The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan. The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning, whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately. Harry, Meghan  [sic] and Archie will always be much loved family members. Statement from Buckingham Palace on Prince Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.

It has been a year, almost to the day, since I had lunch with my friend and former business partner, Barbara. It sounded like a good idea when we made the lunch date but it seemed thoughtless once we got there. The place was empty, the windows and doors were all open but, rather than making it seem safer, it just made it seem foolish and risky. At the time, there was one Covid-19 death in neighboring Santa Clara County – that they reported but we now know there were more – and the chances of running into someone that was contagious was real but unlikely.

Three days ago, only one year later, remarkably, I got my second vaccination shot.

As an aside, the former president just put out a press release in a sort of pseudoTweet style – I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn‘t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers! – that is so perfectly Donald Trump; wallowing in self-pity, and whinny, self-serving, exaggeration to the point of parody but that is still slightly true. Trueish, at least. When the experts told him it would take 18 months to two years to get a vaccine, Trump said “cut corners, ignore the rules and regulations, get rid of the safety protocols, just do it fast”. And the drug companies did exactly that and it worked. Something like this is where the cumbersome government bureaucracy gets in the way and Trump had the nerve, or the disposition, at least, to go around it. Of course, distributing the vaccine is exactly where the cumbersome government bureaucracy helps and Trump, in his disdain, did almost nothing, leaving President Biden to pick up the pieces (and the credit). End aside.

I was going to write about R1 Zoning but I keep thinking about Meghan and Harry’s Interview with Ophra. Michele recorded the interview, we both watched it, and now I’m dreaming about them (I must not be alone because I read that more people watched the interview than watched the Golden Globes and The Emmys combined). Still, I haven’t been particularly interested in The Royals, I haven’t seen any of their weddings or funerals but I have watched The Crown so maybe I do have some prejudices.

Watching The Crown, I’ve become convinced that living in the British Monarchy is a nightmare. Everything is controlled by protocols, protocols that have almost nothing to do with reality. When young Prince Charles wanted to get serious about young Camellia, he couldn’t because she wasn’t a virgin. Based on the royal right and expectation of deflowering, I guess. In reality, the Monarchy is almost powerless – Margret Thatcher had to curtsy every time she saw Queen Elizabeth but the Queen couldn’t stop Thatcher from going to war over the Falklands – but still preoccupied with looking powerful. Prince Charles wears a military uniform with a chestful of medals, not medals for doing anything but medals like the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal and the Order of the Bath (my fave is the Queen’s Coronation Medal, awarded when Charles was four-years-old).

Watching the Megan/now exPrince Harry interview, I was taken by how naïve they both seemed. Megan says that she had no idea what she was getting into and exPrince Harry seemed to have no idea that his life was radically different than that of the norm. I walked away thinking that the Royal Family wasn’t particularly racist – maybe the Firm, the quasi-independent bureaucracy that supports and semi-runs the Royals, is but that’s slightly different- but they were elitist assholes. One story on The Crown, which is pro-Royal by the way, revolves around Diana coming for dinner for the first time. Somehow she gets a schedule – whether it was sent to her, given to her, or pinned to the door, I don’t remember – that says something like Cocktails at 5:30, Dinner at 7:00, dress: Evening Dress. What Diana doesn’t know, when she shows up for cocktails dressed to the nines for dinner, is that she will be the only one dressed up. The real schedule is Cocktails at 5:30 to talk about the day’s riding adventures while still dressed in their mud-splattered riding clothes and dinner later. That’s the Royal family Megan walked into and, like a sensible human being, wanted to get away from. Racism feels like just an excuse.