How NOT to have a manic episode

(The following are some Facebook posts from a friend - though not a face-to-face one - who had a very public mental health crisis a few years ago.)

Friends: I am so sorry to leave you wondering. Today is the first day I’ve felt normal and rested. I had a six day long manic episode just like the one that got me thrown out of rehab two months ago. Sober both times. This whole episode was frankly terrifying, and I’m trying to do what I can to monitor it until I can get people diagnosed and medicated. It’s good to know I’m capable of going off the reserve when perfectly sober. Soon as I feel fully settled I’ll be in touch. Love, G.

To all I may have disturbed over the weekend, my sincere apologies. I experienced a full blown manic episode, three to five days of unfettered weirdness — and I need to go to Joe Brant hospital to apologize to all female psychiatric staff, whom I flirted with like a dirty old wanker — my second in two months. I can now add bipolar disorder to to my mental illness repertoire. Seeking treatment, needless to say.

But I am otherwise good, and love you all for your kind and understandably perplexed responses. As you all well know I NEVER flirt.

Crazy about y’all, 

If anyone knows anybody in the Burlington police or psychiatric biz, please share.

The care and patience I received during my long night of gonzo batshit free fall was AMAZING. I regaled the cops who delivered me to psychiatric emergency — named, God love them, Scott and Geoff — with the dirtiest movie true life trivia I could — and boy did I. I was like the Groucho Marx of psychiatric emerg.

As I was escorting them out — until the psychiatric staff pulled me back inside — I tried to hug them, which they warmly refused. I offered a handshake, and Scott said “How about a fist bump, Geoff?”

And as for Jenn, the gorgeous and deeply empathetic psych muse, whom I fell deeply and obviously in love with inside of three seconds: thanks for the only memory of this whole shitshow that I cherish. That and Scott and Geoff’s fistbump.

Love y’all

Friends:

On the eve of my 62nd birthday, something of a re-birth announcement...

The mania I've been experiencing for the past few weeks continues. I am making every effort to recognize and do what I can to manage it, and with some success provided I stick to certain things. Among these: my online presence. It's become baldly obvious to me that I must reduce my internet activity considerably, and that's why I write to you all: if you're wondering how I'm doing, where I am, if I am, etc., it may take a day or two before you hear from me.

I'll spare you the thinking behind this -- god only knows, but makes sense to me -- but I also wanted to let everyone know that this is a struggle that I absolutely refuse to go through alone. And by that I mean going public. Once I am finally able to trust my thoughts again -- or even to corral them better -- I've got a plan.

I want to put this before everything. I want to re-emerge from this as a public activist. I've already got a semi-public profile, and it seems obvious and necessary that I try to harness this to my own recovery and public function. I know there's a book in this, but also a specialized website (under construction already), but possibly a documentary, podcast and as many public speaking opportunities as I can book.

I mean, who wouldn't want this: the world's first Bipolar standup addict terminally unfiltered movie critic?

See? This mania is K-razee.

Much love to y'all and more to come.

These Facebook posts are in the public domain, so I can repeat them here without the person's name attached, but MANY more posts were later deleted. These are some of the more settled comments.

Really, the only thing I object to is going so wildly public that no one knows how to react. This is a man who for years was a respected film critic in Toronto, with a rather ironic specialty: interpreting the subject of mental illness as it appears in popular culture, especially movies.

I have nothing whatsoever against going public, advocating, speaking publicly, etc. but as someone who has had multiple manic episodes myself, I can say for sure that your judgement is just a TEENSY bit off in the middle of this kind of mental hurricane. Huge upgusts of energy, talking a mile a minute (and constantly interrupting), being unable to eat or sleep, grandiosity, incredibly expensive shopping sprees, sexual acting-out which can later be quite embarrassing. . . it's pretty wild, folks, and to see it play out in public like this is kind of painful.

Since these posts back in 2019, I've seen very little from him except stills that appear to be screenshots of movies, most of them prior to 1970. Googling didn't turn up much except some articles written ten years ago. The thing about all this is, if you wanted to raise awareness about - say - heart disease, you wouldn't  try to do it in the midst of a heart attack. This is no less dangerous. But no one told him to just sit down for a bit until things had stabilized.

What shocked me the most is that, after being kept overnight in the hospital, he was discharged the next day without referrals to a doctor or psychiatrist, and apparently just one bottle of medication. When he got to the last pill, he took it with a flourish and a grand announcement, to much applause from his followers. Yes, this WAS a performance of sorts, and he seemed giddy in the middle of it. But I also know from bitter experience that the very worst thing someone with bipolar mania can do is to suddenly go off their meds. 

