Is Endgame game over for Scobie’s royal bombshells?

Author Omid Scobie has either pulled off a publicity masterstroke or been the victim of a ghost-editor. Forget Scooby-Doo, it’s Scobie-Doo and The Mystery Translation.

Forget Scooby-Doo, it’s Scobie-Doo and The Mystery Translation.

Author and royal commentator Omid Scobie has either pulled off a publicity masterstroke or, if we are to believe him, been the victim of a ghost-editor at his publishing house in the Netherlands. Either way, it all sounds increasingly Double Dutch.

Scobie is busy promoting his book Endgame, Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, which promises to reveal if the Royal Family has “what it takes to save it”.

As he is firmly in the Sussex camp, it was always going to be pro-California and so includes petty revelations such as King Charles has his shoelaces ironed and describes the Princess of Wales as a Stepford Wife who spent, “more time talking about Meghan than talking to her.”

Initial reviews were tepid – The Washington Post wrote, “this is not a book of bombshells — more like boomlets. Even some Harry and Meghan content feels less than insightful.”

Prince William and Kate Middleton Princess of Wales attend Crown Prince of Jordan Hussein bin Abdullah’s glamorous wedding. Picture: Royal Hashemite Court/Youtube

Then suddenly, there was a major bombshell. On Wednesday it was discovered the Dutch version of Endgame had mysteriously named the two “royal racists” – the senior Windsors alleged to have discussed Archie’s skin colour before he was born – as the King and Catherine.

Accused of doing it as a publicity stunt, Scobie maintains it was a translation error and he did not include the names in his manuscript.

King Charles III at the opening of the World Climate Action Summit during COP28 on December 1. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The book, “I wrote, the book I edited, didn’t have names in it,” he told the BBC. “We have a full investigation going on.”

However, things took a twist when the translator, Saskia Peeters, stated she did not insert the names.

“As a translator, I translate what is in front of me,” she said. “The names of the royals were there in black and white. I did not add them,” she told the Daily Mail.

“I just did what I was paid to do and that was translate the book from English into Dutch.”

It was taken off sale and amended.

Scooby-Doo and his gang in The Mystery Machine.

Piers Morgan waded in, calling Scobie “a lickspittle liar”, and the Palace is said to be considering legal action. Meanwhile, the royals put on a brave face and carried on as usual. On Thursday, the King quipped he was, “alright, thank you very much. Just about,” in Dubai and Catherine was all smiles and no comment at the Royal Variety Performance in London.

Velma, Scooby-Doo, Fred, Shaggy and Daphne have a mystery to solve.

So, who to believe? Was it done by dastardly design, or a bungling butterfingers accidentally including the names? If so, where did they get the names from: did they pluck them out of a hat, like a titled tombola?

Those meddling kids … Looks like we’ve got another mystery on our hands. We need Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy on the case.

Harry and Meghan, meanwhile, have remained conspicuously silent on the subject they first alleged in their Oprah interview, incredibly, almost three years ago.

How time flies when you’re moaning relentlessly. I expect their Chrimbo invitation to Sandringham has been flambeed once again.

So, is it game over, or endgame? Or, simply the end of the latest episode or Windsor Wars?

I think we all know this is a drama that’s going to run and run.

Better grab a Scooby Snack and make ourselves comfortable.

Originally published as Is Endgame game over for Scobie’s royal bombshells?