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Post by kathryn on Jan 6, 2023 12:15:52 GMT
Several ex military on the radio this morning saying that talking about who/how many people you’ve killed is simply not done. It’s not a badge of honour. I agree. It seems crass and desperate. Context is everything. Just because the tabloids are writing screaming headlines and claiming it’s ‘bragging’ doesn’t mean that’s how it actually comes across in the book. The tabloids are of course going to put everything in the worst possible light.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 6, 2023 12:11:51 GMT
He needs to look to his predecessors. If Harry has a problem with his family then he needs to persuade the French to fund him, raise an army, invade and seize the crown. A book and a Netflix documentary is not in keeping with our great history of Royal insurrection. I’ve been having fun on Twitter telling people about Emma of Normandy (Edward the Confessor’s mother):
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Post by kathryn on Jan 6, 2023 9:54:51 GMT
It's a terrible, terrible thing when a brother shouts at you. In other news, Harry also says he's killed 25 people. People’s reaction to this snippet have been doing my head in. He was an Apache helicopter gunner. His job as a gunner was to shoot and kill people on the missions that he was commanding. The gunner needs tactical control and so is in command. The people he was killing were the Taliban - who in return were trying to kill him. This has been public knowledge for years, and - as I’ve been saying since forever - one of the reasons why he has a heightened security risk. The Taliban are very well aware of his military service. And yet people are losing their minds now that he talks about the experience. As if this wasn’t already known - or, I don’t know, as if they never quite believed that he was an actual soldier who fought in an actual war and actually killed people while doing so.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 5, 2023 9:59:10 GMT
No they shouldn’t have but copywrite law is very specific and you are libel if you print over a certain percentage. They were always at fault but in the end they ended up embarrassing Meghan. As for the rest it’s just more stuff. Where is the proof in any of this. Your ignorance about the actual legal issues involved is either so profound or so wilful that this comment is nonsensical. It’s not even worth attempting to unravel it to explain. Hopefully others reading have enough basic knowledge of the laws around privacy, data protection and copyright to understand the point I am making. I must admit, when I made my earlier comment about William having an anger management problem I did not expect to see such startling confirmation of his temper and problems managing it as has been reported this morning. It’s very sad. And goes some way to explaining why a private reconciliation seems to have been so impossible for them.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 5, 2023 0:29:49 GMT
Jason Knauf was a witness in the court case. He wasn’t leaking to the press. It was a court of Law. Of course he was helping H and am with that book Finding Freedom. Yes I’m sure the employees that were sacked did talk…that is their right. The journalists all said that the two couples were very easy sneak with eachother and I have doubt when relations broke down that they were. I wouldn’t be listening to an American journalist though, what do they know. I don’t see any of it as dark and twisted and conspiracy as you seem to. I see it for what it is. Family relations broke down. There was manipulation of the media, no doubt by both sides. One continues to out in the open but I do not think they set out to destroy Meghan and ai doubt they have a What’s App group. The press get briefed sure on the story someone wants to send out but doesn’t mean they write it. Meghan and a Harry brief, The absolute worst at all this skull duckery is Charles. Who was quite frankly unbelievable around 20 to 25 years ago but that seems to have levelled out. the media should not have published that letter. They won because they published too much. But it was her friends who leaked its existence. It wasn’t Thomas Markle. Once the media knew about it they hunted it down. Of course the royals give stories to papers….does Harry not. It’s not necessarily against anyone else just putting the point across. Everyone knows when they read them. Every public figure does that. Is it nice. No. Is it the way it works. Yes. Do you have to grow up and work with the system. probably. [br The denial here is amazing. You think American journalists can’t have British press sources send them information? Ellie Hall made it very clear that she got her story by doing basic journalistic work and following up a tip, and that the people she contacted and the production company confirmed that no British journalist had bothered to even contact them for comment. Knauf was briefing the press. That was in fact his job as press secretary. He briefed the press on the bullying story under his own name, and offered to be a witness for the Mail - again, briefing the newspaper’s editor on confidential correspondence, which the judge actually ruled made no difference to the case in the end but was used to smear Meghan in the press. The Mail had no right to publish private correspondence at all. Its existence being mentioned by a third party does not change that. The judge made it clear that the mention did not actually disclose any significant part of the letter itself - indeed the description of what it contained was inaccurate. The appropriate response would have been to seek a correction from that publication that mentioned it. *Someone* briefed the press on Meghan’s mental health struggles who had seen her email to HR. That person was clearly not authorised to share that information by Meghan. No-one has the ‘right’ to share that kind of deeply personal medical information about someone’s mental illness to a journalist without authorisation. If that briefing had not been authorised Kensington Palace should have hunted down the culprit to fire them for gross misconduct and take civil action against them for breaching their NDA, and made it abundantly clear that further such breaches of confidentiality would receive the same response. Which would have been a big news story. They did not do so. That indicates that the briefing was authorised. This is not rocket science.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 4, 2023 17:21:55 GMT
