I promise this column is a Meghan and Harry free zone

(recollections may vary)

THIS week’s column, I absolutely promise, is going to be a Meghan and Harry-free zone. Haven’t we all had quite enough of the Duke and Duchess of Netflix? For the last five days the planet has been marinated in Meghan, then dunked and pickled in an ocean of princely vinegar. Surely their Titanic of trouble has crashed into our iceberg of indulgence for the last time? Change the subject please!

Most are exhausted with their drama; we simply can’t absorb much more of their suffering.

From the rescued chickens to the Queen’s knee blanket to Humphrey Yogart to who said what at the fake wedding before the real wedding — you know the big Windsor wedding that they didn’t want to have anyway because it wasn’t about them?

I’m going to press pause just for a moment to say, that was a surprising revelation, wasn’t it? ‘This spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us,’ is what Meghan told Oprah she said to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who must have been wondering why in the name of holy tunicles he got his Sunday best vestments steam-cleaned if that was the case — but I digress.

No more Sussexation to ease vexation, palpitation and eternal damnation! That is my new creed.

Still, it kind of hurts that Harry and Meghan felt they were only going through the wedding day motions for the crowds; the civilians, the great unwashed, us mugs who were all genuinely thrilled by their union and swept away by the sheer romance of the event. What then was the point, at the very least, of inviting Oprah and George and Amal and all those other celebs they barely knew if they were secretly craving privacy and modesty?

AS MY friend Simon said during a sociallydistanced coffee break, if Harry and Meghan really wanted a no-fuss register office do and a vegan sausage roll high tea afterwards, no one would have quibbled.

The union of a divorced bride and a second son who is sixth in line to the throne did not have to be such a Hollywood production, right? Right.

‘Well if they wanted a quiet wedding,’ said my mother on the hotline from the Highlands, ‘what was all that fuss about the borrowed tiara then?’

Hush, mater! If Meghan reads this, she might ring up the editor and get me sacked.

Anyway I’m not writing about them/her/him this week, even if it still strikes me as odd that Meghan only had her mother at the church and not a single other member of her family. ‘What does that say about her?’ asks my pal Amy on Zoom, but I don’t care because what I am writing about this week is a year of lockdown not a year of Meg-down, thanks all the same.

This week, an entire 365 days have passed since the pandemic began, and I just heard on the radio that it is also coincidentally a year almost to the day when Harry and Meghan attended Westminster Abbey on Commonwealth Day, which turned out to be their last appearance as working royals.

I do recall how the wintry relations between the Duchess of Sussex and the Duchess of Cambridge were plain for all to see for the first time; Green Hat versus Red Hat in the battle of bottled fury. ‘OMG. Two sisters-inlaw rowing about bridesmaids’ dresses,’ texts my friend Susan. ‘Sooo tacky. Like a second-rate plotline from Emmerdale.’

No comment, Susie, I’m moving on. I’m writing about a year in lockdown. ‘Well, who has done more in lockdown than those two?’ she counters, not unreasonably.

In the last year I made two bottles of handwash from sprigs of rosemary, failed to write a major work of fiction, tidied my cutlery drawer and did not defrost the fridge.

Meanwhile, Harry and Meghan have shipped halfway across the world, moved home at least three times, changed continents, changed nappies and got pregnant.

By claiming that Meghan suffered racism and contemplated suicide at the hands of the Royal Family, they also turned themselves into a cause celebre, earning the support of Hillary Clinton, Beyoncé and Labour leader Keir Starmer who believes that the ‘serious issues Meghan raised have to be taken seriously’. The couple also signed lucrative commercial deals with streaming giants and are the subjects of a flattering biography. ‘Well there is a major work of fiction for you,’ volunteers my mother. Mum! That is quite enough from you, or we’ll all end up in Meghan jail, please desist. ‘Well. It’s the Queen I feel sorry for,’ she says, before hanging up and getting back to batch baking enough shortbread to keep Meghan and Harry’s overworked ‘comms teams’ and ‘our team in the UK’ in sugary snacks for months. And I bet they could all use a treat.

HARRY and Meghan, Meg and H — theirs is a kinship of wounded souls, how lucky that they can comfort and soothe each other in their padded bassinet of endless provocations. Now that they are neither silent nor silenced they say they want to move on, to draw a line under this week’s torrid events, and really, don’t we all?

But how easy is it going to be to escape the fallout from their blame-spraying victim fest with Oprah, this gleeful act of sabotage which has already been watched by 50million people around the world?

I think a lot of hurts have to be healed before the Duke and Duchess of Netflix can crawl out of this vale of tears and rifts — but hang on. Didn’t I say this week was going to be a Harry and Meghan-free zone?

Recollections may vary.