I swear, I had a column all written and was just correcting the spelling and sending it to my lovely, patient, editor (did I mention that she’s gorgeous? And understanding, too!) when Princess Kate’s PhotoGate popped up today.
I could not let this pass by unnoticed; it checked every box I have and then some. Another edition of Real Housewives of Buckingham Palace, mud wrestling in the ratings with Keeping Up With The Government-Subsidized Kardashians? You never know when an episode is going to drop, and when it does, you stop everything and watch. Or at least I do.
If you’ve been hiding under the Stone of Destiny and missed everything that has happened, please note that…
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The entire British Isles (or at least the media on a slow news day) are literally all a-twitter about the fact that no one has seen the Princess of Wales since Christmas Day, 2023. She had surgery in late January. The press has been increasingly strident in their concerns about WHERE IS KATE, prompting her media team to publish a stern and apparently unprecedented note saying WE TOLD YOU WHERE SHE IS AND WE’LL TELL YOU WHEN SHE’S NOT THERE ANYMORE.
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Soon after the surgery was disclosed, it was announced that King Charles III had been diagnosed with an unspecified cancer, discovered during a routine procedure. Understandably, he decided to, as they say, take a step back from public-facing duties whilst undergoing treatment (And yes, by the time I’m done with this I’ll also be talking about ‘puddings’ and ‘mates’ and ‘dodgy’ practices. That’s who I am now.)
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Apparently to take the mickey (Is that the right term? This may be who I am now but who I am now is not always sure of the terms) out of everyone jumping up and down about WHERE IS KATE, the decision was made to publish a fairly standard picture of Kate with her standardly adorable children in honor of Mother’s Day, which is celebrated in March in Britain, no doubt with one of those mysterious puddings.
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Now, No. 3 would have been a stellar idea, and I’m sure that everyone was quite chuffed with themselves taking the steam out of the whistle of all the people yelling WHERE IS KATE because there she was, on the porch of her home surrounded by children! Yes, a fabulous idea, until someone noticed that the picture had been Photoshopped from here to Stonehenge and then all bedlam broke loose.
Even to the casual observer it’s pretty obvious that the picture has been edited. Why? Theories include: she’s been abducted by aliens; Kate wanted her family to look their best in a widely-viewed image; it’s a smokescreen to distract from her father-in-law’s illness; or my personal favorite, given the white-hot fury that erupted over a Mother’s Day snapshot, it’s a smokescreen to distract from the fact that her father-in-law jumped the line at the National Health Service and started his cancer treatment ahead of the mere commoners, some who have waited a year to get a diagnosis and start treatment.
My first thought upon hearing about the kerfluffle was that Wills had snapped a bunch of pictures that day and Kate, the photographer of the family, reviewed his results, sighed heavily and rolled her eyes and proceeded to cobble something together she could post on Facebook. I believe that the expression “WHATEVER, I’LL DO IT MYSELF” is universal language for wives on both sides of the pond.
Anyone who has ever tried to corral a family to sit for a unified image where everyone is in frame and not actively sneezing would be sympathetic. The arrival of compositing software that takes all the pictures, removes all the sneezes, and then arranges them coherently would have been a godsend decades ago when I tried to wrangle the Kids, Interrupted into a group portrait.
The proof, as they say, is always in the pudding.
Elizabeth Evans is a local mother, wife, daughter, sister, former stay-at-home mom, former work-outside-the-home mom, former work-at-home mom and a human resources consultant.