Low got that story the employees who went to him. No doubt people talk with loose lips they always do but to claim it was systematic bullying…there is simply no evidence. I can’t believe I missed this bit earlier. Yes, Low got that story from the employees who went to him. The ‘employees’ *are* the press secretaries. Because they are the ones authorised to speak to journalists. Otherwise the minute he admitted he had been sent that story the HR department should be sacking someone for gross misconduct. There’s a record of whoever that email was sent to, and they are not allowed to breach confidentiality by revealing it to *anyone else* who might go to the press with it, let alone speak to the press themselves. Obviously, that is gross misconduct. It’s a breach of GDPR! The only way that an internal investigation did not take place over *any* of these leaked stories, is if they are tacitly authorised by Kensington Palace. People act as if the normal laws governing data protection and privacy don’t apply to Harry and Meghan. They do! Which is why Meghan won a summary judgement against the Mail over the letter to her father
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Post by kathryn on Jan 4, 2023 10:46:17 GMT
Mmmm one journalist apart from Dan Wooten or Scobie because most say that isn’t how we get stories? Low got that story the employees who went to him. No doubt people talk with loose lips they always do but to claim it was systematic bullying…there is simply no evidence. Lots of journalists. Did you miss the whole thing with Jason Knauf and the Mail on Sunday?! It was in court documents that he was a source for the Mail! Or are you just ignoring it? And the BBC documentary The Princes and The Press, where several journalists talked about briefing on the record? Or this comment on the Jeremy Vine show from a journalist who says that she used to work in newsrooms and ‘it’s a fact’ (which I can only find clipped and shared in a tweet) Or the article that I already posted in this thread about the actual Netflix ‘we weren’t contacted for comment’ debacle: www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/ellievhall/royal-family-press-office-harry-meghan-documentary-changeEllie Hall, the journalist who wrote it, confirmed that she’d been sent screenshots of said WhatsApp group. The amount of denial going on from some here is ridiculous. I know it’s disappointing to have your illusions about how the Royal Family operates shattered, but honestly, there’s so much independent confirmation that what Harry has said happens does happen. And frankly, it’s been obvious for years that it’s how the Royal Reporter system operates - it has to be, because the alternatives are that the reporters at supposedly reputable news organisations are just making all of their ‘Palace sources’ up or that the Royal Court has comprehensively failed in their due diligence when it comes to security of personal information and the integrity of the staff they hire to work for the Royal Family - which is absolutely mind-boggling when the monarch and heir to the throne both have access to confidential government papers.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2023 20:32:04 GMT
Do people actually think the royal family launched a sabotage mission of Meghan by briefing journalists? Why. Because they hate her? This is Diana territory. She was paranoid too. Thought they were all out to get her. Turns out not in any way, they were just getting on with life. Meghan didn’t fit and didn’t deal with what is a horrendous media system. They do treat women horrendously. Perhaps are eye should be on the fact that we sustain the media. There was a briefing spree against Diana - Charles, as heir, very much needed to get public opinion on his side. Many journalists from the time will confirm that there was briefing against her going on. Diana wasn’t ‘paranoid’ about everything; she was simply wrong about the mechanism by which *some* of those stories were obtained. It’s quite obvious now, Post-Leveson, that she was a victim of phone hacking. And it’s quite obvious now, Post-Bashir revelations, that she had concrete reasons to believe that she was being betrayed by the people who worked for her, because evidence had been manufactured. Obviously that will have a negative effect on someone’s mental state. Many phone hacking victims have said that their trust in their nearest and dearest was destroyed by it. And there was a briefing spree against Meghan, because William and Kate needed to get public opinion back on their side. The accusations of a lack of work ethic have never quite gone away (and when you look at how many fewer public engagements they do than other Royals, it never will do) and they were already suffering from a relative deficit of glamour and enthusiasm, even before the affair rumours started circulating. There have been multiple journalists saying *on the record* that they were briefed against Meghan by their ‘sources’ at Kensington Palace. In fact whenever the displays of press racism became too blatant and the criticism of press behaviour too pointed, you’d get journalists throwing up their hands and saying ‘but the stories came from Kensington Palace!’ Valentine Low even said that he’d been told about Meghan’s mental health struggles and her email to the HR department seeking help, but the lawyers vetoed the story because it would have been a blatantly illegal invasion of medical privacy. How the hell do you think *that* story got to him without an investigation of the HR personnel taking place - leaking confidential information like that would normally get an HR professional fired for gross misconduct!
