The Further Adventures Of Tilly Whim 💕

We have a title. We have a cover. We have a release date. Does anyone else feel a little bit meh about this? I have to say looking at it, I'm not filled with the desire to rush out and pre-order this "weighty tome" even if its just to read when I need a good laugh or to be put to sleep. Also, who did the photoshopping? I've never seen his eyes so close together or so deeply set. The cover photo is quite unnerving if you look at it for too long.

He's 37 years old and still hung up on the fact he's the 2nd born son. So bloody what? It happens in every royal family. Most just get on with it and enjoy the freedom that comes with not having the weight of being the heir to the throne on their shoulders. Look at Prince Carl Philip of Sweden for example, he was Crown Prince until his father changed the rules of primogeniture and his older sister became heir to the throne, now he's fourth in line and living life to the full with a happy marriage, beautiful wife and lovely children. All that and he and his wife both work hard on behalf of the Swedish monarchy and the charities and programmes etc they support.

I know this isn't exactly the same as being "the spare" to the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom but the point I'm trying to make is by this age, Harry should have outgrown his jealousy and think of the freedoms he's had because he was unlikely to be king one day.

I must admit, I despise the term "heir and spare" I think it should be consigned to history where it belongs. When child mortality rates were high, it made sense for ruling monarchs to want large families to ensure the continuity of the reigning house.

With the advances of medicine, housing, hygiene, etc., infant/child deaths decreased. In my mind, Harry has never been the "spare" to William in the same way that Andrew was never the "spare" to Charles. People are now saying Princess Charlotte is the "spare" to Prince George. No, she isn't. He doesn't need a spare. Certainly not whilst he's 2nd in the line of succession. HM Queen Elizabeth II abolished primogeniture, lets now do away with the archaic notion of the spare.

Anyway, back to the book. What can we expect? Who knows? It's doubtful it will be a love letter to the British Royal Family. It will definitely be a love letter to both his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. I think he will be kind about Catherine, The Princes of Wales but imagine he will try to make her a bit boring. I'm sure he will do his best to paint a picture of William as bossy, stubborn and opinionated, forgetting that following the death of their mother, William went through everything he did whilst also trying to care for and protect his younger brother.

Princess Anne will either not be mentioned or, he will be nice about her and her family, think general family anecdotes, lots of stories about kids, dogs and horses. I dread to think what he will have to say about Andrew and Fergie. He's been close to both Beatrice and Eugenie over the years so again, we either wont read much about them or, there will be the odd vanilla anecdote. Same with the Wessex family, either nothing or some odd, possibly boring story, somewhere along the line.

I'd put money on HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip featuring quite heavily in it. There will be a lot of tugging at the heart strings with granny and grandpa I feel. Especially with the Queen so recently passing.

HM King Charles III and HM Queen Camilla will bear the brunt of the vitriol in the book I'm afraid. Things are of course going to be brought up that happened years ago. Things which have been dredged over, apologised (in church) for, forgiven and moved on from. These things are going to be seen through the eyes of a man stuck between his childhood self and now. Will it cause any damage to the monarchy? Possibly and potentially but, things are always coming along which cause damage to the monarchy and over 1,000 years later, its still here.

Harry's book will sell and probably sell well. It has the novelty factor. People always want to read about famous people, royalty included. Having a book "written" by a member of the British Royal Family themselves is a great selling point. He's also pledged to donate £1.8 million to 2 of his charities.

This is Cindy Simon Skjodt. She's the Champion for the Power of Women Event taking place in Indianapolis. if you want to blame someone for inviting Meghan Markle to speak at an event, blame Cindy.

I'm sure the "mission" has its heart in the right place, looking on their website, they are very active in the local area and involved in a number of programmes designed to help people in need. I'm just not sure what made them think Meghan was a big draw. Maybe she confused Cindy here with one of her many word salad speeches? Either way, I personally don't feel it is right for Ms Markle to be represented as The Duchess of Sussex if she is being paid for attending the event and giving a speech/taking part in a Q&A. I'd say its more likely than not that she's secured a pay cheque for her appearance and this goes against everything the royal family and certainly HM Queen Elizabeth II stood for. If you're able to email the organisers of the event or even Cindy herself and let them know your feelings about them hiring Ms Markle for this event, maybe some good will come of it.

