Omid Scobie Endgame PART 3

[Mymilkshakebringsallthepapstotheyard]

La Pom Pom Girl is doing the Double Dutch. But who is turning the skipping ropes? Part three/trois/drie of the continuing discussion of Endgame by Omid Scobie. Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/4951834-omid-scobies-new-book-part-2

H and M should hope that KC has a long reign as I think William will deal with them very differently and it will be bye bye titles .

Yes also pretending people are “nutso” and that perfectly reasonable conclusions are “madness” and posting in exaggeratedly exasperated tones in order to attempt to curtail opposing viewpoints. It does seem to happen quite a lot on royal family threads 🤔

I have to say that I'm (agreeably) surprised that in three threads there have only been those easily dealt with attempts at derails. It's been a very pleasant change.

I agree.

Well we were managing to have a decent conversation.

For me, it seems that accusatory calls of crazy and nutso is an attempt to shut conversation down rather than explaining why their viewpoint differs.

It is a pity. All opinions are valid but I’m more inclined to go along with duck theory (walk/quack and the like) rather than entertain other explanations which start with insults.

Likewise with the wide eyed ingénue type posts.

Fortunately we don’t button up the back and can see it for what it is.

That's the problem, isn't it, @twinklystar23 ?
Private letters (or at least their contents) somehow find their way into the possession of Scobie. I'm very mindful of what happened with Meghan's letter to her father, and the ensuing case. ...

having the names revealed as two people who had a close and affectionate relationship with Harry at the time (and one being the person who warmly welcomed Meghan and walked her down the aisle) makes me think that the comments were far less likely to have unkind intent.

i wonder if the “concerns” were for Harry’s preparedness to deal with the intrusive media who were already writing things like “straight outta Compton” etc. about Meghan, knowing that this would be potentially x100 when children came into the equation (Kate having first hand experience of the radio dj debacle that ended in the suicide of one of her maternity nurses, she knew how hard it might be).

If they had discussed these concerns and about the support Harry and Meghan might need, it might be easy (when Harry relayed them to Meghan) to add these to William’s comments about Harry taking time to get to know this girl (or whatever it was he said). I don’t think it’s unreasonable of Meghan to get the impression that they didn’t fully approve of Harry’s choice and that race was part of that. And so she might perceive the same racist undertone to much of the media coverage at the time. That the standoffish royals don’t think she’s good enough for them.

I wonder if this has all gone in the melting pot with the bridesmaid dresses, the lipgloss and everything else and blown up into a bigger thing that the original comments ever were. Microaggressions/unconscious bias, possibly. But Meghan should have written her letters rather than running straight to Oprah to scandalise the world with vague accusations. I also wonder if Harry is back pedalling because he knows that the way he relayed things to her have stirred things up into a frenzy that he never expected. Particularly as he pointedly kept the royal racist bit out of Spare.

could be completely wrong of course.

I think you make good points, @Toomanycaketins . I question their choices to monetise concerns, use them for chat shows, Netflix and magazine articles, rather than communicate directly with the people and explain their concerns, perhaps coming to a rapprochement, or at least clarifying concerns.
You have a point about Harry. He's the one who relayed the remarks to Meghan. Yet made remarks about his musings on his child's appearance in Spare.

Even though the RF must be furious behind closed doors I do admire their public restraint over these last few years. I’d be so raging at all this that my knee jerk reaction would be ‘off with their heads’ (metaphorically speaking of course). I’d be stripping them of every title, removing them from every royal list, no more invites to anything, no more olive branches. They’d be dead to me. I’d ban their names being mentioned or any reference to them and make it known. I know the RF have to be seen to be diplomatic but I bet they’d want to do the same.

i wonder if the “concerns” were for Harry’s preparedness to deal with the intrusive media who were already writing things like “straight outta Compton” etc. about Meghan

We should note that this particular headline/article was written by a journalist based long term in Los Angeles, US and whose beat is Los Angeles “Showbiz” so aimed at a US audience.

I think it entirely reasonable to assume M and H are indirect source for the bile - at the time of finding freedom - when Meghan was forced to admit she briefed OS -a lot of stuff ( ammunition) was kept out of the book

Meghan had the information- it got to OS so it’s not unreasonable to assume she is the most likely source

Like previously she probably sent stuff via an intermediary to keep her hands clean - I seem to remember something in the court case with Harry saying it mustn’t look like it came from us - maybe someone can confirm

Past behaviour is the most accurate prediction of future behaviour so it would seem logical M and H passed this on to an inbetween source but didn’t “sit down “ with OS

I think the royal family should concentrate on tracking this - and probably will be

Harry and Meghan are toast as far as Royal Family concerned now

Can't disagree with any of that, @Lockupyourbiscuits. Given that they've said they might accept an invitation to Sandringham if one was forthcoming (fat chance) I wonder if they were hoping for some sort of thawing in relations, for whatever reason. I wonder as well how long OS has been sitting on this info, because it has effectively scuppered any chance of the Sussexes getting any sort of invite.