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2023 17:24:05 GMT
[. I have so over this whole drama. I don't give a damn about anything that Harry and Meghan have to say. They chose to step aside from a life of public service. Let them be private citizens. This is obviously not true: 1. You’re still posting in this thread. So you are clearly not over it and are still interested. 2. They did not ‘step aside from a life of public service’. They were explicit in saying that they would continue to be public figures and that ‘service is universal’ - that they intended to attempt to live a life of public service outside the Royal Family. And given that they have been involved in several high profile public roles - not just the continuing work with Invictus Games and SmartWorks, but also the Global Citizen work on COVID-19 vaccine equity - www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/topics/prince-harry-and-meghan - they have demonstrably done so.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2023 17:17:51 GMT
They didn't do a single second of promotion for the Netflix series. Oh boy. The Netflix series IS a promo. You are not that ignorant. You know full well that anyone with a Netflix production coming out would normally be talking it up in every media outlet to try and promote it.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2023 17:16:12 GMT
Facts? None of this is based on facts. And that is the problem. If Harry is serious about wanting to heal a family rift, he is going about it completely the wrong way. Yes, it is based on facts. What happened post-Netflix series with the exposure of the Palace lies about being contacted for comment and how they briefed those denials to the press via their pet journalists is a clear example of exactly what Harry is saying. It’s a fact that the Royal Press offices use friendly journalists to plant lies about Harry and Meghan in the press. Those journalists report those lies without even attempting to do any basic journalistic verification of them. They act as stenographer for the Palace press officers so that they don’t have to go on the record with their lies. As for Harry healing the family rift - that is very much up to the rest of the family. It’s pretty clear what Harry would need them to do. They could simply tell their press officers directly to stop lying via journalists now that has been exposed, and that would be a start. They could even defend Meghan against the utter vileness that the likes of Jeremy Clarkson come out with instead of attending lunches with him. But they are clearly not willing to do so.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2023 17:07:35 GMT
I don't find anything about Kanye West funny. Indeed, Kanye is clearly in the grip of a very serious mental illness that is destroying his life - has already destroyed his marriage and much of his career. Nothing funny about that.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 30, 2022 15:05:42 GMT
no spoilers....but changed a significant part which involves the ending...but really...see this show Is that a change to the ending of the stage version or a change from the original film? Its fantastic entertainment but its also a terible musical. All the bits of contemporary 50s music are great, and the bits of film score included are marvellous. They could have cut all the original musical numbers - but then I suppose it would be a very short show.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 30, 2022 15:04:11 GMT
Well, this was good fun for a Rush ticket price. I didn’t think the original Music added very much to the story or character though - the best musical bits were the covers. Was it a TodayTix ticket, kathryn? What seat did you get? Yes, TodayTix. S30 - which was totally fine although red on theatremonkey.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 29, 2022 18:19:04 GMT
Well, this was good fun for a Rush ticket price.
I didn’t think the original Music added very much to the story or character though - the best musical bits were the covers.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 28, 2022 18:25:32 GMT
To be honest I really don’t care how anyone dresses their kids, assuming the kids are warm in winter and cool in summer and decently covered...
