ROYALS:...For Stuffy Brits, A Rolling Film About Lust And Disgust...They Can't Catch A Break...Is There Yet Another Coming Marital Split?...Ah! A Tranche Of Gossip Material At The Palace Gates...

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...It's a wild and goofy family, a rare one without a care for lodging or money. We speak of the English Royals. My, what a crowd. Always all dolled-up and everywhere to go. Is there an equal in America? Not hardly.

These people are strange.

Lately, and this follows the abdication of the throne by the prince who fell in love with American squeeze Wallis Simpson, the jovial ascent of Queen Elizabeth, the dilly-dallying and death of Princess Diana, the interracial marriage and lingering fallout of Prince Harry.

Enter Kate Middleton, next in line for the Big Act if husband William has, indeed, kept it in his pants. She's been in the news perhaps more than she's wanted to, although one never knows about that with the publicity-hungry crown.

The ongoing mess has all to do with, not adultery on her part, but with floating a doctored photograph of family life, one seemingly innocent as all get-out, but fake, which the press simply loathes. (see it above and below, lads and lassies)

A host of mainstream news organizations led by The Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters accepted the photo as being real, released it to their members and subscribers...and then stunningly issued a "kill order," meaning all were disavowing its genuineness. The shot had been photoshopped; that is, altered, and altered rather amateurishly, as it turned out.

And altered by Princess Katherine, i.e. Kate.

Weirdly, this particular P.R. mess had followed her admission into a hospital for some unknown treatment. Some wags speculated the woe rested with painful abdominal disarray. Others said she'd been in for a mastectomy or an abortion. Still others said the hospitalization had come after Kate had discovered hubby William's affair with a married woman named Hanbury, one he already had a child with, even.

Yeah, you think Henry VIII was mad at Catherine of Aragon?

Not even close. That fat Henry had his eye on Anne Boleyn, a better-looking chick, and he'd wanted the Pope to annul the marriage to the Aragon woman. The Pope said no, Henry VIII got angry, quickly bolted the Catholic Church and began the Episcopalian movement.

Will Kate go ape?

She's troubled, yes. Husband William isn't saying a word. The entire episode smacks of a British mystery nicely cloaked in secrecy, with a smattering of juicy tidbits crawling the castle walls. Is celebrated Englishman Peter Sellers in the house? The Pink Panther would be the one to get to the bottom of this.

But we shine the flashlight on poor Kate. It wasn't that long ago (last Christmas?) that she was still riding high after the bizarre Prince Harry/Meghan Markle departure from the Royal Fold. It was Kate who seemed to hold the troupe together while Harry and Meghan dropped serious allegations of racism and, well, get-along problems within the star-crossed family.

And then King Charles learned he had cancer.

Jeepers, creepers, what other veloured disaster can befall this clan?...

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