Why wasn't anyone there to help him - I mean, really HELP him, instead of doing what his Facebook "friends" did: cheer his mania on, tell him "you've got this" (he didn't), give him  bizarre advice on what meds or (worse) quackish herbal remedies he should be taking? The man was desperately ill, and the only followup I could find was a Twitter post about an event he was going to speak at called "But That's Another Story". The title of his talk was How I Became a Sex Addict. 

Hey, people can share all they like, but sooner or later the dust will settle and the sufferer will want to put together some semblance of normalcy. I hope he's OK, but the fact I don't see anything from  him on Facebook now except the odd photo (and even these stopped in October) does make me wonder.

Going public is fine, but you  can't take it back. This is especially true in the age of the internet, in which there is no such thing as "delete". You risk becoming a poster child, and the illness can become your entire identity and subsume whatever dreams you ever had for yourself. And I really think you have to do your advocacy from the perspective of real mental health and recovery. You can't stand up to give a speech if you don't have both feet on the ground.

Prince Harry's Christmas Carol (and other seasonal delights)

And now, for something that DIDN’T appear in Omid Scoobie’s new book!

Harry’s Christmas Carol

On the twelve days of Christmas, my Megsie took from me:

TWELVE family memories

ELEVEN peaceful moments

TEN days with William

NINE hopes of freedom

EIGHT games of polo

SEVEN worthy causes

SIX royal medals

FIVE . . costly. . .blings!

FOUR who were Fab

THREE best friends

TWO family jewels

And my place in the royal family!

 

 BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE. . . 

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

A certain mad duchess chased after her spouse.

All the bathrooms were  festooned and tinselled with care

In hopes that their pal Omid Scobie’d be there.

Then Harry did whimper, “Oh wifey, have mercy!

I’ve forgiven the way that you grin and you curtsey!

Please let me come sleep in my bed in the house!

That chicken coop’s cold! Please have mercy, my spouse!”

Then Scobie himself down the chimney he fell

Just hoping he’d get himself out of this hell.

Poor Omid did moan in dismay and distress

‘Bout being lambasted by those in the press

Who were telling Their Truth about Scobie’s new book:

They were saying he’s lying! They said he’s a crook!

But Omid was only concerned with his safety.

His fear made him  look so dead  pale and so pasty

That Megsie, disgusted, said, “Are you a man?”

While he wondered, she ran to dig out a spray can

Which  she liberally applied to his face with a grin

And Scoobie changed color, right down to his chin!

“Take that!” Megsie screamed in her mad duchess way:

“Now you’re just as dark as the lies that they say

In the press about us! Now please leave our house!

You’re a traitor! A turncoat! A scoundrel! A louse!”

So Scobie did slink out of warm Montecito

And knocked on the door of Meg’s Mummy, Dorito

Who took one quick look, then slammed shut her front door.

“You’re just a wax figure! And worse – you’re a bore!”

Then Scobie ran off, while his bronzed face did droop

And bunked down with Harry in the Royal Chicken Coop.

Endgame for the Royal Pretenders

 

Harry and Meghan can’t stand their growing irrelevance

                                                   by Allison Pearson

The King should move swiftly to remove the titles of his younger son and his wife, before they can do any more damage

Piers Morgan, the broadcaster, may have finally blown apart the long-running Royal “racism row” when he named on his Talk TV show two members of the Royal family a new book claims were the individuals so disgracefully implicated by the Duchess of Sussex. You may recall that Morgan was sacked by ITV when he said, after the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah, that he didn’t believe a word Meghan had said. Like millions of us, he has had enough of this manipulative, malevolent nonsense, apparently calculated to undermine the monarchy, and believes that now is the time to have an “open debate” about what actually happened. 

It follows the publication of Omid Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. By some mysterious “accident”, the Dutch version of the book revealed the names of the two senior Royals. Interviewed on Wednesday on ITV’s This Morning, Scobie did not appear entirely heartbroken that two people, who are not at liberty to defend themselves, had been named and shamed. Furrowing his eyebrows – a pair of hairy caterpillars from the Ugly Bug Ball – Mr Butter Wouldn’t Melt suggested that his true purpose was not spreading toxic rumours to help hasten the end of the monarchy. Heavens, no. It was to direct Britons to “conversations about the purpose, relevancy and future of the Royal family”. What a gent! 