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Post by kathryn on Dec 28, 2022 10:43:54 GMT
You won’t find a complete list anywhere - it’s only major appointments/movements that get reported on. No-one normally cares about minor staff changes. It’s only if the press can make a story out of it to suit the slant they want that anyone outside the household will know. Like this one: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/two-members-kate-middletons-staff-13725624.ampPlenty of senior staff have moved on from positions with Will & Kate (and Charles!) over the years - some of them to other roles connected to them, some for reasons such as having a family, some of them to work for the Sussexes when they split households. Staff movement is normal and expected. It’s turned into a negative story when it’s Harry and Meghan for a reason - which is the point Peter Hunt makes here:
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Post by kathryn on Dec 27, 2022 20:58:00 GMT
As long as Luke Evans isn’t in it!
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Post by kathryn on Dec 26, 2022 10:02:19 GMT
I'd feel more secure alone in a room with John Barrowman than Harvey Weinstein. ]If he'd held his hands up and made it clear that he understands this and is regretful of his actions then this would have been forgotten by now (IMO) - at least it should under normal circumstances. It’s hard to regret something that made people around you laugh and encourage you to do it more for years. Particularly when you had no ill intentions. If people around him hadn’t been laughing he wouldn’t have been doing it. That doesn’t make the behaviour right, of course (bullies often have an audience of sycophants laughing at their cruelty, for example). But it is confusing when people who claimed to find it hilarious (and many, many Who fans were entertained by those stories) are now condemning you for it. Also, I have to say I don’t think it is true that a sincere apology would make any difference to some - people enjoy their outrage and sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness too much.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 23, 2022 16:36:35 GMT
I know I read at some point in the last few years that staff at Clarence House have witnessed William screaming at his father, and Charles being as averse to conflict as Her late Majesty, simply takes it meekly. I don't know about William; considering the overload of media abuse his parents took over the years, and the leaks from both sides, I don't blame him for being suspicious, but purposely planting false rumours with different people to test their loyalty, making Kate wait for ten years before finally marrying her, cultivating an affable image when he's temperamental and said to be stubborn as well...why play games with people you supposedly care about? Why test them? Let's say my level of respect for him is below that of his brother or father. At least he is married to someone who is sensible, who's been willing to play the game without appearing to break a sweat. No one asks to be born into that family, but frankly that's not a life I'd want to marry into either. I can't remember where I saw this, could have been social media- but somebody was saying that Kate has been (is currently?) abused by William. Obvs there are so many rumours about the royals but this one surprised me at the time. Giving this thing about William's anger management issues, now that gossip seems more plausible... I would caution that social media tends to run away with itself and exaggerate gossip. There’s no credible reports of anything like ‘abuse’. Affairs, yes, shouting at people, yes. But nothing more than that.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 19, 2022 23:53:11 GMT
. Also their work with the guest star (the filmed version having Tom Hiddleston) is great - it’s always funny to have talented actors read awful dialogue and getting their surnames wrong Hiddleston has genuine comic chops.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 19, 2022 23:51:32 GMT
The bits with actual Tom Hiddleston are great.
The rest of it is thoroughly meh.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 19, 2022 19:18:44 GMT
The Play Wot I Wrote was on BBC4 last night, should be up on Iplayer all over Christmas.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 17, 2022 10:27:18 GMT
You can’t believe that our dear future King has an anger management problem? You’ve obviously not seen the many gossip stories featuring anonymous ‘Palace sources’ that describe him being ‘incandescent’ and ‘furious’.
That’s the thing about briefing the tabloids - they don’t actually care about William, they are just biding their time until they knife him in the back. They’ve been dropping hints like that for ages even among stories that are meant to be positive towards him.
