(Knew if I kept at it long enough I’d be able to get in a Steely Dan album title somewhere)
It’s only March, yet it’s already been a terrible year for the Royal Family: King Charles has cancer; Prince Andrew’s still alive; and a Mothers’ Day photo of the Princess of Wales and her children – supposedly taken by William last week, even though a tree in the background is plainly in early autumnal mode – has been issued with a ‘kill notice’ by all the major news agencies for ‘manipulation’, principally pixel swapping.*
The Wales’ family photo on their 2023 Christmas card was also found to be suspect, with William having an invisible leg (so impossible to tell if it’s his), and Louis missing a finger. I can’t even spell I.T.**, but even I know that’s not the principle definition of digital alteration.
As the furore grew this week, Kensington Palace cottoned onto the fact they had to provide an explanation to the public, who are finally awakening to the idea they’re paying the Royals millions of pounds a year to lie to them (yet more manipulation), so they did the only honourable thing they could come up with in the circumstances, and blamed the Princess of Wales; a statement was issued purporting to be from her, ‘fessing up to ‘occasional experimentation with photoshop’. Though why she’d go out of her way to release a sloppy composite of assorted photographs when she’s generally considered to be not a bad photographer is anyone’s guess, for once you look closely, the inconsistencies are many and obvious.
Last week, another picture was released, supposedly showing Kate in a car, being driven by her mother, wearing sunglasses. First problem is the car has 5 wheels. Second problem is the woman looks nothing like Kate (my favourite meme on social media was the insertion of Ozzy Osbourne next to Carole), and anyway, would she really be in a car with clear windows, and no protection officers around, when she’s been out of public gaze since her abdominal surgery in January?
Why the sudden rush to publish images of the Princess? Well, because she’s been out of public gaze since her abdominal surgery in January. People are starting to ask inconvenient questions, and in an attempt to reassure them there’s nothing serious going on, the famously incompetent PR team employed by the family, who take the public for fools (as well as taking their money), threw something together, which they thought would pacify the plebs. Which might have worked, had it not had exactly the opposite effect.
For all the shock, and lasting damage this will do to trust in the Royal Family, with CNN announcing they’re examining all past photos released by the Palace, our ruling elite have been indulging in this kind of ‘editing’ for decades. As the saying goes, there’s nothing new under the sun. (cf the grand tradition of that distinguished psychodrama, Neighbours, where some character or another routinely goes off to Sydney for a few months, comes back with a new head, and nobody notices).
In a very early example of airbrushing before airbrushing had been invented, Queen Elizabeth II’s two cousins, Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, both of whom had severe learning difficulties, were sent to a mental health institution, and listed by Burke’s Peerage as having died, when, in fact, they were still alive.
Then there was the 1989 phone conversation between (now) King Charles and (then) chief concubine, Camilla, an illicit recording of which was released to the media in 1993; Charles was, in romantic Jane Austen-style dialogue, opining how he wanted to come back and live in Camilla’s trousers, but with his luck, it would be as a tampon. Thus Tampongate was born, in which the handsome prince (bear with me, I write comedy) neatly reverse-airbrushed himself into Peter Stringfellow.
(Why does the Ecce Homo fresco come to mind? Complete mystery.)
In some instances, of course, it’s impossible to mislead people, no matter how hard even a member of the Royal Family tries; Prince Harry looking the spitting image of James Hewitt, and William bearing a strong resemblance to King Juan Carlos of Spain would be two cases in point, should a lowly plebian writer not mind coming to a sticky end. But I have no wish to commit spermicide.
Anyway, it’s escalated into such a catastrophe, Paddington Bear has, on advice from his lawyers, issued an emphatic declaration that he did not digitally insert the Queen into their skit celebrating her Platinum Jubilee.
Make no mistake, this is a major crisis: something’s seriously up with Kate, and the huge PR disaster from lame attempts to disguise that will have long-term consequences for the status quo of this totally outdated, feudal political system we’ve been forced to kowtow to (and pay for) since time began. Hopefully.
*
*A bit like wife-swapping, but without the wives. And with pixels.
** The jargon you have to contend with in this new technological age is simply exhausting in its profundity; where they come up with these words, I just don’t know:-
backdoor / front end / back end / bus / mouse / cookie / virus / zip / flash drive (Mercedes, Bentley, Rolls Royce. Duh.)
***
If you’re a regular reader of Notes From Cuckoo Island, you’re probably not aware I’m a satirist. (And why would you be?) Check out my piece in Central Bylines on the importance of satire in a free society. (Alternatively, as befits this blog, the importance of free satire on WordPress).
You’re welcome.
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