Nigeria 4!

[OneHeartySnail]

Let the conversation continue!

Harry and Meghan are not unpopular with the public.
That is a myth

@Lampzade let's see what happens when M finally rolls out ARO. Or a show or podcast.

I do think Pa should have considered a statement distancing himself from his darling boy's Nigerian adventure and I think if similar were to arise (as it well might) such a distancing wouldn't be ill regarded.

I think that is best left to the FCO, who are responsible for arranging real royal tours. That way the King remains above it all and doesn't get dragged into any undignified back and forth about it.

The British High Commissioner in Nigeria did make a statement about that visit. And there may well be behind the scenes diplomatic activity aimed at discouraging any invitations that appear to be in any way official.

Well, first of all it would help to have cited who says they are unpopular. Then it would be helpful to have 'the public' defined and where this public is - UK? US? Nigeria? Then some refutation of the phrase 'Harry and Meghan are unpopular with the public' in the form of verifiable opinion polls properly conducted.

Because Harry and Meghan are not unpopular with the public.
That is a myth is as it stands, a wholly unverifiable and unsubstantiated assertion.

CathyorClaire · Today 20:36

The question of where H & M (and the RF) will be in 10 years time is a fascinating one, worthy of its own thread!

I agree that Harry will most likely be back in the UK, but living a very quiet private life with pocket money from either KC (if he's still with us) or, more begrudgingly, from William. He'd be rather like Prince Andrew, as you say, and not popular with the public in general. Even if she parts from Harry, Meghan will always have to be looked after to some degree financially because of the children. There's no question of Harry returning to royal duties - he would be deemed a huge security risk after the last few years.

Bit of a digression, but on the subject of the future and the health of the RF men, someone upthread said that KC looks older than his years, and (not in any bitchy sense) I agree. I know he's ill, but I don't even think it's that. He's just unlucky in the gene dept, it seems, and hasn't aged well. His parents, especially his father, did better. And I'm sure he's always eaten healthily and kept active. I think, despite the horrible things the SS say about William, he is actually ageing better than Harry. William has embraced his hair-loss and has a fine bone structure. Despite the stress he must have been (and still is) under over the last few years, he looks in good shape with a healthy complexion. He's inherited Diana's looks to a greater extent than Harry, I think.

Harry on the other hand is looking really manky. The fresh-faced young man with a discernible bone structure seems to have gone. He looks far worse than William, as he clings on to his increasingly frizzy locks. The beard (my husband has a beard - I'm not knocking them!) doesn't suit him, but then he's changed out of all recognition in other ways too. He just looks seedy now, and more like Charles.

These comments are not about being mean about people's physical appearance. I think it's interesting to see how the 3 men have aged and how the various genes play out. Especially in view of Harry's jibes at William's hair loss! I think, of the three, William is the winner in terms of appearance.

That way the King remains above it all and doesn't get dragged into any undignified back and forth about it.

Hasn't stopped him before...

The polls disagree with you.

https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/royalty/all

The other thing of note is that their social capital also appears to be dwindling. Where are all the A-listers and former colleagues that attended Meghan and Harry’s wedding, who were included in her 40th birthday campaign, who appeared on her Archetypes podcast? Nowhere to be seen recently - there are just a handful of them (Mindy Kaling, Abigail Spencer and Katie Couric) who follow American Riviera Orchard on instagram for example.

That's so interesting, @Serenster. I do sometimes wonder if the A-list types have done the sums in their heads and decided that when the chips are down, they'd rather step back from and piss off H&M than piss off the current King and future King of the United Kingdom (and Head of State of many Commonwealth countries) - especially the future King? Why would any of them risk alienating the future King and his family?

Edited to make sense

I honestly think Harry believed it would have all blown over by now, the hardest decision for Charles will be his will and his private wealth, Charles is a father and a supporter of the monarchy. I’m not sure he will be able to support Harry if he believes Harry will use it to undermine the monarchy. It’s already a precedent that the majority goes to the heir to avoid tax on the belief that the monarch will support the family if needed. The tours may give good PR I’m not sure how this equates to hard cash though. I do unfortunately see a Meghan book within 5 years and definitely before the children become the new William and Harry.
as for popularity they would have expected more than 6 hundred thousands for ARO as its the only SM site on the first day of launch. That’s ignoring the bot accounts.

Were H&M ever really friends with all the A listers that were invited to their wedding or were they just acquaintances that they haven't socialised with since because they were not close in the first place?

Does H stand to effectively inherit hundreds of millions on his father’s death?

They were never friends. They just invited them to the wedding hoping it would be a way to open doors.

Not hundreds of millions. However, Charles will have made provision for him.
He would be expected to be subsidised by the Duchy of Cornwall. However, William holds those purse strings.

Does H stand to effectively inherit hundreds of millions on his father’s death?

I doubt very much if Charles has disposable wealth of hundreds of millions.

charles private wealth is mainly guess work as it remains private, but there is Sandringham, Balmoral, artwork, jewellery, an expensive stamp collection (maybe horses and cars) all from the Queen then his and the maybe the late Queen private money wealth. Tax free if it goes through the heir.