Harry is far from the only person who William has screamed and shouted at. He’s just the first that has gone on the actual record and not hidden behind anonymity.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 17, 2022 9:43:19 GMT
It looks like the Royal Press offices have been caught out this time variety.com/2022/tv/global/harry-meghan-docuseries-buckingham-palace-1235464017/I count 3 claims from the documentary about briefing and lying that have been evidenced in this one story: 1. The press offices giving the negative briefing to journalists 2. The negative briefing being a downright lie 3. The follow-up face saving briefing is also a lie, because one of them did respond to the initial contact and then stopped, and the other didn’t try and contact anyone at Archewell until after the deadline had passed. It also kind of looks like they deliberately sent their requests for clarification to Netflix and Archewell staff who are unrelated to the production (Netflix haven’t even been able to locate the email!), knowing they couldn’t possibly get a response by the production deadline, so that they could claim the lack of response was not their choice and that they didn’t get a right of reply. They could have just said ‘no comment’ up front instead of trying to use their tame journalists to smear the production company. They should have realised that they’d get push back from the companies involved - it’s their professional reputations at stake.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 16, 2022 15:17:39 GMT
So how are the entire families bar her mother meant to feel from the unending accusations and claims from this couple, especially when the vitriol has been done to line their bank balance. As ever it's a one sided story from them, howling despair about the slights to them while showing no compassion or concern to how their barbs wound others. Having been caught out on so much already with their neverending changing version of their stories they should find they are challenged with their outpouring than they have been. 100m for selling out your family will at least buy them comfort in their bitterness filled and lonely future. They were not paid 100 million 'to sell their family out', they were not in fact paid 100 million for anything AT ALL. They have a 100 million 'production contract' with Netflix IE they have 100 million to spend on making the productions they wish to make. The only 'payment' they receive themselves is for whatever their roles are on whatever production it is they make. ] Yes, there’s a documentary about the Invictus Games coming, and originally ‘Pearl’ would have been under that deal, until Netflix decided to cut most of their animation content in development. It’s much like the Shondaland deal - it covers content to be produced over multiple years, but it gets reported on as of it’s a one-off thing.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 16, 2022 15:12:47 GMT
eta: Update: 3.2/10 on IMDB - H&M inching ahead of The Kardashians as the third worst reality TV show evah (!)
You're really doing this? Uh huh, technical analysis has already described this as ‘review bombing’ - people making multiple new accounts just to leave a negative review. It’ll be the same people using VPNs to make multiple Twitter Accounts dedicated to hate content about them. And there’s a reason for that - there’s a very lucrative ecosystem of ‘influencers’ monetising this content on YouTube and other social media platforms. Which was of course covered in the series.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 16, 2022 14:21:44 GMT
It’s December 2022. They are talking now about the things that happened in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
If Samantha and Thomas Markle has just behaved like normal family members, instead of just running to the press at the first opportunity, the situation would doubtless be different.
If the staff of certain members of the Royal Family had not leaked stories to the press multiple times, including details of the proposed plans to move away, the situation would doubtless be different too.
Things are as they are because of what has happened. It’s not where Harry and Meghan wanted or anticipated being at the outset. Everyone reaches the end of their tether at some point.
And honestly they’ve been quite careful and selective about what they have said about individuals. For example they don’t touch at all on the nature of the negative stories about other family members that got buried in favour of attacking Meghan. Meghan even keeps suggesting that her father is not solely responsible for his terrible behaviour (insisting that the letter must have been signed for by someone else, thinking his phone was ‘compromised’).
They’d have been better able to cope if they’d been less naive and more cynical.
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Post by kathryn on Dec 16, 2022 9:31:35 GMT
Despite spending 10 years as an officer in the army, with tours to Afghanistan, we're now expected to believe that, rather than the Taliban, Harry was terrified by his brother shouting at him. Poor love. I know this will shock you, but Harry doesn’t love anyone in the Taliban. Having people you love furious at you and attacking you is a very different thing. We are vulnerable to hurt and fear in a totally different way with the people we love. But this basic understanding of human relationships and emotions appears to be beyond some people. 🙄
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Post by kathryn on Dec 16, 2022 9:29:05 GMT
Hmm yes, I’ve always thought that being famous is overrated! Give me rich and anonymous over ‘rich and famous’ any day!
It’s funny, it has struck me before that the people most furious about Harry and Meghan ‘whingeing’ and leaving are the ones most invested in the idea that being a Royal or marrying a Royal is a fairytale. That being part of a very rich family with big palaces and pretty jewellery must be wonderful.
It’s always looked like a thoroughly miserable existence to me.
Now, yes, of course, being thoroughly miserable with a roof over your head and a full belly every night is very different from being thoroughly miserable living on the streets, or struggling with the option of either heating or eating.
But human brains are remarkably resistant to the notion that ‘many people have it worse than you’. When you are miserable, stressed, or depressed your brain is totally focused on that. This is not a personal flaw, it’s inherent in humanity - if this were not the case just about everyone would be a lot happier and mentally healthier.
Anyone in that situation would be looking for ways to get out of it.
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