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Monday
In among the endless coverage of Prince Andrew this week, a stray line in the Daily Mail caught my eye. David Boies, the US super-attorney who represented Virginia Giuffre and counts among his previous clients Bill Gates, Elizabeth Holmes and Harvey Weinstein, was quoted in the Mail on Monday furthering the following opinion: “At this point, I think Prince Andrew has suffered enough, but the Met police owe Epstein’s victims an accounting.”
I mean, two things jump out. Has he suffered enough, though? And, if accurately quoted, is counsel for Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victim, who died by suicide in April, the person to nudge our sympathies in her alleged abuser’s direction?
On the first issue, Prince Andrew is so thoroughly persona non-grata he is effectively under house arrest – but the house in question has 30 rooms and the garden including Windsor Great Park extends to some 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), which would seem to diminish the suffering somewhat. And while it’s true he has lost use of one of his titles, he is, after all, still a prince. Even the suffering brought on by being trapped in a (very big) house with Sarah Ferguson – surely punishment enough for the harshest of crimes – is of course mitigated by the fact the pair were co-habiting before all this blew up again.
Still, poor old Andrew. Over in the Telegraph, writing under the headline “Am I the only one feeling sorry for Prince Andrew?” a lone hack in the commentary wilderness ponders the unfairness of condemning a man whose only proven shortcoming was to stay in touch with his buddy after he’d gone to jail and then lie about it, and also fork over £12m to settle an accusation of sexual assault to a woman he said he’d never met, even though there she is, standing next to him in a photo. “If a friend of mine went to jail, I might stick by them too,” wrote the prince’s defender, and of course she is right. What value friendship if it founders on mere words – “paedophile”, “abusing a minor”, and “as young as 14”?
Tuesday
Keira Knightley’s children’s book came out this week and there’s only one question; where does it fall on the continuum between Maurice Sendak, David Walliams, and Budgie the Helicopter? Years ago, I had a conversation with Eric Carle, the brilliant author of the Hungry Caterpillar among other classics, who expressed his frustration at people who think they can just “knock out a kiddy book”.
In fact, he said: “I often joke that with a novel you start out with a 35-word idea and you build out to 35,000 words. With a children’s book you have a 35,000-word idea and you reduce it to 35. That’s an exaggeration, but that’s what’s taking place with picture books.”
It’s probably safe to say that The Bench, “by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex,” did not start out as a 35,000-word idea and nor did the One and Only Sparkella by Channing Tatum (yes, the action hero). But I have to say Knightley’s book, which is called I Love You Just the Same and for which she has done the illustrations, looks very charming indeed.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, we learned about Burcu Yesilyurt, a woman trying to get on a bus in Richmond without spilling her coffee, who was instead surrounded by a Swat team – OK, three council enforcement officers – who issued her with an £150 fine for pouring her coffee dregs down the drain and not in the bin.
Well; you could hardly invent a better illustration of a central tenet of this country’s national life – the officious enforcement of small, non-sensical rules – and news of Ms Yesilyurt’s plight flew around the world. While every person in Britain knew exactly the tone of voice in which the council officer had informed Ms Yesilyurt she was “in breach of section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990,” the New York Times rustled up an expert in “urban drainage” to say he didn’t think chucking coffee down a drain was a particular problem. Then the Times of India did a follow-up, as did the Canadians.
All of which must have been extremely alarming to the comms team at Richmond council, which, by midweek, had promptly done a U-turn and not only cancelled the fine but announced a review of “our advice on the disposal of liquids in a public place.” Justice for the Richmond One!
Thursday
Briefly, I thought about applying for the £180k a year tutoring job – the one advertising for a person from a “socially appropriate background” to get a one-year-old into Eton or Harrow and that was seized on with relish this week by every media outlet in the land – and I bet you did, too. The job listing, which appeared on the website of a private tutoring company and didn’t seem fishy at all, described the ideal candidate as someone who could help their toddler “become an English gentleman,” and acclimate him to a “comprehensive British cultural environment”.
No one knows the identity of the family in question, and even the head of the tutoring company said he had to sign an non-disclosure agreement before being given their surname. All of which sounds to me less like the actions of a real set of parents in search of a tutor and more like a stunt to prove something or other about the way we live now. Red flags abound, but chiefly: someone in a position to throw almost 200 grand on tutoring a baby would, surely, also be a person capable of doing a brief google search to establish market rate.
Friday
Marie Kondo has a new book out and it’s about how to pack, which is a great topic and I would totally buy that book. Her top line recommendations for checked baggage are: decanting hair products and moisturisers to smaller bottles; using packing cubes to keep the suitcase tidy; and making a note of what you packed last time and didn’t wear or use. All excellent ideas which I will enjoy thinking about and, like everything other piece of life advice that comes my way, never, ever, put into action.
