Here’s to you Harry and Meghan… gong but never forgotten
FOR my final column of the rollercoaster year of 2021, I present my annual Old Moore’s Almanac awards – aided and abetted, as ever, by the invaluable feedback you send my way each week.
It wouldn’t be the same without you. So thank you, have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year, and let’s hope that 2022 is the year we finally downgrade Covid to something we just have to live with.
Bring it on.
The Fresh Prince of Hot Air award
Notable mention: Prince Harry announcing he’s writing a memoir “not as the prince I was born, but the man I have become.” No news yet on whether crayons will be included.
Runner up: Prince Harry declaring that if you don’t find “joy” in your job, you should leave. Perhaps he thinks his dad will pick up our bills too?
Winner: Meghan and Harry’s jaw-dropping, one-sided and self-serving interview with Oprah Winfrey which produced more pork pies than Melton Mowbray and spawned The Queen’s brilliantly simple yet devastating takedown of “recollections may vary.” No wonder she bought them a waffle machine as a present.
Tone deaf award
Notable mention: Prince Andrew swanning around in his new, £220k Bentley when the nation is on furlough. He has no discernible job and there’s a sex scandal snapping at his heels.
Runner up: Wallpapergate — aka Carrie Symonds reportedly declaring the Downing Street flat a “John Lewis nightmare”, and she and Boris spending £58k on opulent wallpaper and “vintage-chic” furniture when much of the electorate are wondering how to even pay their next energy bill.
Winner: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex who, after pouring a bucket of ordure over the Royal Family, announce they are calling their new daughter Lilibet in honour of The Queen. What royal cheek.
Nancy Doolally-o award for services to delusion
Notable mention: Sarah Ferguson claiming to be the most persecuted woman in royal history, when Henry VIII beheaded two of his wives, Edward II’s wife was forced to marry him at 12 whilst he carried on a gay affair, and George IV’s wife Caroline was barred from seeing her own daughter and eventually goaded to her death by her callous husband. Perhaps Fergie should stop writing bodice rippers and read a few history books instead.
Runner up: Time magazine putting Harry and Meghan on the cover of its World’s Most Influential People issue, without actually asking the world if it agrees.
Winner: The Harry Potter lead actors wallowing in the glory (and riches) of the hugely successful franchise at its 20th anniversary event, whilst JK Rowling wasn’t featured because a small minority have branded her “transphobic”. Without her, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint would no doubt be cast as “third peasant” in an am-dram production.
The world’s gone mad award (hotly contested)
Notable mention: The tribunal that ruled driver Colin Kane was wrongfully dismissed despite being spotted in the pub after calling in sick because he was “bad in bed all day with his chest”.
Runner up: When two women clutched takeaway coffees on a socially distanced walk in Derbyshire, local police fined them £200 each (later rescinded after it went public) for having “a picnic.” The overzealous officers involved were clearly two sandwiches short of one.
Winner: Court of Appeal judge Sir Geoffrey Vos who, despite Meghan Markle admitting she had misled the original hearing, upheld a summary judgment so her invasion of privacy claim didn’t have to be tested at trial. Would the same benefit of doubt be given to someone who wasn’t married to the Queen’s grandson? That handy royal connection is the gift that keeps on giving.
The do as I say not as I do award
Notable mention: World leaders at COP telling the rest of us how to save the planet while their numerous, gas-guzzling private jets are parked on the runway at Glasgow Airport.
Runner up: No10 holding Christ-mas “gatherings” last December whilst simultaneously cancelling festive socialising for the rest of the country.
Winner: Podium hogger Matt Hancock who, as then Health Secretary, was ordering the rest of us to resist personal contact outside our bubbles whilst simultaneously snogging his aide behind his dignified wife Martha’s back.
The anger mismanagement award
Notable mention: Angela Rayner, who went to a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference and was secretly recorded calling the Tories “a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile of . . . banana republic . . . Etonian . . . piece of scum.” She apologised later but in a #BeKind world, has the real Ms Rayner inadvertently shown herself?
Runner up: Handforth Parish Council in Cheshire where certain blatantly misogynistic men refused to be brought to heel by the female organiser and famously declared: “You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver.” Pompous fools.
Winner: Love Island’s Faye Winter (of discontent) whose regular, tedious meltdowns over some imagined slight reached full, shrieking banshee proportions during a torrent of abuse aimed at mild- mannered boyfriend Teddy Soares who, by some miracle, is still with her. One fears his Faye-te is sealed.
The ‘Duh’ award
Notable mention: No10 spending £2.6million of taxpayers’ money on a White House-style press room then scrapping it. For a brief glimpse of what your money paid for, you can see it on the viral video of the disastrous media briefing rehearsal that led to Allegra Stratton’s resignation.
Runner up: Tristan da Cunha (population 268) being put on the Government’s much-heralded green list for travel when a) most would struggle to place it on a map, and b) it actually remained closed to any outside visitors.
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Winner: All the supposed “academics” fuelling the student protests/walkouts, pictured, when anyone dares to express an opinion that differs to theirs. You’re supposed to be grown-ups who encourage debate, not stifle it in favour of intellect-ually hollow virtue-signalling. Besides, it’s just a bit thick.
Outside the tent p**sing in award
Notable mention: Jennifer Arcuri, furious at being ghosted by Boris Johnson, suddenly changed her no-comment stance to “he couldn’t keep his hands off me” and claiming their affair lasted from 2012-16 when they had sex on his sofa. She failed to say if it was from John Lewis.
Runner up: Alice Evans, single-handedly dismantling years of Hollywood PR spin by staging a very public takedown of her estranged husband, movie actor Ioan Gruffudd, for leaving the family home.
Winner: Boris’s former right-hand man Dominic Cummings, pictured, uses his inside knowledge to relentlessly attack Carrie Symonds, who he brands a wrong-un and still insists on calling the PM’s “girlfriend”. Perhaps his poor eyesight means he didn’t see their wedding photos.
The heroes
- EVERYONE who signed up for The Sun’s Jabs Army (it still needs you);
- Tennis champ Emma Raducanu;
- Paralympian Ibrahim Hamadtou who plays table tennis with the bat in his mouth;
- Tom Daley knitting his way to gold at the Olympics;
- Rachael Blackmore, the first female jockey to win the Grand National;
- Rose Ayling-Ellis on Strictly;
- Princess Anne, the hardest-working royal;
- Prince Philip RIP;
- MP David Amess RIP;
- Captain Tom Moore RIP;
- Jimi Olubunmi-Adewole RIP who lost his life trying to save a drowning woman;
- Margaret Keenan leading the way on getting a Covid vaccine;
- Tony Hudgell, seven, who raised £1.6million for charity whilst walking on prosthetic legs.
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