the King, Queen Camilla is an avid gardener. However, on a visit to Northern Ireland she has admitted that, aged 75, all that weeding and pruning usually leaves her “creaking”. The Queen was visiting the 252-year-old Armagh Robinson library on the second day of the couple’s two-day visit to the province.

While there she was shown parts of Joseph Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, which is a collection of illustrated advice for gardeners. Speaking to members of Dementia NI, she said: “I love gardening. I’m a passionate gardener. And it’s very therapeutic. But I always stay too long. Everything creaks and groans.”

Camilla was greeted by a table of library volunteers, a group of children from Drelincourt School, whose English is a second language. She told the volunteers: “This is very special what you are doing. The whole country would collapse without volunteers. Thank goodness there is a lot of you about. Volunteers also get as much out as they give.”

Speaking to children, some who only arrived in Northern Ireland two weeks ago, she said: “You speak very good English.”

Angela Baleva, six, who was born in Portugal and whose first language is Bulgarian, handed the Queen a picture she had coloured in from the Lindisfarne Gospels. She said: “I told the Queen I thought she was beautiful and she said thank you.”

[From The Times]

“The whole country would collapse without volunteers” – pay people for their work, my god. A country built on volunteerism (unpaid labor) cannot be sustained. “You speak very good English” – I’m sure Camilla meant that as a compliment but it irritated me, thinking about how difficult it is for immigrant families in any country, how quickly they’re forced to acclimate and for the sole comment on their experience to be about how well they speak English. Irritating. As for everything creaking and groaning with Camilla… yeah, the orthopedic kitten wedges speak volumes.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Noel Gallagher spoke to Spin this week to promote a variety of projects. But the real news is that Noel Gallagher is, as always, spicy as ever. If he’s not criticizing Prince Harry for… beefing with his family, he’s talking sh-t about people within the music industry. Noel’s 55 years old, and he was part of one of the most successful bands of the 1990s and it’s given him a unique perspective on music today and the younger a–holes within the music industry. This Spin interview is making news because Noel destroyed Taylor Swift’s racist boyfriend in just a handful of sentences. That’s right, Noel Gallagher has some thoughts on Matt Healy and The 1975. LMAO. Some highlights from Spin:

SPIN: Did you hear what Matty Healy of the 1975 said about Oasis a few months ago?
Noel Gallagher: Oh, that f-cking slack-jawed f-ckwit. What did he say?

Spin: Among other things, he said, “Can you imagine being in potentially – right now, still – the coolest band in the world, and not doing it because you’re in a mard with your brother?”
NG: He would never be able to imagine it. He needs to go over how sh-t his band is and split up.

Spin: Did you hear any of this AI Oasis music that recently popped up?
NG: F–king embarrassing. I just think people clearly have too much time and money on their hands if they’re f–king around with that for a laugh. I mean, who wants to f–king hear Ringo Starr singing “She’s Electric” and Freddie Mercury singing “Don’t Look Back in Anger?” Life’s too short for that sh-t.

Spin: What do you think of AI?
NG: AI will be the final nail in the coffin of music. I’m sure that the major record labels are now working on the technology to copyright it and machines will write music. Why hire a songwriter when you can own a machine to do it? Then Harry Styles can pump out Harry Styles music for the rest of his f–king life.

Spin: Let’s talk soccer. Do you think Manchester City can win the treble? Which, of course, would include knocking off your city rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup final.
NG: It’s f–king on, and those guys [Manchester United] are about as relevant as the 1975.

[From Spin]

“F–king slack-jawed f–kwit” is poetry. THIS is a lyricist at work. And calling The 1975 a sh-t band and saying they should split up – *chef’s kiss*. What did Matt Healy ever do to Noel Gallagher, I wonder? Or do you think it’s just Noel starting sh-t unprovoked? It could be either, but I’d love to know the backstory if there is one.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Just days after King Charles’s coronation, the Duchess of Edinburgh was traveling through London with her police escort. One of the police motorcyclists was traveling at high speed (apparently, the whole motorcade was speeding) and the police motorcyclist struck an 81-year-old woman named Helen Holland. Holland was apparently thrown 40 feet from the force of the impact. She was hospitalized and in a coma for a few weeks before she passed away this week. Sophie issued two statements – one statement days after her RPO struck Holland, and one statement after Holland passed away. There’s been no mention of a formal apology from Sophie or the police, nor has there been any offer to take care of funeral costs, nor Sophie meeting with the family. Sophie has just been carrying on like nothing happened, enjoying horse shows and garden parties. Well, now Helen Holland’s family says that they don’t blame Sophie. Convenient. I guess the check is in the mail.

The family of a pensioner mown down and killed by a police motorcycle escorting the Duchess of Edinburgh have insisted they don’t blame Sophie for the tragedy – as they laid the blame squarely with police. Helen Holland, 81, clung on to life for nearly two weeks before the agonising decision was made to turn off her life support machine on Tuesday. She had suffered massive brain trauma, as well as broken bones and internal injuries, after being flung 40ft down the busy road in west London as Sophie, 58, left a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

During a visit to the scene of the tragedy, Mrs Holland’s grieving son Martin sought to show his support for Sophie, as he declared: ‘It’s not Sophie’s fault. We don’t blame her – the police did it. This is not anti-royal, no way. My mother loved the royals.’

Mr Holland, a project director for a building firm, has been calling for reforms to police escorts since the horrifying collision. He said: ‘It’s outriders going at high speed to stop traffic at lights [before the VIP sweeps through]. They’ve got to think of a better way. I know the royals need to be protected but they need to do it so it doesn’t endanger the public.’

The police bike hit Mrs Holland at a junction in Earl’s Court in west London on the afternoon of May 10. She died on Tuesday, in a revelation that ‘deeply saddened’ the Duchess of Edinburgh. Today, Mrs Holland’s son Martin, 57, daughter-in-law Lisa, 51, and sister Dorothy, 88, paid an emotional visit to the scene of the collision. They attached a bouquet of flowers to a lamppost by the crossing and laid a single stem in the road in memory to the beloved pensioner.

Dorothy, who Mrs Holland had been visiting before the fatal smash, said her younger sister was well aware of the risks presented by the busy three-lane route in Earl’s Court, saying: ‘She’s been here many, many times. She knew how dangerous is was. She wasn’t in any hurry. She wanted to leave early because the trains were funny that day and she didn’t want to rush. She was a cautious person and very conscious of the road.’

Dorothy, who didn’t want her surname to be used, revealed a police patrol car refused to take her to hospital as she struggled to hail a taxi after learning her sister was slipping away. ‘I couldn’t get a taxi so I flagged a police car down. I said my sister was dying and I couldn’t find a taxi. He said “We’re not a taxi service” and drove off. I don’t blame them. He didn’t know who I was and I was probably incoherent. I expect I was crying at the time. I can’t remember.’

There was no contact from the Met until Wednesday this week, when an email arrived. Mr Holland is not reading it until he is with his three brothers but said the subject mentioned ‘deepest sympathies’. The Duchess has offered her ‘deepest condolences’ to the family and is understood to be planning to speak to them privately.

[From The Daily Mail]

The Holland family is more forgiving than me. In their shoes, I would have already met with lawyers and issued some strongly-worded statements about why the f–k does Sophie need this kind of police escort, the kind which puts the public in mortal danger. While Sophie wasn’t driving, it’s asinine that she hasn’t shown more sympathy for the 81-year-old woman mowed down in the street by her police escort. Again, think about how the media would be reacting if one of the Sussexes’ security people mowed down a senior.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.