King Charles and Queen Camilla tour: Sorry, I’ve nodded off, wake me when someone’s wearing stilettos
It looks like a couple of septuagenarians in patched cardigans, stumping across the lawn of the second-most important official harbourside residence, conserving their strength before planting a tree in Australia’s second-least interesting city.
King Charles, with the best of intentions, appears to have successfully sucked all the glamour out of the royal family.
He’s punted Beatrice and Eugenie from official duties, permanently consigned Harry and Meghan to the icy outer reaches of relevance and ensured Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips and their respective adorable families must seek brand ambassadorships when international travel is required.
Charles, according to the British papers, is a man of such abstemious discipline he eats exactly one half-avocado for lunch each day.
That’s it. Not half an avocado on top of a prawn cocktail (or a fish fillet with a glass of Dubonnet like his mother).
Just the one half-avo (presumably with the other half wrapped in a sustainable beeswax cloth for tomorrow).
No wonder he has to rest.
And perhaps a man in a permanent state of hangriness is not best-placed to make strategic decisions about the future of the monarchy.
Pushing the great-nieces and nephews out of the golden carriage might be comforting in the long hours between half-avo and state banquet, but where does it leave the public approval ratings?
Queen Elizabeth II famously declared the monarch “has to be seen to be believed”.
That’s why she wore canary yellow from head to toe, decked her tiny frame in kilograms of bling, strapped herself in satin sashes in all directions, rocked floor-length cream ballgowns even in the daytime and deployed that dazzling smile.
She would show up at picture-worthy events like the Highland Games and Ascot and make sure she was photographed beaming into her binoculars or throwing her head back in a cackle of delight.
The Queen even ensured her funeral would be a meticulously planned populist spectacular, featuring multiple opportunities for grieving princesses to look sensational in black mourning veils, a London-stopping coffin queue featuring David Beckham and even some sad ponies to tip everyone over the edge.
Charles has shredded the list of working royals down to himself and Camilla, William and Catherine, Edward and Sophie and Princess Alexandra, who I thought was a hospital in Brisbane.
There are a couple of others, to be fair, but none are wearing Aquazzura strappy sandals.
Imagine the poor souls running UK charities. You request a royal ribbon-cutter for your new shopping mall and the Palace dispatches the Duke of Gloucester.
Even Princess Anne - the hardest working royal - thinks the “slimmed down’’ monarchy is a stinker, possibly because it involves her attending twice as many Midlands animal shelter openings.
“I mean, it doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing, I have to say. I’m not quite sure what else, you know, we can do,” Anne, the Princess Royal, told Canada’s CBC News in 2023.
If ever proof were needed that Catherine Middleton has saved the Royal Family from doom, this is it.
From her bouncy blow-dry to her re-worn Jimmy Choos; from her saintly submission to the ravages of chemo to her tone-perfect early childhood advocacy, she’s living proof that constitutional stability is nothing without razzle-dazzle.
Imagine if this tour featured Queen Mary of Denmark or Letizia of Spain. Imagine if it were - let’s be honest - Diana at a dazzling 63.
Tuesday’s itinerary includes a barbecue in Parramatta and ...
Sorry, I nodded off while typing that sentence - only to be awoken by Lidia Thorpe screaming obscenities at the King.
At least she was wearing stilettos.
‘Pay up or risk species extinction’
Conservationists have calculated for the first time the money needed to save some of Australia’s most at-risk animals from extinction.
State Liberals in danger of another four years as minor party
A deadlock between the Liberals and Nationals would leave the latter as the official West Australian opposition party unless Nats leader Shane Love relinquishes his position.
So this is what the ‘slimmed down’ monarchy looks like.