I watched the end of some royal programme late last night - up late struggling with a spreadsheet so needed background noise - and whilst it covered familiar ground it went into some detail about Prince Philip’s exploits in the fifties when touring the empire sans Queenie on Britannia with his mate Mike Parker. The latter had to go home because his wife had summoned him to a divorce court for philandering, and it was heavily implied that PP had been involved in the same sort of activities via his lunch club. I bet he was. QE2 was forced to deny rumours of a rift and bestowed the title ‘prince’ on him to prove it!
It then cut to discussing what a suitable little royal wife Kate is. Quite patronising. They interviewed Princess Margaret’s chief arselicker (well, jointly with her late husband who gave Marge the house and land on Mustique), Anne Glenconner, who opined that Kate would be a good royal wife because “she doesn’t put herself forward. She lets her husband take the lead, unlike Diana”. All delivered in that annoying RP accent that shouts, “why can’t the world be like the 1950s again, when everybody knew their place, which was beneath me!”