I just learned that the Harkles visited the #FLYINGDOCTORS (RFDS) yesterday? THE FLYING FREAKING DOCS! They are genuinely #iconic.
How in the name of all things wholly unholy did they manage to make it so mind-numbingly dull, uninspired and allowing it to fall so completely by the wayside of their personal #inanepdatour? Can’t understand how you can just stand there and nod like a zoned out zombie with an engagement like that. -How?
Really? Really? That’s what we’re doing in our spare time? Pushing out farts and cupping your stomach. Dude we get it you’re pregnant. Stop trying so damn hard. I’m done, I knew she would do this but I wanted her to prove me wrong.
Yep, I’m seriously wondering what all their pr people are doing. Is it a vacation for them? KP usually has three paragraphs in their press releases detailing (i) the charity, (ii) what they do and how, (iii) a short comments from the charity leader and one of the participants talking about the effectiveness of the charity, and (iv) something linking the charity with the royals’ interests. That stuff then ends up on all the articles. Yes, it usually ends up at the bottom of the articles after all the clothing and cute pic/anecdote info, but it’s usually there. This time the charities barely get a mention.
I’ve given up trying to figure out what the Formula 1 kids were doing (some kind of after school program?). It looked interesting and I wanted to know more, but there was no info anywhere.
This is what they put out about the beach cleanup (I’m using People Mag because Simon Perry is the king of copy-paste)
No beach cleanup happened, and the anecdote with the participant was all about how awesome Harry was.
I know! I went “wait, she changed from a navy dress into an IDENTICAL navy dress????” But it turned out it was black. The macaroni necklace was the best part of that outfit, imo.
This looks very sloppy to me. The clothes are sloppy. The coverage is all fluff. I thought maybe she was dressing sloppily because this was her “I focus on the substance of the tour” trip (those binders!), but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The substantive stops are not highlighted at all (and, as in the case of the aboriginal school, are sometimes shoved out of the way), which is a shame. Part of it is that they have so many events they all kind of blend into anonymous handshaking and cute kid pics, but part of it is that the charity stuff is treated as just background to Harry and Meg’s love story.
She met an after-school rugby program for girls and she doesn’t play rugby. The program is ironically named “Girls Can” and Meghan showed everyone that some girls actually can’t.
They were supposedly going to clean up a beach (which would have been great for awareness), but then they didn’t get to clean up. This reminds me of the drought-awareness stop in Dubbo which turned into a deluge. Both events became”Meghan and Harry hold hands as they meet with cute kids and eat,” which seems to be the theme of the tour.
The social cafe visit (they help indigenous kids) turned into a Tig-friendly food tasting with the chef. I don’t think we met any of the indigenous kids.
The aboriginal school was embargoed and thus overshadowed by her banana cake. Kudos to Emily Andrews for actually getting interviews from the kids.Yes, it was a rote”she’s a role model” quote, but at least the kids got some visibility.
“You’re really speaking my language” is the new “it’s amazing.” She’s saying that to everyone. I really admire how she manages to turn other’s people work into a statement about herself. This takes real talent.
Kate’s crowds were bigger. Someone had comparison pics up.
They still got a lot of people. One thing I noticed is that a ton of kids were pulled from schools. Several were interviewed, and if you look at Kate’s photos, you will notice that there was a higher proportion of grown-ups in their pics.
I KNOW! I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out myself. I saw someone posting it, and I’m now waiting for the “Meghan’s tender secret tribute to her unborn child” articles. These two love their secret messages, don’t they?
Personally, I think it’s rather childish and gross (because the spooning bananas post was oddly sexual) and unworthy of a royal engagement, but I bet these two were cackling when they came up with it. They are mentally 12 years old.
Chocolate is Meghan, who is black. Harry is the ginger. Bananas is shagging.
Put them all together and bake, and you get a “homemade bun fresh out of the oven,” i.e., A BABY.
It’s a Sussex Baby Sex cake. I bet they thought it was absolutely hilarious. No wonder they were laughing and joking all through that engagement.
I’m half appalled because this was, after all, a formal royal engagement where they were representing the queen, and half admiring because they got Rebecca English to EAT that thing. I bet they got a good laugh out of that.
And it was embargoed too. I wonder why. This has been the best engagement so far, imo, and it was overshadowed in favor of banana bread? This makes no sense.
It’s not just you. This has been a complete snooze fest. Her fans seem to be really excited about mundane stuff like binders, banana bread, and umbrellas, but to me this is like watching my cousin’s Instagram vacation pics, except my cousin dresses better, does more interesting stuff, and takes better pictures.
I wonder if part of the problem is that we don’t have very good pics. Tim Rooke and Chris Jackson are opting for Meghan’s preferred black-and-white pics and the monochrome palette makes this more boring than usual.
Rooke posted some of his old Harry pic and the different between then and now is striking–uniforms, landmarks, bright colors, and animated expressions before and monochrome pics, anonymous locations, neutral clothes, and stiff social smiles now.