When Harry and Meghan decided to "step back" as "senior working royals" in January 2020, it was agreed by HM Queen Elizabeth II and the then Prince of Wales, HRH Prince Charles and HRH Prince William that a 12 month review of this decision would take place in January 2021. The fact Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood is letting it be known in the press and popular media that the Sussex family is willing to reconcile with the rest of the family following the death of Her Majesty, but giving it a time scale of 12 months is testament to her pettiness. Not for her a press release saying "times like this make you realise how important family is..."

Her shallow, peevish, point-scoring, one-upmanship, mentality practically screams out for satisfaction, for revenge. This is why the Montecito Moanarchy has put a 12 month timescale on the reconciliation.

Harry, his memoir and Netflix. Poor old Harry, hey. What's a poor, misunderstood, downtrodden, hounded Princeling to do? Fed up with life in the goldfish bowl/Truman Show world that is the British Royal Family, he ups sticks with his wife and baby son, and, with the blessings of his family flees to that well known bastion of privacy and solitude, California.

Yes, after a decade spent playing call of duty doing his duty as a serving soldier in HM's army, followed by a stint as the 3rd wheel to the Prince and Princess of Wales, Saint Henry of the Wounded Ego, fed up to the back teeth of the constant hounding of the press and paparazzi of himself and his beleaguered girlfriend/wife made the very wise and impossibly grown-up decision to do what she tells him and they returned to her home state. They wanted to get away from all the intrusions and as Meghan said, they don't have tabloids where she comes from!

So, Harry wanted his privacy, as did Meghan. On their terms. This is the story of their lives. Everything has to be on their terms. Meghan has no problem giving interviews to Oprah, Ellen and now it seems every cut-rate gossip mag masquerading as serious journalism. Harry is willing to invade his own privacy as long as the price is right. Worse, if the price is better than he was expecting, he is quite happy to invade the privacy of the family he left behind in the UK.

His paymasters at Netflix and Penguin Random House have shelled out multi-million $$$ for the inside stories of the "Standing Out With the Sussexes" and "Harry Windsor - How I went From Spare to Hero to Handbag" and they want their pound of flesh. As we've seen, Harry is learning self-promotion well, people are already talking about the book, it's being insinuated that a chapter here and there is being either heavily edited/rewritten or even taken out and allusions are being made to the affair that never was between William and Rose Hanbury. Simply by doing that, he's garnered interest for the book and conversely for the series.

Another year, another paid for "humanitarian" award? Meghan's jealousy really does know no bounds does it?

On the anniversary of the moon landing, 20 July 2022, Boston was announced as the host city for this year's Earthshot Awards. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's "moonshot" challenge, it seems fitting to have the second award here in his home city. Working with The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and the city of Boston, the awards will be broadcast to a global audience. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy (JFK's daughter) said, " “There is no more important Moonshot today than repairing the planet and no better place to harness the Moonshot spirit than the City of Boston.”

Which brings us back to Meghan because of course it does. It always does. Suddenly a few days ago, along with President Zelensky of Ukraine, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were late announcements for the Robert F. Kennedy "Ripple of Hope" awards 2022. See? William is parterning with the Kennedys, America's answer to the royal family? Well, gosh, darn it! Meghan and Harry are going to do something with the Kennedy's too. So there!

It's been playing on my mind over and over so I thought what better than to write it down, get other people's opinions and at least, if nothing else, I can stop thinking about it and go to sleep. Hopefully.

Hannah (daughter #1) rings me late this afternoon in floods of tears, when I've calmed her down as best as I can, she's able to tell me what the problem is. Lincoln, my eldest grandson who is 10 years old has been suspended from school for a week starting from Monday. I'm sure most of you know that he has Autism and other Neurodivergent issues which are still being investigated but, when it comes to right or wrong, that's no excuse, he knows which is which.