Harry and Meghan do have problems with those who strongly support them if they now want to draw a line in the sand including Scobie. The Katy Keen is now being attributed to Meghan as it’s a character from a comic strip she read as a child. The main reference to Scobie claim of the nickname is the Sussex squad. How and who first used the nickname will be irrelevant for some as it will only add ammunition that Meghan is behind the book.

So Katie Keen is an American cultural reference? That has definitely come from Megan, not even invented by OS as he's British.

Katy Keen? I thought she's been called Waity Katy?

There’s a nice article about Princess Eugenie in yesterday’s Daily Mail.

She was known as Waity Katy in the early days.

Scobie claims the press and aids (I think) call her Katy Keen. Not something anybody had heard of. Then someone clever (and thanks to the PP on thread 2 who posted about this) realised Katy Keen is a character in the USA Archie Comic Books series - something Meghan has said she was very fond of reading as a child.

So, OS claims from "insiders" that Catherine is known as Katy Keen, but that's a new one on everyone, save that one person, by logical deduction, may have decided to call her that, and decided to tell OS that everyone calls her that.

Agree with all the above

And would they really be so rude to express "concerns" over a potential baby's skin colour? These people probably know Debrett's by heart and would be well trained at hiding any prejudices they may have.
Also is there any record of either Kate or Charles being racists in any way in the past? It would have come out by now.
And finally the rf had Prince Philip and his daft, racist "gaffes" for which he was criticized, would they want a repeat of that? Nah, I don't buy it.
So I think if concerns were indeed raised, they were part of a wider conversation over how fast the relationship was progressing, the media intrusion and how Harry would deal with it etc.
I wonder if Kate brought up Meghan leaking the story about the shopping trip 😉

It’s an American comic which Meghan announced in her Archetypes Podcast was her favourite as a child! Katie Keen is a girl next door who becomes famous on Broadway, Meghan identified as the smart girl called Betty who was kind and compassionate! This nickname came from Meghan for sure.

From Richard Eden's column yesterday:

Omid Scobie's claim that the Princess of Wales was widely known by the nickname 'Katie Keen' for her eagerness to please palace officials has bemused royal correspondents, who had never heard the term used.

Katy Keene, it turns out, is a well-known character in the cult American comic book series Archie. And, by pure coincidence, also happens to be a favourite of Meghan's.

Indeed, just last year the former actress used her Archetypes podcast series (RIP) to tell listeners about her love of the comic. 'I read a lot of Archie Comic books as a child,' she told Mindy Kaling. 'I always wanted this cookie-cutter perfect life.'

In the 1960s cartoon, later turned into a television series starring Lucy Hale, Katy is the girl-next-door, eager for fame and dripping with ambition, who eventually becomes a Broadway star.

Meghan, meanwhile, made clear that she sees herself more as Betty – the kind but meek character in the Archie stories known for rescuing wounded birds and helping the homeless.

'I'm the smart one, not the pretty one,' she informed Kaling.

'Waity Katy' (iirc) was allegedly the nickname given to Kate in earlier days by courtiers, part of the social snobbery endemic in the royal household(s) directed at the upper middle and middle class woman who 'married in'.

Unfortunately, barbed nicknames and in-jokes are frequently in the nature of some humans and the institutions of which they are part.

Carole Middleton, a former flight attendant, and Kate herself, were allegedly subjected to sniggering about 'doors to manual'.

A great deal of the social snobbery appears to have been directed at women by men, as a form of classist misogyny. There's no way that MM wouldn't also have been subjected to it. Didn't she challenge some of PH's friends early on?

I can quite imagine that William would have talked it through with Harry, especially given that such snobbery had allegedly nearly cost him his relationship with and future marriage to Kate. I mean, if that's how your supposed 'inner circle' behave, how bad are the gossip rags and the tabloids going to be?

(I don't see what was wrong with Kate and William 'waiting' to get married anyway. They had a break, and then got back together and made a commitment, which is alleged to have involved William putting a stop to his own friends' snobby behaviour. It all sounds completely mad really.)

The Anti Slavery Collective Ball? Yes, looked like a lovely do, lots of nice frocks on show. I really liked the one Cressida Bonas was wearing, gorgeous.

'Im the smart one, not the pretty one' MM told Mindy Kaling.

See.... polarising girls as 'smart one' or 'pretty one' is once again quite misogynistic and putting women and girls into boxes. Categorising them and limiting them.

Considering she is a much vaunted and self proclaimed feminist, I am disappointed that MM seems to buy into the stereotypes she then claims to reject and work against.

A question. The palace is apparently considering their options. I'm not sure deviating from silence is a good idea, "recollections may vary" is the perfect answer and gets more perfect each time the story is revived.

I can't see Harry and Meghan saying anything publically because I think it would be difficult for them to separate what they had told Scobie (through third parties) from everything else.

Scobie is the completely innocent victim of evil translator's and I can't see him saying anything.

So do people think anyone should say anything or is it best to just let the whole saga die a death now?

I think Scobie might be open to revealing his sources at some point
And be sure he has kept his receipts too

will be all about the money for him 👍