One of the things I hate the most about these two is that ALL of their events are 100% biographical. They are supposed to be highlighting the countries and charities they visit, but, instead, it’s all MEMEMEMEME. The focus is on how Harry’s fans worship him, or how Meghan inspires biracial girls, or her cooking skills, or her relationship with her mother, or her American background, or whatever. It’s ALL bout THEM.
I’m no Mary fan, but she dresses a lot better than Meghan and carries herself professionally. She rubs me the wrong away (I find her arrogant and cold), but I have to admit that she looks and acts like a princess and future queen. I cannot even picture Mary wearing a friend’s “royal collection” oversize jacket (”be the ROYAL you can BE”), or showing up somewhere with ginger-chocolate-chip-and-banana bread.
Meghan is a frustrated lifestyle blogger who found a lonely prince and decided that this was her ticket to a life full of published cookbooks, merching, and domestic goddess profiles. She’s trying to use the brf’s platform to create a royal version Goop or something like that. It’s bizarre.
I thought he sounded very robotic, and the “upcoming baby” part was just weird. “No better place to announce the upcoming baby…”?????? It sounded like he was talking about a Hollywood movie or something.
“A” baby…”the” upcoming baby…the language they are using is oddly neutral.
I’ve been kind of wondering all day when exactly was it that he found out Megs was pregnant, for certain. Given the timeline, he was in Africa for most of August. They partied it up on a weekend in Amsterdam. He looked super nervous inside the chapel at Eugenie’s wedding. Has he really known about it as long as she has?
Or is he just headed for a meltdown by the end of this tour?
To me, it’s literally like that moment in The Ten Commandments where Moses hears from Nefertiri that Pharoah has decreed the first born shall die. And Moses’ reaction is that Pharoah had just called out his own punishment.
These two with their terrible timing don’t understand the ramifications of their actions.
I don’t think the press is going to crucify them at their first engagements. Unless something major happens, they’ll wait until there is an established pattern to note something worthy of critique.
I think the hardcore sugars are here to stay, and I expect they will get more and more rabid as Meghan flounders. That has been my experience so far.
I suspect the tour will be meh, but I doubt the media will report that she “needs major help.” Her problem isn’t that she can’t show up and shake hands. Her problem is that the planned tour stops mind-numbingly boring, the clothes are repetitive, monochrome and ill-fitting, and all she does is hold hands with Harry and pose. Yes, there’s always a chance that there will be a major disaster, but I doubt that as they will be surrounded by people whose main job is to keep that from happening. I think their main problem is boredom. Meghan is by far the most repetitive royal I have ever seen, and I used to bitch about Kate’s lace dresses nonstop.
When I think of what made Will and Kate’s first tour (to Canada) amazing, I remember how Kate picked Prince Edward Island based on the Anne of Green Gables books, and how professional she looked in her navy Smythe blazer (Canadian brand!) as they boarded the plane. The Cambridges positively embraced the official events, attending a citizenship ceremony, Canada Day, and the Calgary Stampede. Kate looked amazing in her recycled engagement dress and red maple leaf hat and she rocked the maple leaf brooch like nobody’s business. She wore Canadian Erdem freaking everywhere (tbh, they weren’t that bad back then), posed with Anne of Green Gables, and even dressed up like a Calgary cowboy.
Yes, they had cute couple moments at the helicopter training, the French cooking classes in Quebec, and the sea dragon race, but what I remember most about this tour was that it was a celebration of Canada, including its natural beauty, history, and diversity. LOL, and the “Marilyn moment,” of course.
Kate launched her tour with a bang, with sources telling the DM that she’s personally chosen Prince Edward’s Island because she loved the Anne books. I remember this causing quite a stir at the time and this is still one my favorite parts of their Canada tour.
It’s a stark contrast to the Harkle schedule release, which left people scratching their heads as to why they’d picked some of the stops and why they were skipping out on Invictus. I’ve been wondering why I have such a strong feeling that this tour will be a dud, and I think the underwhelming release of the schedule is part of it. This does not feel like a celebration of Australia, or event the Commonwealth. It feels like a celebration of Meghan and Harry.
This month marks the golden jubilee of a watershed event in the history of this nation that should cause all Australians to pause and reflect.
On July 15, 1968, while searching for clues to past climates and ancient landscapes on land under the joint care of Paakantyi/Barkindji, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people, Earth scientist Jim Bowler ambled across the cremated remains of an Aboriginal woman eroding from a crescent-shaped dune flanking the shoreline of now-dry Lake Mungo in western New South Wales.
The 40,000-year-old “Mungo Lady” and the equally ancient remains of Mungo Man, found nearby in 1974, doubled scientific estimates of how long Aboriginal people had called Australia home.
The discovery taught us Aboriginal history stretched back to a time when the only humans in Europe were Neanderthals, and people had not yet reached America. The scientific, cultural and political reverberations still resonate today. Read more.
House of Brat 