‘Beckingham Palace’ shows a lack of imagination
My friend’s granddaughter was playing in the garden at the weekend. Florence looked at the box hedge planted by Nonna Wees (Grandma Louise) and announced it was “a maze and am Princess Rapunzel in da maze with a yewcorn”.
The unicorn was a one-eyed hobby horse that belonged to Florence’s daddy 30 years ago. Such is the wondrous imagination of the three-yearold. They need hardly anything to create an enchanted world of make-believe.
Compare and contrast with the sixth birthday party of Harper Beckham. As the daughter of Victoria and David, Harper doesn’t just get any old common or garden princess party. Dearie me, no.
Harper has a Royal Command Performance of a party at a real palace with an actual princess. Take that, plebs!
The Beckhams posted pictures of Harper and friends with Princess Eugenie at Buckingham Palace, at a tea party hosted by the Duke of York in his apartments.
“Lucky Harper meeting a real life princess at the Palace,” cooed her father. Uch. Is there no end to the nauseating self-promotion of the Beckhams? For vulgarity and cloth-eared lack of judgment they are up there with the Yorks.
Did it not occur to either family that sharing pictures of a stupendously indulged child enjoying the official residence of Her Majesty The Queen might strike a tacky note?
“None of them has got a right to be there,” fumed Dickie Arbiter, former Palace press secretary. “It devalues what the place is all about.”
Quite. Protestations that the Duke had met any costs himself miss the point. Buckingham Palace is not Beckingham Palace. It belongs to the nation and is not there for naff social swanking or for giving special treatment to one of Britain’s most privileged children.
As for poor Harper’s embarrassingly literal princess party, I pity her. Far better to invent a birthday kingdom in your own back garden. The imagination has riches beyond price, and even beyond footballers.