Stop whingeing – these pictures are beautiful

We’ve been watching The Crown, of course. It’s perfect television for this time of year: epic, stirring, and a reminder that, no matter how bad things may seem in Downing Street, at least the Prime Minister isn’t hooked on amphetamines. Has anyone noticed how much Matt Smith, the actor who plays the Duke of Edinburgh, looks like Prince Harry with a beard?

I met Prince Harry a couple of times this year. I don’t know if I mentioned that.

Which brings me to the engagement portraits of the young Royal and his fiancée, Meghan Markle. Taken by the fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski, it has been pointed out, somewhat incredulously, that the pictures are affectionate and romantic – both things expected in a normal engagement picture, but somehow not in a royal one.

These photos, announced one commentator, are a “deliberate, some might say petulant, flouting of convention”. They are tenderly embracing! They are smiling! They are holding hands! Orf with their heads!

A friend said they looked like a magazine jewellery ad. But then if you can’t do yourself up like a glossy advert in your engagement photos, then when can you? What would we rather? An out-of-focus selfie taken on one of their iphones? I think the photos are beautiful and joyous, a lovely Christmas gift to cheer us up. It would be nice if, instead of whingeing like a bunch of Grinches (Grinchi?) we took them in the spirit they were intended, had a little smile, and then proceeded to get on with our lives.