Finding Harmony Versus Forced Admiration

King Charles and the weird woman in the big hat

There have been two documentaries released on Amazon recently. Obviously the massive, embarrassing flop about the current first lady, and now, an almost equally adoring eulogy to the current King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, King Charles III.

I know I’m never going to see the Melania bribery debacle advert, what an utterly scummy thing to pay for. That Bezos bloke is a tragic embarrassment but as with all his grotesque buddies, he thinks he’s terribly clever and everyone admires him. I think it’s safe to say we all think he’s a sad loser.

But this other documentary, also on Amazon is about our King. This is an in depth look at the driving force behind the life of our current monarch, titled Finding Harmony.

What a wonderful and positive title, Harmony is something we should all be striving for, finding a balance between human beings and nature, living with the natural world as opposed to always destroying it.

Being part of the natural order, like only hunting foxes at certain times of year, and shooting birds bred to be shot at certain other times of year. Going with the ebb and flow of the year, aware and in tune with the gentle changes taking place on this rain soaked isle

Maybe the current monarch doesn’t do that anymore, I don’t know and I’m not that interested, but he certainly has done his share of these bizarre sports in the past.

The endless adoring voice over for this documentary, read by the wonderful Kate Winslet, did not mention these aspects of the kings passions. It is very confusing, I mean this most kindly, he really is a baffling old bloke.

It is, I think, true, that King Chuck is an environmentalist, he genuinely is someone who cares about the future of humanity, he genuinely cares about the plants and animals we all rely on.

But he’s also a king. For anyone outside our weird, in-bred class obsessed country, that might be a hard concept to grasp. By dint of birth, he is more special than the rest of us.

It’s such a bronze age notion. He was born to be king. He didn’t strive to be a King, he didn’t have any choice. He was born into a very wealthy, very privileged and highly dysfunctional family and he would have known he was one day going to be the king from the age of 5 or 6.

The state of him.

It’s impossible to judge this bloke on any standards the rest of us might understand. I was introduced to him once, before he became king. It was after a conference on the electrification of ground transport in London. I was in a short line of people made to stand and wait for him. He shook my hand, and and moved on, he did just mention as he turned away that he used to watch Scrapheap Challenge with the boys.

So that was nice.

But he really does care about the planet, he’s planted thousands of trees . . . one one of his estates. He’s helped hundreds of young people to develop skills and help restore old buildings . . . on many of his estates.

In these individual circumstances it’s petty and unnecessary to be critical of the poor old fellow. He really does mean well. He is of course constantly surrounded by fawning and sycophantic people who hang on his every utterance, basking in reflected king based glory, and in so doing, perpetuating the absurdity of a monarchy.

But hold hard there republicans. Here’s the old argument I’ve heard all my life. The alternative to having a hereditary head of state, an individual who does not, officially, have political opinions, is what?

A president? An elected head of state who passes acts of parliament, new laws, new legislation with a stroke of their presidential pen. We might currently be living under president Blair, or, in a couple of years, President Faragé.

When you hear that argument, the old duffer who is apparently, so his obsequious supporters and enablers insist, deeply committed to the environment, does not appear quite so toxic.

The 21st century Eva Braun?

And if, for a beat, you were to compare this Great British Amazon hosted puff piece about our king with the truly grotesque, gold embossed propaganda of the weird eastern european woman in the hat, then king Chuck’s benign image, hunting and shooting aside, is greatly enhanced.