The Palace is said to be “dismayed” that Morgan has given away the names contained in Scobie’s book and is considering legal action. But Morgan may have done them a service, I reckon. The guessing game over which members of the Royal family supposedly wondered how dark Prince Archie’s skin colour might be has been a sword of Damocles dangling over the Royals since that notorious allegation was made in 2021. 

“WHAT?” gasped Oprah. As if no mixed-race family in human history had ever speculated on the appearance of a beautiful forthcoming baby (good luck finding one that doesn’t). 

With more kohl around her eyes than the love child of Cleopatra and a giant panda, and milking the moment for maximum soap-opera suds, the Duchess of Sussex played the part of the wronged relative to perfection. Nodding sorrowfully at Oprah’s horrified reaction, and with a fetching glisten of tears, she confided that, when she was pregnant, there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”. Her tone was soft, but her meaning could not have been harsher: “What a bunch of bigoted bastards I married into, right?” 

When Oprah asked for the names of the accused Royals, Duchess Disingenuous declined. “I think that would be very damaging to them,” said she solemnly. Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we, Meghan? Let’s just leave your unsubstantiated allegations, aka “speaking my truth”, to do their wicked work and cast a pall over the entire Windsor clan. 

If you were being cynical – forgive me, I find it hard to have any other reaction – you would have noticed that, in the bombshell interview (watched by 12.4 million people in the UK alone), Meghan weaponised two of the fashionable concerns of the age: race and mental health. It made it hard for the Palace to counter the Sussexes’ wounding charges. Prince William came closest when he snapped at a reporter: “We are very much not a racist family.” But the mud from Montecito stuck. 

That ticking timebomb exploded with the publication of the Dutch version of Omid Scobie’s book which, he was amazed to discover, revealed the identity of two senior Royals. Drat, those stupid, careless translators in the Netherlands generating several million pounds worth of free publicity! Funnily enough, my books have been translated into 32 languages and never once has anything I didn’t write personally been interpolated into the text. Translators as a breed are fastidious to a fault. I am prepared to bet the inflammatory addition to the Dutch version had nothing to do with them. 

What part, some of us are bound to wonder, did Meghan and Harry play in this latest tome which exempts the Sussexes from any blame in the family feud started by Meghan and Harry? Scobie appears to revel in the alleged animosity between King Charles and his heir while taking several swipes at “Katie Keen”. Our widely adored and admired Princess of Wales is painted as a “Stepford Wife” who was “cold” to Meghan. Sounds like Catherine is an excellent judge of character who saw a C-list American actress getting her talons into William’s nice but dim little brother. Kate’s instinctive mistrust of Meghan proved prophetic. She was Trouble with a capital t. 

Resenting the allegations that he acts as Meghan and Harry’s mouthpiece, Scobie claims the couple had no direct input into this volume, nor into his earlier portrait of them, Finding Freedom. That story came badly unstuck, however, when the Duchess of Sussex had to apologise in court for “failing to remember” authorising a senior aide to brief Scobie and his Finding Freedom co-author. In a devastating witness statement, Jason Knauf, the couple’s former press secretary, said the book was “discussed directly with the duchess multiple times in person and over email”. He also claimed Meghan provided him with several briefing points to share with Scobie at a meeting. Knauf says he emailed Prince Harry about the meeting, to which the Duke replied: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it. Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there.” 

My, what a tangled web those saintly Sussexes weave, eh? Their bitterness, a simmering desire to avenge the wrongs they believe were done to them, is in inverse proportion to the success of Megxit. When they quit the UK, the couple were convinced they could retain the privileges and commanding heft of Royalty while behaving like the Kardashians in coronets. Our late Queen wisely put a stop to that. Since then, there has been a seemingly unstoppable slide into failure and irrelevance. Meghan’s earnest identity politics and global humanitarianism have turned cheeky chappie Harry, once the public’s favourite Royal, into a bore with his smouldering, resentful stares and stupid “jobs”. 

With their power waning, little wonder the Sussexes have made it known that an invitation to spend Christmas with the relatives at Sandringham would be favourably looked upon. You can just imagine how much Queen Camilla, the Waleses and the magnificent Princess Royal would relish lectures around the fire on their “unconscious bias”. (I was delighted, although not surprised, to hear that it was apparently Anne who urged her brother, the King, following the publication of Spare, to frogmarch Meghan and Harry out of Frogmore Cottage). 

Well, they can forget that now. By publishing those two Royal names, Omid Scobie must have crushed any prospect of a reunion. This is war. Instead of legal action, the King should move swiftly to remove the titles of his younger son and his wife. Scobie called his book Endgame – the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. We all know who – and what – the monarchy is fighting. There can be only one winner.

