Oh, Harry, please stop being such a preachy, dreary bore
THERE are many unsolved mysteries in the world. Who really built the pyramids? Where do all the odd socks go? Why do I remember the bags for life only when I’m halfway to the supermarket?
But perhaps the most baffling of all is this: why the hell is Prince Harry so damn miserable?
Dear God, the man is a walking wet weekend, a human root canal. Which is odd, because who wouldn’t want to be him?
Plenty of money, and plenty of ways of making more. An attractive wife. Two lovely babies, a fabulous multi- million pound home in fashionable Montecito, titles, youth, good health, decent looks, some remaining hair.
There are plenty of people with much harder lives than Harry who still manage to get up in the morning and paint a smile on their faces. So why does he always look like he’s just trodden in something unpleasant?
He was at it again this week. Addressing the united nations in new york on Monday, he delivered a message of unrelenting misery.
Like a vacuum-cleaner of doom, he sucked all hope and joy out of the room, marking nelson Mandela Day — named in honour of one of the most inspirational men of the 20th century — with a fingerwagging lecture on failure.
WE LIVE in a ‘time of global uncertainty and division, when it’s all too easy to look around and feel anger or despair’, he intoned.
‘How many of us feel battered, helpless in the face of the seemingly endless stream of disasters and devastation?’
Plenty, I’m sure. But we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and get on with it. Even those who don’t have airy, hilltop mansions in California to retreat to, Harry.
He talked about ‘the few weaponising lies and disinformation at the expense of the many’, a statement so paranoid it could have been written by Donald Trump.
oh, and climate change: ‘ our world is on fire — again!’ Well, maybe if some people stopped taking so many private jets . . .
Ever since Harry escaped a life of unbearable servitude at the expense of the British taxpayer, this has been his mantra. The Prince with a conscience, preaching from his lofty tower.
He’s fraught with first World guilt and tries to purge himself with endless hand-wringing and virtue-signalling. What he fails to realise is that none of it has the desired effect. He just ends up getting on people’s nerves.
Because there are few things more offensive than an ingrate, and Harry is the greatest ingrate of them all. Here’s a man who has everything and all he can do is carp, criticise and tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
I am not one of those people to begrudge the lucky their good fortune, but if you do happen to be one of life’s lottery winners, the least you can do is have the good grace to enjoy it.
Instead, Harry acts as though it were all some terrible burden.
He could barely even muster a smile when, after delivering his speech, he and Meghan headed for supper at Tribeca hotspot Locanda verde, where you won’t get much change from £90-a-head.
His wife was by then on her third designer outfit in 24 hours, accessorised with her customary jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. oh, such misery.
The whole point of being a royal or a celebrity — and Harry is both — is to offer a bit of escapism and light relief from the unrelenting realities of daily life. Turn up, smile, look fabulous, sprinkle a little stardust, spread a little joy.
To do this you need a healthy sense of humour (just look at the Queen, always laughing things off), not to mention more than a soupcon of self-knowledge.
Harry seems to possess neither. Whether as a result of Meghan’s influence — as some, certainly his old chums, seem to think — or as part of the wholesale rejection of his family, who knows?
But one thing’s for certain: the last thing the world needs right now is the dreary preachings of this overprivileged bore.
Want to do us all a favour, Harry? Go and enjoy your new life in America. After all the trouble it’s caused, it’s the least you can do.