I ask her what he's done to be excluded. Turns out he has thrown a stone at another child whilst out on the school yard, the stone has hit this child and caused a cut just below their eyebrow. Quite rightly, Lincoln has been punished. He's been punished at home as well, he's lost his privileges which means his gaming system has been taken out of his bedroom and he's no access to the internet or tv. All well and good.

I ask why he's done it. He's not known for lashing out at people, he's never been a bully so there must be some reason for him to do something so out of character. There is and it's bad. It's clench your fists and grit your teeth bad. The child in question had been and this is the head teacher's words "taunting him" during play time. How? By following him around the playground telling him that his Nana is a "dirty Nword", his dad is a "dirty Nword" and he is a "gay, dirty Nword"!

Is it any wonder he reacted as he did? To be honest, I'm surprised he didn't do more to the child. There are words, not just swear words, that should not be used by anybody for any reason at any time. That is one of those words.

Lincoln has a suspension. I asked what is happening about the other child, are they being suspended too? Have school recorded this as an incident of racist bullying because that is what it is, it doesn't matter how Lincoln reacted. No. No action is being taken against the other child even though they instigated the whole situation.

I'm seething. I'm furious. I've spoken with Lincoln's Nana, she's heartbroken, she grew up in the late 60's early 70's being called that vile word and other, equally foul things. She didn't imagine she'd be getting called it by a child who's recently come to the country from eastern Europe in 2022. She didn't imagine she'd be called it by anyone in 2022.

Guess who's going to be a daddy?

Ok, first things first, I'm playing serious catch up here so you'll have to bear with me if I'm covering things that are in the dim and distant past for you all now. As you know I had one heck of a time trying to regain access to my account then, when I finally did get it back, I caught the flu so have been laid up with that for the past few days. I'm just going to go over the things that have happened as they occur to me and give you my take on them. Here goes:

Yes, no sooner had they landed back in sunny Montecito and heard the news and seen the subsequent portrait of the royal quartet, Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood shot back with an image of herself and husband Saint Henry of the Wounded Ego taken during their soiree into Manchester for her appearance as the keynote speaker at the One Young World Charity. I'm not a computer whizz but the doctored images doing the rounds are a hoot and well worth a look. I'm sure their "friend" photographer Misan Harriman who took this and other heavily photoshopped (tree of life anyone?) images of the couple would approve. Since the release of the above portrait, it seems that the "charity" which calls itself a "global forum for young leaders" is being investigated for paying Kate Robertson and her daughter Ella McKay almost £2 million in 5 years, some of it during the lockdown periods of Covid when no summits were being held. The Charity Commission is investigating remuneration packages for senior management personnel at One Young World and, although I may be allowing bias to take precedence, looking at the pair in charge, I can only say, why didn't happen sooner. I should point out, there is no suggestion of any impropriety from the Harkles or any celebrities associated with the "charity". One Young World, Markled it would seem. However, back to the point of the photo, it was a knee-jerk reaction to release it when and how she did. It was a fuck you, we're still royal or at least one of us is and we're not going to let you forget it. What it has served to do, is to remind everyone just how bitter Ms Markle can be.

Katie "I saw Him First" Nicholl has a new book out, "The New Royals" and is desperate to plug it and get as many sales as possible. To that end, and with no context whatsoever, she "let slip" a story about Prince George supposedly telling another child at school during a bit of toing and froing "watch out, my dad's going to be king". This opines Katie, makes young George a bit of a brat. The twittersphere went crazy, tumblr went mental, social medias everywhere went into meltdown and poor old Katiekins felt the need to defend herself saying her words had been "taken out of context". Yah think Katie? Would that be because you didn't give them any context? As many of you know, Katie works for Vanity Fair, she very often seems to be a fair minded, even handed, intelligent human being. However, when her mask slips as it did in this instance, you see her for what she is, a mean girl interested only in fame and making money using someone else's name. Remind you of anyone?

