ON the eve of the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, an awkward family reunion and the uniform row continued to feature in the newspapers comment sections - plus Colin versus Cuthbert the Caterpillar.
The Daily Mail
Jan Moir said we might have hoped Prince Andrew and Prince Harry - forbidden to wear uniforms - should be able to wear what they want to honour their grandfather and father.
“For what is the point of the Royal Family if not to be medalled and beribboned, striding about at some great event with ceremonial swords at their hips and plumes of ostrich feathers a-billow in their silly hats?,” she asked. “What we need, above all, is the circumstance of pomp. And such gilded signifiers of rank and status are terribly important, for what are the Windsors without them?”
She said some might say Harry deserves it and they would have a point.
“Once we start to question the military uniforms, we start to question everything,” she said. “And soon it will become impossible to ignore the preposterousness of the very existence of the House of Windsor, in the minds of the disbelievers, at any rate. Only in years to come will the Windsors perhaps realise that, in a way, they were watching their own funeral, too.”
The Independent
Comedy writer Ali-Asghar Abedi suggested the Duchess of Cambridge could offer to patch things up with Harry and Meghan by leveraging Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix partnership to ‘pitch an original series of her own: “The Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace”, starring the Queen, Camilla, Princess Anne, Fergie and Kate herself.’
“Ever the institutionalist, it’s clear Prince William hasn’t taken kindly to his little brother dragging his family’s reputation through the mud on American primetime television,” he said. “Of course, the funeral of Prince Phillip is undoubtedly a sad occasion — and not just because he’s by far the most interesting character onThe Crown. Some might say it’s tasteless to cajole the entire country into mourning the death of one 99-year-old white guy despite 127,000 Britons alone dying of Covid in the past year. “
The Scotsman
The newspaper’s leader reflected on the row between Marks and Spencer and Aldi over the latter’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar, which M&S argues is a copy of their Colin the Caterpillar cake.
“Innocent shoppers, M&S argues, will be led to believe that the two cakes are of the same standard with Cuthbert, apparently, riding on Colin’s coat-tails. The very thought!,” it said.
“This is serious stuff with money at stake. However, there are times, and this feels like one of them, when you have to wonder what we have come to when so much energy is expended over cakes made to look a bit like a cute insect.
“Perhaps the Very Hungry Caterpillar, from the 1969 book by Eric Carle, could do everyone a favour and eat all the cakes. Problem solved.”
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