No wonder Brooklyn Beckham has been looking to the Sussexes for support – they're both experts in throwing themselves pity parties - Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty | Craig Barritt/Getty Images for TIME
Beckxit. You heard. It's the new portmanteau du jour, one that encapsulates the pain, trauma and heartbreak of – who am I kidding? – it encapsulates the pity party being held by Brooklyn Beckham and Prince Harry, a couple of over-privileged, under-achieving adults bleating and huffing about how ill they've been served by their bewildered parents.
And now they are aided and abetted by conspiracy theorists who know for a fact that the uppermost ranks of the British Establishment have frozen them out – because the Princess of Wales wore a new suit… Dun-Dun-Dunnnnn!
Yes, it was in a truly horrid colour and the Irish peasant in me wants to say "dung"; maybe "escargot" is more acceptable? I think we can all agree that calling it Chartreuse is pushing it.
But the point is that the £1,340 worth of tailoring was by none other than – Victoria Beckham. Talk about mode á clef! Fortunately, deciphering the sartorial solidarity didn't take too long.
Any number of observers have been tripping over each other to interpret the two-piece as an incontrovertible signal that the Princess – ergo The Firm – was siding with Victoria Beckham, the anguished mother whose eldest child doesn't seem to be talking to her, by supporting Victoria Beckham, the spenny designer label. Cue the whole seven EastEnders' Doofs.
Before I go much further, I should like to confirm I'm perfectly well aware there are more pressing geopolitical issues out there and that this sort of tittle tattle is beneath me. Beneath all of us.
But the nation needs gaiety, does it not? And now that Married at First Sight: Australia has ended and Love Island hasn't begun, there's just enough bandwidth to get stuck into an ultimately meaningless transatlantic battle for hearts, minds and, in Hazza's case, a guaranteed security detail every time he returns to the Old Country for a frivolously vexatious court appeal followed by a prickly gripe about his dad, King Charles.
It was all getting a bit boring, predictable and (whisper it) sad – Harry's a grown a-- man of 40 with two children. But we're all pepped now that new dramatis personae have entered stage right.
According to The Sun, Harry has been providing a listening ear to "influencer" Brooklyn, 26, who can't take photographs or cook very well and has now fallen out with his Bank of Mum and Dad – sorry, I mean parents.
Like Harry, he fell in love and married a beautiful, aspiring (I'm not sure at which point "aspiring" turns into something far less charitable) actress, Nicola Peltz, who once had a part in Transformers: Age of Extinction. Unlike 43-year-old Meghan, Nicola, 30, is an heiress, being the daughter of a billionaire businessman.
Personally, for that reason alone, I wouldn't have her in the house. But working "mom" Meghan is obviously far less mean-spirited than me and found time in between strewing wild flowers and baking Dubai rock buns to have Brooklyn and his Missus round to their mansion in Montecito.
Beckxit - Team Brooklyn vs Team Victoria
By then we knew Brooklyn was officially estranged from his parents because these people appear to live their whole bloomin' lives online, posting messages, pictures and films. These damningly showed he didn't turn up to any of his father's 50th birthday bashes (there were a few so he could probably have made at least one) – proof apparently of a deepening gulf between his wife and his mother.
The rift supposedly began with Nicola's wedding dress; rumour has it Victoria offered to run one up on her trusty old Singer sewing machine from a pair of old net curtains but the younger woman was a bit sniffy and went for custom-made Valentino Haute Couture instead. The cheek.
Other stuff ostensibly happened too but the main source of delight (schadenfreude) here is that in careerless Brooklyn, jobless Harry sees a kindred, wounded spirit fighting for truth while putting the kibosh on reconciliation. And in Nicola, Meghan sees another wronged woman being cruelly victimised as a homewrecker and an interloper who took her husband away from his family. In other words they found soulmates.
What were the chances? I'm lucky if I come away from a dinner party with a recipe for elderflower cordial. They've been offering one another support and Harry and Meghan's empathy (yes, you did read that correctly, who knew?) has been gratefully received by the younger couple.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde; it would take a heart of stone not to laugh. I wonder if they have a WhatsApp group titled Beckxit Strategies? Then again that would be predicated on Meghan letting Harry have a smartphone.
Meanwhile, across the pond, the notion that the Princess of Wales, a busy working royal and mother of three who is in remission from cancer is taking time out of her day to deliberately semaphore her "I Stand With Victoria" message in drab chic, is as fabulous as it is fatuous.
Families fall out, although admittedly their conflicts are not usually played out quite so publicly. We groundlings may have no skin in this proverbial game but we're familiar enough with the plot lines; from the ancient Greeks onwards, blood feuds have always been the stuff of high drama.
Is it so very wrong to enjoy the spectacle, even if occasionally from behind the cushions on the sofa? I'm not sure about the House of Windsor but with luck, effort and above all, good grace, the Beckhams will come together again. I sincerely hope they do. But please, not before the return of Love Island to our screens.
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