PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Charles’s bloodless tribute to the Queen fell flat
For millions this was a sad week as, a year after her passing, we remembered our beloved Queen.
How many of us still mourn her reassuring presence and long to see those sparkling blue eyes again, as well as that smile that shone brighter than any crown she wore?
At times like these, we look to the royals to guide our grief. So how disappointing that Charles should have released such a boring picture of his mother as a tribute.
The portrait was taken by Cecil Beaton in 1968 in Buckingham Palace, a place Elizabeth never loved. Weighed down by full regalia, the half-smiling Queen looks uncomfortable: it’s an expression that says she can’t wait to chuck orf the tiara, replace it with one of her signature scarves and go walking with her corgis.
Of all the pictures of one of the most photographed women in the world, Charles chose this? It captures none of her inner or outer beauty, none of her majesty, none of her serenity, none of the radiant nature of the woman President Barack Obama described as ‘a gift, not just for the United Kingdom, but for the world’.
The portrait was taken by Cecil Beaton in 1968 in Buckingham Palace, a place Elizabeth never loved. Weighed down by full regalia, the half-smiling Queen looks uncomfortable
King Charles III and Britain’s Queen Camilla leave after attending church in the village of Crathie, near Balmoral in central Scotland on September 8
Why not a picture of the Queen, glittering with diamonds, greeting any of the presidents or prime ministers who served her? Why not an image of our Queen – yes, despite Camilla’s crown, many of us still regard Elizabeth II as our true Queen – looking happy, mischievous and laughing behind closed doors?
The picture was bad enough, but then came the King’s stodgy statement. ‘In marking the first anniversary of Her late Majesty’s death and my Accession,’ he wrote, ‘we recall with great affection her long life, devoted service and all she meant to so many of us.’ He added that he was ‘grateful for the support that has been shown to my wife and myself’.
A truly personal tribute to his mother – like the one he made in his address after her death – would have hit the mark far better. Last year, he said: ‘To my darling mama, I want simply to say this: thank you.’ Everyone felt his sorrow as a grieving son.
I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but you’re in need of a reality check. You missed the mood of the nation in releasing that bloodless tribute. We loved – and still love – the late Queen, and you and Camilla are a long way from earning the unshakeable devotion we felt for her. Love and respect did not transfer to you with the coronation robes. You got this one wrong.
After breaking up with her fiance of 16 years, Ben Ofoedu, Vanessa Feltz, 61, has rediscovered her mojo and revealed on TV show Celebs Go Dating that her favourite position is ‘reverse cowgirl’.
I’m a few years older than her and not inexperienced in the dating world, and I have no idea what a reverse cowgirl is. But yee-haw to her!
After breaking up with her fiance of 16 years, Ben Ofoedu, Vanessa Feltz, 61, has rediscovered her mojo and revealed on TV show Celebs Go Dating that her favourite position is ‘reverse cowgirl’
TV luvvies booing poor Holly were just hateful
It can’t have been easy for Holly Willoughby to turn up for the National Television Awards without the now-disgraced Phillip Schofield by her side.
Yet why did the audience of TV luvvies boo when This Morning was up for an award? It’s not Holly’s fault its ratings have suffered since the scandal. Publicly shaming her was just hateful.
PS: Handing Sarah Lancashire the NTA’s ‘Special Recognition’ gong, Sir Ian McKellen said the Happy Valley star was one of the greatest British actresses ever. One wonders what Oscar-winning Dames Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson think about him praising this former Corrie actress so highly.
It can’t have been easy for Holly Willoughby to turn up for the National Television Awards without the now-disgraced Phillip Schofield by her side
How sad for its World Cup-winning women that Spanish football has fallen foul of woke cancel culture.
They sack manager Jorge Vilda, who didn’t kiss anyone, while football official and snog-gate smoocher Luis Rubiales stays in his job for now and player Jennifer Hermoso, who was slobbered on, is in hiding having filed charges of sexual assault.
A stolen kiss has created a Spanish #MeToo moment at a time when these champions should be celebrated as warriors, not pitied as hapless victims.
A very troubled trio
In his memoir Who Am I?, former England rugby ace Danny Cipriani says the threesomes he once relished left him feeling ‘dejected’. ‘It’s not unusual for me to sleep with three different women in one day,’ he writes, ‘from porn stars… to girls I meet at the coffee shop.’ He now says it was a ‘form of self-harm’. Oh pleeease, Danny, do not play the mental health card now. If writing about these women has made you feel worthless, too, it’s not half as worthless as you’ve probably made them feel.
How tragic that Captain Tom Moore’s legacy is being overshadowed. His daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore was paid more than £70,000 to run his charity – and questions are being asked about her involvement. More headlines are being generated about Hannah and her home spa than the magnificent centenarian himself.
Having bungled the announcement of RAAC school closures, the Education Secretary quips she’s the ‘Devil Wears Prada does politics’. A vainglorious comparison from the frumpy Gillian Keegan, identifying herself with a woman inspired by Vogue editor Anna Wintour – who has style and class and knows when to keep her potty mouth closed.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London
Jamie Oliver insisted his son Buddy, 12, would not ‘trade on the family name’ – yet now he is to have his own BBC show teaching other kids how to cook, er, omelettes and pancakes.
All the best to Buddy, but he should beware the fate of flop screen chef Brooklyn Beckham, another kitchen wannabe with a famous daddy.
Hackneyed launch for stones
The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, 80, Ronnie Wood, 76, and Keith Richards, 79, have been feted worldwide for their new music, though it has had mixed reviews.
Rather shamelessly they hired an East London theatre to launch their new album Hackney Diamonds, in celebration of their working-class roots, even though these diamond geezers have been far-flung tax exiles for much of their lives
BBC’s Sunday morning politics host Laura Kuenssberg hits back at claims she’s lost a third of viewers since taking over from Andrew Marr, saying her column gets a million views and her podcast reaches over three million.
So what? If the Beeb can’t get people to watch its shows, it’s time to cut the licence fee – maybe by a third to match the vanishing viewers.
Not so pretty fast fashion
Modelling her new collaboration with Pretty Little Thing in a see-through mesh dress with no bra, the multi-millionaire Naomi Campbell says that the brand’s cheap fast fashion is accessible, ‘vibrant and fun’ and should not be spurned by designer snobs.
The textile industry accounts for 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions, and workers at one of Pretty Little Thing’s suppliers were previously found to be paid as little as £3.50 per hour. Not so vibrant and fun for them, is it?
Naomi Campbell walks the runway at the PrettyLittleThing x Naomi Campbell Spring/Summer 2024 fashion show as part of New York Fashion Week on Tuesday, September 5
Amid all the Leftie hand-wringing over historic links to slavery, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Sir Trevor Phillips, says: ‘I would love the energy that is being devoted to arguing over [slavery reparations] to be devoted to saving the next black kid who’s going to get stabbed this weekend.’
Indeed. How wonderful if organisations such as the Church of England, which has committed £100 million to address its own slavery links, could instead spend it on this. Maybe more of us disenchanted Christians would return to church.
If we think we’ve got it tough with soaring numbers of illegal immigrants, spare a thought for New York.
Democrat mayor Eric Adams says that, as more than 110,000 migrants have arrived in his city since last spring, the crisis threatens to destroy America’s most famous city.
Imagine how much worse it would be if, instead of housing them in gyms and car parks, New Yorkers were paying more than £2billion a year to put migrants up in hotel – as we so generously do.
Source: Read Full Article
