Look who’s talking about Harry & Megs
SCENES FROM CONTEMPORARY LIFE
In Denbighshire, two shepherds meet on a high moor, amid fierce weather conditions.
‘It’s the Queen I feel sorry for,’ one of them bellows against the wind.
‘You’d have thought they could have given her a bit of warning,’ replies the other.
In Tehran, a member of the Islamic revolutionary guard Corps (IrgC) has a few moments to collect his thoughts before going into a meeting of the judicial committee.
‘I once met someone who knew harry slightly,’ he says to the doorkeeper. ‘he said he felt sorry for him, what with one thing and another.’
AT AN early meeting of the Booker Prize committee in Central London, the chair interrupts a discussion on the prevalence of ecological themes in contemporary fiction. ‘Sorry to butt in,’ she says. ‘But I totally support the right of Meghan Markle to forge a life of her own. It’s high time the Royal Family recognised the fact that this is the 21st century, in my opinion.’
Three teenage boxers in Middlesbrough are shadow-boxing as they prepare to take on rivals from Darlington in an important north-east england youth championship.
‘Let’s face it,’ says one, ‘they just got married too soon. They should have given it longer.’
‘nah, man,’ says another. ‘They followed their hearts. nothing wrong with that.’
‘Yeah, but look what happened to the Duke of Windsor,’ says the third. ‘When you marry into the royal Family, you’re marrying into an institution.’
‘C’mon, lads. break it up,’ says their trainer, sensing it’s about to turn nasty.
AT THE start of the funeral in St Margaret’s, Westminster, of a former member of the House of Lords, one of the pallbearers whispers to another: ‘I never trusted her.’ Another pallbearer, a man in his 50s, replies: ‘Nor me. She has a look in her eyes.’ Overhearing their whispered conversation, a member of the family of the deceased says: ‘But you’ve got to hand it to her, the woman’s got guts.’
aT a bring-and-buy sale in a village hall in Monmouthshire, the elderly lady running the cake stall gets into a furious discussion with the flamboyant young woman on the vintage clothing stall nearby.
‘how dare you say she should be free to live her own life?’ she says. ‘and after all the royal Family has done for her!’
In an attempt to break the dead-lock, the Treasurer of the bring-and-buy sale steps in. ‘To be hon-est, I’ve never seen a single episode of suits,’ says the cake lady. ‘Is it any good?’ but her attempts to affect a recon-ciliation fail, with half the vil-lage hall arguing that it is a bril-liant series, and the other half saying that Meghan can’t act for toffee.
HALF an hour before the live transmission of Finland’s leading TV news quiz, the scriptwriters are hard at work crafting ten minutes of topical gags about Harry and Meghan when the producer pops her head around the door and says, sorry, guys, she now needs 12 minutes.
Far below the surface of the atlantic ocean, off the coast of nova scotia, a deep-sea diver sig-nals to his mate to come closer.
his mate slowly makes his way over. The first diver then holds up a waterproof sign. The message spelt out in capitals is: ‘Shoddy behaviour! The Queen Deserves Better!’
IN A Carmelite monastery in Cornwall, an elderly nun decides to break her vow of silence. ‘Frankly, it’s that Thomas Markle I can’t stand,’ she says.
At a meeting of the state Council of the People’s republic of China, President Xi Jinping interrupts the business of the day to ask Zhou Qiang, the President of the supreme People’s Court, if there’s any news of what Meghan’s mother thinks about it all.