Many Years in Captivity (the story of Stacey)

This whole Dr. Christopher Johnson scam reminds me of a person I used to go to school with. We were “sort of friends” from Grade 5 into junior high. Stacey (born "Anastasia" – but that’s not her real name) held some kind of strange social power that meant you were privileged to be in her friendship orbit. And she did have a sort of superficial attractiveness, though she was no beauty. But she ACTED beautiful (Meghan Markle comes to mind) and seemed to draw people to her like a magnet. Boys fell over each other to date her.  Stacey always got what she wanted, always won every argument, always got the highest grades in everything, and won lots of awards, which she received as if she was being crowned Miss America.

(Just to clarify: people have asked me if the images I used here are of Stacey. No, they're of me as a child  and adolescent. I just happen to like them.)

Still, there was something about her that everyone knew. She was dishonest. She was known to cheat on exams, and teachers knew about it and looked the other way. She stole other girls’ boyfriends. She even stole items from people’s lockers, and if you found out, you were supposed to feel flattered that she wanted your stuff. It was an honor to see her walking down the hall wearing one of your sweaters.

 After Grade 10 we went to different high schools, and I didn’t see her any more. Then a few years ago, I was on a Facebook page about the history of Chatham, Ontario where I grew up. It amazed me to see all sorts of familiar names in the comments, people I had not seen in years and years, including

.  . . you  guessed it! It was Stacey.

Her Facebook page was very interesting. Most of the photos featured her in elaborate yoga poses and modeling glamorous eveningwear. BUT, there was a strange subtitle on her home page banner that I didn’t understand. It said, “Enjoying life after many years in captivity.”

I thought, hmmm, does she mean she had a bad marriage, or what? It was hard to believe she’d stay in a relationship where she didn’t get everything she wanted. But there was more. There she was in a photo posing with a very familiar-looking guy, someone I knew from way back in Grade 5, announcing that they were engaged to be married! She included a description of how they met in elementary school in a special class for gifted children with Mensa-level IQs. Well, not quite – I was in that class, and it was one of those educational experiments of the 1960s in which every student learned at their own pace and only studied subjects they were interested in. The class was total anarchy and nobody learned much of anything, but Stacey thrived in it and soon went to the head of the class.

By this time I wasn’t surprised to see the names of all  sorts of people I had gone to school with in the comments, all congratulating her on her engagement, praising her for how beautiful and youthful she looked, etc. Somehow she was still attracting heaps of attention and praise.

I found all this fascinating and followed her for a while, though I did not contact her, feeling wary. Well, strange things began to happen. More and more of her material was being deleted from Facebook. The fiancé disappeared. Soon there was very little left at all except a name and one photo. Then even THAT was gone, along with the “many years in captivity”.

But then an even stranger thing happened. She popped up on YouTube.

She only had 11 subscribers and 4 videos, but I knew it was her by the familiar locations (she was evidently still in Chatham) and the sound of her voice. Then something even more weird happened. I began to see duplicate channels in her name. I counted four of them altogether, and they were virtually identical, with barely any subscribers and only a few very similar videos.

But why would anyone do this? Why would anyone set up multiple YouTube accounts with hardly any content?

It only made sense to me when the Dr. Christopher Johnson scam came up, and I saw that he too had several identical accounts with single-digit content. He seemed to be using them as a base for his scams, closing one and opening another if he got into trouble or was reported. Then I remembered “Enjoying life after many years in captivity”, and suddenly realized that Stacey must have done serious time for something. It was literal captivity, I think. At some point the law caught up with her, though I can’t imagine what she had done.

It could be she’s still trying to be that same charismatic, slippery character she was back in high school, running scams from her multiple YouTube channels at the age of 70. I guess today we’d call her a narcissist, but back then there was no name for it. I do remember crying in Grade 5 and my mother asking me what was the matter, and I tearfully said, “Stacey doesn’t like me any more.” Your self-esteem rose and fell according to your status in her friendship orbit. There is too little content in her videos to determine what her life is like today. but I’m glad I didn’t try to contact her. God knows what I might have gotten tangled up in.

UPDATE! I actually did find pictures of Stacey in the Chatham Daily News archive, but decided not to post them. But it’s definitely her, and I believe she has had a lot of work done.

Dr. Christopher Johnson: Who ARE you, anyway??

