Just like us

You’ve got to hand to ‘em, the British royal family must be the Greatest Soap on Earth. ‘Prince’ Andrew’s latest travails could surely be scripted into Eastenders, but he doesn’t need to be, he is by his own merits an excellent reminder that these royals are just like the rest of us. He even eats at Pizza Express! (He said) So it was entertaining to read in the Faber Book of Diaries whilst sipping a happy hour G&T two diary entries from 1936:
 
8th December
 
The Simpson crisis has been a delight to everyone. At Maide’s nursing home they report a pronounced turn for the better in adult patients. There can seldom have been an event which has caused so much general delight and so little pain. Reading the papers and even listening to announcements that there was no news on the wireless took up most of the week.   
- Evelyn Waugh
 
11th December
 
On Saturday I drove with the children to Croydon. Dad was out when we got there. When he came back he looked unhappy and restless, and began to shout as he always does when he’s unhappy, about how he hated the Monarchy, but how there had to be humbug. I could see that his conscience was troubled. He told me how, on one occasion when Baldwin went to see the King, how he found him quite drunk, and how he picked up a glass of wine to throw, and greeted him with ‘Well, you fornicating old son of a bitch, what do you want now?' I said my only regret was that he didn’t throw the glass.  
- Malcolm Muggeridge

Yes indeed, we Brits need a bit of humbug to cheer us all up . . .