LAST WEEK: THE MEET-CUTE...
This week: The Meat
Wow! Aitch and Em (as we will literally never call them) take it to a whole new level this week — not least by including intimate footage of just how great (especially in the face of a global pandemic!) it feels and looks to escape to California on a private jet. I love these guys — so warm and empathic, so down-to-earth and relatable.
So, here are this week’s Top 10 Takeaways
1) This screamingly-sentimental saccharine-soused show, stuffed with meditation and yoga and dogs and kids and the beach and endless tears and property porn that makes ‘Selling Sunset’ look shonky, is basically a load of ‘Real Dukes and Duchesses of Montecito’ lifestyle-guffery aimed entirely at modern, forward-thinking, cool bi-coastal American audiences (tho probably not the people who live in the other bits of the USA, tbh).
It’s definitely not aimed at we saddo Brits living our weird, dark lives in pokey mould-ridden old homes on this damp, strike-ridden, little island of gloom that is literally heaving with horrible racists and people who (unlike Aitch and Em) are not only entirely out-of-touch with their emotions but literally never do ‘journalling’.
2) In fact, come to think of it, the UK is a bit like Vancouver Island with more castles and even more paparazzi. Like, it’s OK to live there for a few weeks but not forever.
Not like Montecito, aka Home, Sweet (Sunshine-y Barefoot-y Multi-squillionaire-y Cali-i-for-ni-a-y) Home. Which is also the place where, in Aitch’s opinion, his mother would most likely have ended up.
Except that she really wouldn’t have – this is just his fantasy. Aitch also doesn’t seem to realise that his beloved dead mother would be entirely devastated by her sons’ estrangement.
3) Anyway, it’s just a hunch but recent news reports that the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Sussexes will be exchanging Christmas gifts for their respective children may no longer be entirely accurate.
4) My gosh, Aitch and Em really do love each other so much! And I’m so happy for them! (Em: ‘Aitch and I are really good at finding each other in the chaos’. Phew!).
I’m also delighted that they have Lilibet’s godfather, Tyler Perry, in their lives — the kind man who lent them a house without ever having met them and who is so far removed from Britain in every conceivable way that, when asked to be a godfather, he refused to attend a christening if it was ‘over there, with them’… ie, far away from the hissing of summer lawns, in a weird dark place where all the Bad People live.
No worries, Tyler – we’re all good without you (and your unfathomable movies). You do you, we’ll do us!
5) The Day after the Oprah interview
Em: ‘Beyoncé texted. She says, ‘Got me looking so crazy right now, your love's Got me looking so crazy right now (your love) Got me looking so crazy right now, your touch Got me looking so crazy right now (your touch) Got me hoping you'll page me right now, your kiss Got me hoping you'll save me right now Looking so crazy, your love's Got me looking, got me looking so crazy in love’
AITCH: Really?
Em: ‘No, not really. In fact she says we’ve been ‘selected to break generational curses that need to be healed.’
6) On February 14, 2021, Harry and Meghan announced to the world that she was pregnant. On February 14th 1984 (Aitch learns) it was announced that Princess Diana was pregnant with Aitch!
‘It’s a coincidence—’ says Aitch ‘—or maybe it’s not a coincidence!’.
Wow. Because literally no newspaper ever released cheesy romantic stories on February 14th. Instead (we have to wonder) Lilibet may be — sharp intake of Californian breath! — the reincarnation of Princess Diana!
I don’t know about you but I’m definitely thinking this is what is being thunk here.
7) Princess Diana to Aitch, (allegedly): ‘If they’re writing crap about you in the tabloids then you’re probably doing the right thing’.
Following through on that impeccable logic, however, and I’d say you could — instead of suing them — easily ignore the tabloids and just crack-on living your best life. C’mon - it’s an idea!
8) When in the UK for his grandfather’s funeral, Aitch observed that it was ‘Hard. Because my brother and my father were both very much focussed on the same misinterpretation of the situation’.
Equally, maybe it was ‘hard’ for Aitch’s brother and father, too — and for precisely the same reason.
Just putting the possibility of there being at least two sides to this story out there for you, Aitch.
9) Aitch on the rest of his family: ‘They had to believe that it was more about us and the issues we had — rather than their partner, the media, and themselves that was causing so much pain. They saw what they wanted to see’.
Deep breath, Aitch, and repeat those words out loud... because, let’s face it, you partnered with Netflix (which is, like, definitely ‘The Media’) to show us that it was more about ‘them and the issues they had’. Indeed, perhaps it’s even the case that you too ‘saw what you wanted to see’.
10) Aitch: ‘I miss the weird family gatherings. I miss the UK, I miss my friends. [But] We’ll never get genuine accountability or a genuine apology... ‘[So] my wife and I are moving on’
As indeed are the rest of us!
For the record, my ‘word of the year’ is neither ‘Truth’ nor ‘Peace’ — it’s ‘Enough’.
Namaste, you guys!