The best bit of Meghan’s dull palace? The chicken coop!

I’VE tried, honestly I have, to be positive about the latest initiative from Team Sussex. But once again I’m failing.

When Meghan spent 40 minutes of her birthday videoing compassionate messages to less advantaged women, no doubt she meant well. It was certainly no crime. But the room where the video takes place? That really is criminal. Yet another example of the familiar chasm between money and taste.

Each to his or her own, of course. Taste is in the eye of the beholder. But really, why live in what looks like an identikit hotel interior, the sort rolled out across the world from Mykonos to Taipei. Safe, uncluttered and – dread word coming up… neutral.

I realise I am falling into the same snob trap Tatler did when they critiqued Carole Middleton’s decorative style as ‘very Buckinghamshire’, but this spa-reception look is so disappointing. Wallto-wall beige might be soothing if you need to recover from a hot-stone massage but it’s no place to live. The sandblasted stone of the fireplace, the rush matting (which Meghan’s spike heels will get into a terrible tangle with, in a most unzen way), the display of white storage boxes and the cream Hermes throw are unutterably bland.

No doubt Harry was eager to split from the traditional Royal interiors he spent so much of his life in – especially the Queen’s beloved electric bar fires on which you can hear dust sizzle.

He may well have had his fill of spindly darkwood tables crammed with silver framed pictures, and porcelain knickknacks, ruby damask upholstery and more ornately framed landscapes