Archetypes with Meghan is back *shudder* after a short break following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. This time round, our girl was discussing the stereotyping (someone really should explain the meaning of both words and the differences between the 2 to her) of Asian women in film. By Asian women, Meghan was referring solely to Chinese, Korean and Japanese and possibly Thai, completely ignoring Indian, Pakistani, Israeli, Iranian, Turkish, Lebanese, Sri Lankan, Syrian, Bahrainian and Cambodian to name just some of the 48 countries not including dependencies which make up the continent of Asia. Is her racism showing again? Anyway, this time round, before her guests, Margaret Cho ( Korean-American Comedienne, Actress and Activist) and Lisa Ling (Taiwanese-American journalist, author and television presenter) were given the chance to talk about themselves (and Margaret has had a pretty interesting life, she's a survivor of familial sexual abuse, dated Quentin Tarantino and was openly bi-sexual at a time when it was frowned upon by everyone!) everyone had to endure the thrilling installment of how Doria used to take Flower to the Korean Spa and all these naked women from 9 to 90 would be wandering round waiting for their treatments. Now, all you internet detectives worked out that she had lifted this from a kids cartoon show called Big Mouth (plagiarism is as plagiarism does) but what interested me was did she say what year this was because we know that Doria dropped out of her life for at least 10 years. She did say she was hitting puberty so if our maths is correct, she was definitely with Thomas then and if rumours are to be believed, Doria was incarcerated. Even if she hadn't copied the story from a show she's probably caught one morning, things just don't add up. One minute they're saving up to go eat at a Sizzler and the next Doria is taking them both to a Korean Spa for the works? It's like Judge Judy says "if you tell the truth, you don't need to have a good memory". The best thing about all of this, they've employed a fact checker. On her show. This really tickles me. That girl is going to be so busy, she won't know if she is coming or going and I think she will have a very hard time separating the truth from fiction when it comes to Ms Markle because she has told that many different versions of "her truth" over the years.

Harry has a new Law Suit. It must be Thursday. Yep, Harry, Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost and, most notably, Baroness Lawrence have all filed suit against ANL with allegations including the planting of listening devices, paying officials and accessing bank accounts. The accusations listed by the Duke's solicitor's Hamlins LLP alleges the following: The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people’s cars and homes’; ‘The commissioning of individuals to surreptitiously listen into and record people’s live, private telephone calls whilst they were taking place’; ‘The payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside, sensitive information’; ‘The impersonation of individuals to obtain medical information from private hospitals, clinics, and treatment centres by deception’; and ‘The accessing of bank accounts, credit histories and financial transactions through illicit means and manipulation.

As we all know, Harry does not handle the press well at the best of times and unlike his brother, has been unable to build any sort of working relationship with them (unlike his wife). To him, they will always be the enemy, they will always be the reason his beloved mother died. He and William were both "hacked" by the Sun newspaper group back in the day and what is happening now has echoes of that. Even if ANL is innocent of everything they are being accused of, in Harry's eyes they will always be guilty. I think this is one of the main reasons he has them in his sights as often as he does. I doubt winning the cases matters to him, he just wants to cause them as much upset and distress as he can.

On a lighter and brighter note, after their visit to Wales where they were a resounding success, the new Prince and Princess of Wales made a surprise visit to Northern Ireland.

Catherine seemed to be gifted ALL the flowers, she deserves them, she does, I just hope she had enough people on hand to help her carry them. The pair had fun competing to see who made the best cocktail in the quickest time, Catherine won (natch), I hope they got to drink them, especially Catherine after being accosted by the lady in the crowd telling her it would have been nicer if she was visiting when Ireland belonged to the Irish. Didn't she handle it well, a quick smile and then on to the next person, my message to the lady in question, wait until the politicians are in town and take it up with them. I should say they started their day at PIPS which provides crisis support for people at risk of suicide or self-harm (think they definitely earned those cocktails).

William got accosted by a pair of cocker spaniels who really, really, really wanted him to know what good boys and girls they were.

The last visit of the day was to Carrick Connect and Catherine got to hold another baby (William was smiling but was he also looking a bit worried at that gleam in her eye?)..

I'm taking a little bit of a break. I'll be back after Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. I think at the moment, being on here is not healthy for me. I'm upset and angry at things I should be able to ignore or brush off and taking offence at things which shouldn't hold that kind of power over me.