I don't think Sandringham and Balmoral are his to dispose of. Neither is the art in the royal collection his personal property - it's held in a charitable trust.

C. has the winning hand here. Inexplicable why he's not playing it

You said it yourself, @CathyorClaire - the endless pity party (or worse) which any firm action could easily kick off in California

If H&M were making a success of their lives they'd be able to shrug it off, but then if that was so they probably wouldn't be behaving as they are anyway, and there'd be no calls for palace action

Also, as said before, they'll know a lot more about Harry's state of mind than we do, and if this all ends badly for him the palace would doubtless want to claim they did nothing to make things worse

I didn’t say there were paid bots on this forum. It is the anti Meghan posters that have posted on here about their beliefs that there are bots.

My eyes are too tired to find the post where I wrote about bots but it was not in reference to who is on here. (I have thyroid eye disease and have lost a lot of my vision - today is a bad day - and scrolling back for posts can be difficult).

My point was that Russian/chinese interference aren’t needed because the tabloid media are doing a very good of stirring shite up and people are happily consuming that media without question.

Name changers are frequent on here. On both sides, I’ve noticed. I’ve changed my name but don’t hide it. That’s because I’ve deleted my account a couple of times. Most recently during the months of frenzy surrounding Kate. I keep coming back after these breaks but I’m starting to realize just how useless this is. I’d like to have a conversation about the way famous women are dehumanised, and the good woman vs bad woman narratives as a form of controlling women. This forum would seem to be an ideal space to have this conversation (as Meghan is most often presented as being the very bad woman and Kate is the very good woman) but it seems most regular posters just want to push on with finding things wrong with Meghan (and Harry, although I care less about Harry. He’s as privileged as the rest of his family. Eye wateringly privileged - the lot of them).

@Wickedlywearynamechanged Sorry about your eye problems. Do you know how to use the CTRL-F function to search for and take you to dimly remembered words and phrases? And how to enlarge text? My eyesight is terrible too some days and I use both to find (e.g.) particular posts or parts of long articles.

I just came across this.

Inflation in Nigeria running at 33.2%!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/nigerias-rushed-reversion-to-old-national-anthem-raises-heckles

I love the comment that 'Anthems are ideological recitations ...'

Thank you AutumnCrow for the tip CTRL -F to find past posts. I’ll give that a try.

I don’t understand why the anthem was changed. The old ‘new’ one was quite beautiful. This performance is spectacular.

This on YouTube from yesterday after the change. No one singing as no one knows the words.

Here’s where you wrote about bots @Wickedlywearynamechanged and it does read that you were referring to this platform if not this thread.

There’s discussion on here that there could be Russian or Chinese’s interference in the form of bots and paid trolls. But honestly, I look at certain sections of tabloid media and think Russian/Chinese interference really isn’t needed. The tabloids are doing a great job of influencing and manipulating.

Regards the name changers and new posters, my case in point is perfectly illustrated on the other thread that we are all on. There are at least two posters who have not been on MN before, posting the most disgusting comments. Dehumanising the Prince of Princess of Wales and one of them is clapping at your posts as you absolutely seem to have a bias towards the Sussexes if not against the Royal Family.

I’m sorry to learn of your eyesight and thyroid issues. I have terrible issues with my thyroid too and it’s rubbish so I can completely empathise. Thanks for the tip too @AutumnCrow 😊

But they aren’t my discussions @MummyJ12 .

I was referring the fact that posters have voiced their concerns. And before yesterday:

I don’t believe there are bots on here.

I think this is an example of meaning being lost in text.

Regards the name changers and new posters, my case in point is perfectly illustrated on the other thread that we are all on. There are at least two posters who have not been on MN before, posting the most disgusting comments. Dehumanising the Prince of Princess of Wales and one of them is clapping at your posts as you absolutely seem to have a bias towards the Sussexes if not against the Royal Family.

I have no bias against Kate. I have nothing bad to say about her. If someone is clapping at my posts, they are not clapping at anything negative I’ve said about Kate, because I don’t say anything negative about her. They are clapping for another reason.

It’s clear to me how vilified Meghan is in the media and on sm. It is extreme, and has been going on for 8 or 9 years now. If you read my posts it will be clear how I feel about the vilification of women. I hate the ‘good woman’ vs ‘bad woman’, Kate vs Meghan, etc., rubbish that we see on here. I sad so again yesterday. How often do I have to say it? If someone claps my posts it’s because they agree with me about my take on the media, social media and how much Meghan is vilified and denigrated. There are no nasty threads topics about Kate on here currently. But quite a few about Meghan.

I find the most of the rest of the family monumentally uninteresting. Although…

Charles, I absolutely don’t like what he did. I’m old enough to remember that, as a 32 year old man, Charles married a 2O year old romantic girl he didn’t love. He wanted heirs. That way of thinking should have died out centuries ago. But in 1980 he and his family (and her own father for that matter) thought that was okay. Putting it mildly, I disagree.

I didn’t like the Queen much either, but I respected that she was a very very good diplomat.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that. I’m off to find chocolate.