A RIGHT ROYAL DO

LIKE Liam Neeson’s vigilante dad character in the Taken movies, royal watchers need a very particular set of skills.

Take the ability to make head and tail of the quarantine regulations. 
Most folk might be able to get through the working day without in-depth knowledge of the law as it applies to the movement of pets across borders, but not your average royal watcher and correspondent. Or at least not the ones who have been dogging the paw steps of Bogart and Guy for the past year.

If you are unfamiliar with the canines in question, allow me to make the introductions. 

Bogart is a labrador-shepherd cross and Guy is a beagle. Both rescue dogs belong to a young woman called Meghan Markle whose engagement to Prince Harry is widely expected to be announced soon.

There have been various signs that the relationship between Ms Markle and the prince was becoming serious. They have attended public events together, and the prince has met Ms Markle’s mother. Tea has been taken with the Queen. All important pieces in the jigsaw for royal watchers. 

But it took reports of Ms Markle moving her beloved dogs from Toronto to London to make the bookmakers pull down the shutters against any more bets on a royal engagement. 

If the dogs were here, went the reasoning, their owner must be staying here, and if she was staying it must be to marry Harry. Or as the Sun headline over a picture of Ms Markle and Guy the beagle put it, “Has Harry pupped the question?”

Some may be delighted at the news of impending royal nuptials, others won’t give a flying beagle one way or another. Then there are those who will regard the whole looming palaver much in the way dinosaurs viewed the meteorite hurtling towards them. 

If you are in the latter camp too bad, because if and when this particular news show gets on the road it will drag every last man, woman, child and labrador cross with it. Even if you get yourself to a nunnery, or join Kez Dugdale in the jungle, there will be no escape.

As serendipity would have it, the Markle-Harry story is picking up pace just as the second series of The Crown arrives on television screens.

Since it first aired last year, Peter Morgan’s drama, which starts its new run on Netflix on December 8, has been festooned with awards, and rightly so. It is not just the lavish production values (paid for from a reported budget of £100 million) or the quality of the acting that has made The Crown a hit.

In charting the royal family’s progress from the abdication crisis onwards, The Crown manages to be one of the most skilfully drawn portraits of post-war Britain in recent memory. Through the comings and goings at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere, the viewer sees what an intensely political role the monarchy has played in Britain, and how adroitly, even ruthlessly, it acts to reinvent itself to suit the age.

The Firm, as Prince Philip once called the royal family, is very good at reinvention. Perhaps the best in the business. Politicians could a learn a thing or 200 from them about the art of survival, how to read the mood of the times and act accordingly. In The Crown, we see how even the giants of Downing Street, Churchill chief among them, could be out manoeuvred by the sovereign and the clever chaps (always chaps) who advise her.

As years pass, we witness the iron-clad determination of the institution to keep going, no matter what fate throws in its direction. This is most obvious in the first series when the story turns to Edward VIII and the abdication crisis. It was either him or them, so it had to be him. As the character returns to Britain for his brother’s funeral, and is once more given the coldest of shoulders, he wails that when you are out with this family you are well and truly out. He was not the first member of the family to think so, and he would certainly not be the last.

It’s a funny old series, The Crown. Half the time, seeing the fabulous wealth and comforts the family enjoyed in times when millions were struggling in hard, physical jobs and living in homes with outside loos, Morgan’s drama seems like the most deliciously subversive piece of writing, a real rebel yell. Yet the central character, the Queen, is portrayed as such an honourable, sensible person that she cannot help but come across as a heroine. 

Ms Markle, who currently earns a crust as an actress, may already be a fan of The Crown, in which case December 8 will be marked in her diary (along with a few more dates one presumes). If not, I would humbly advise her to get a Netflix account pronto.

GIVE US A CLUE GRANDAD

STILL on the subject of handy skills to have is the story of Wigan Athletic footballer Ryan Colclough.

The player was about to score a second goal against Doncaster Rovers last Tuesday evening when he learned that his wife was getting to the interesting bit in the birth of their child. How did he know? I’ll allow Mr C to explain.

“Just before I scored, I see my dad over in the stands and he gave me the action like ‘the waters had broken’,” he told BBC Radio Manchester. 

With the ball in play, Colclough had to take decisive action. So he put said ball in the back of the net, raced off the pitch, tore a blue streak to the hospital (still wearing his kit), and got there just in time for Baby Colclough to make an appearance. Mum, baby Harley (8lb, 6oz), dad, and football club (they won 3-0 eventually) are all doing well.

A smashing story. But I am left with two burning questions. One: how, exactly, did Colclough senior mime waters breaking? And two: with that level of skill,  is he available to be on my team for Christmas charades?

KEZ OF THE JUNGLE

WELL, she did it. After a week of overshadowing the election of her party’s new leader, Kezia Dugdale began her shift on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!

Has Scotland made up its mind yet on whether this is a bit of harmless fun, or the absolutely worst thing to happen to standards in political life since the last absolutely worse thing?

The verdict rather depends on what happens next. The biggest danger to contestants is not the various hapless creatures they are asked to wade through or eat. Being hungry, damp, tired, away from families and friends, and cooped up with each other 24/7, even if just for a few weeks, can mess with a person’s mojo.

Contestants who can chum up easily with others usually fare the best. On that front, the swift action of Stanley Johnson (aka the Foreign Secretary’s father) in brushing a spider off the Labour MSP’s backside could signal the beginnings of a beautiful political friendship. Who knows: if Ms Dugdale ever does switch party, it might not be to the SNP.