This is getting SO good! I just keep hearing from this guy on YouTube ("Dr. Christopher Johnson") who is trying to romance-scam me. I thought I'd recap the entire conversation so far! I am not kidding, I am copying and pasting this verbatim.

FROM: @dr.christopherjohnson34
TO: @ferociousgumby

Hello, I hope you're safe over there? I hope this year brings happiness, prosperity, love , and peace all over the world . I would love us to be good friends in honesty and in trust so as time goes on it will bring something great for us in the future, hope you don't mind? I'm Doctor Christopher Johnson from San Francisco, California, where are you from if I may ask?

@dr.christopherjohnson34 I'm from No Man's Land, Alaska. Wish you were here!

@ferociousgumby Hello dear, it’s my pleasure to meet you here, and am very happy How’s Alaska? I so much love Alaska because it’s such a beautiful state

@dr.christopherjohnson34 Actually, no, I lied. I live in Siberia. When you come to see me, bring your winter coat!

@ferociousgumby Hello dear
@ferociousgumby Are you still here
@ferociousgumby You just stopped talking to me
@ferociousgumby I would really love to know more about you but the nature of my job does not give me much time to come here to chat so I will appreciate it if we can chat somewhere more private and convenient so we can get to know each other better, hope you don't mind?

@dr.christopherjohnson34 I'll think about it, but I work on an oil rig and the thing exploded and they want me to pay for it. Could you please send me $400,000.00?

It was most gratifying to see this lady's video on this guy. Obviously, he has been around for a while and must have caught some fish. It isn't that hard to do.

For a while, until I got too disgusted to continue, I followed a channel called Catfished which dealt with romance scams. But the "victims", all ready to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars, were not even the clueless old people you'd think. No, they were people who wanted to dwell in the land of Make Believe. Even after the team completely debunked the scammer and traced all the messaging to Nigeria, 

There is an actual Dr. Christopher Johnson (though the name is generic enough to apply to lots of people) - quite a famous one, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills who caters to the stars and goes on Entertainment tonight, etc. So the scammer might have fished up a name that is vaguely familiar to people. From the photo on his channel home page, he has stolen an image of a middle-aged white guy posing with a little boy (they ALWAYS have one child, usually a son).

In answering this guy, and I strung him along for quite a while, I used reverse tactics and said I worked on an oil rig, had an accident and the company was making me pay for it - SO, could he please send me thousands of dollars in gift cards? Finally, he stopped pestering me and went on to his next victim.

He has several "dummy" channels with nothing on them, but the pictures are similar, stolen from somewhere. Meantime when I look at the stories of the "victims", their naivete is jaw-dropping. 

Some think they are being romanced by Johnny Depp or even Elon Musk, who has been cut out of his divorce settlement and needs grocery money. They accept and fork over half a million. And so on. I think these exchanges are great fun, but also kind of sad that these leeches continue to thrive on the stupidity of others. As P.  T. Barnum put it: "There's one born every minute."  

💗The Troll Doll Channel: DANCING TROLL Comes Alive!💗

This troll dances and crawls, but makes so much noise that I replaced the soundtrack with music. You'll thank me for that!

How the Prince Stole Christmas

Meghan and Harry move slammed as ‘narcissistic, delusional’

Prince William and Kate Middleton are reported to be holding on firm on a Meghan and Harry move that would leave them in “total humiliation”.

Daniela Elser

Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen … get out the gin, get out the port, hell, get out that forgotten half full bottle of duty-free Bacardi stashed in the Louis XIV sideboard. Christmas is officially a month away and on the menu for the royal family this year, alongside a roast turkey the size of a VW Beetle and crackers stuffed with Apple shares, is a fresh serving of drama.

(The House of Windsor! They’re just like us! Dysfunction for all!)

This year when King Charles and Queen Camilla and the extended royal tribe gather at Sandringham for their annual festive knees-up, it will seemingly be with Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales heaving huge sighs of relief and clutching at their G & Ts.

This week came the diabolically wild news that after all the tears, the interviews, the claims of unconscious bias and family callousness – and the non-sharing of lip gloss – Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have seemingly decided they fancy an invitation to a royal Christmas.

“I can’t imagine the Sussexes would decline an invitation to spend time with His Majesty,” a friend of the Californian court told the Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah. “As of yet, there have not been any invitations for the holidays.”
Experienced anglers know what this looks like – a line being thrown out, a spot of angling to see if Charles might bite and suddenly throw open the Sandringham doors to the Sussexes.

Harry and Meghan putting out feelers about a December Norfolk invitation, something they have eschewed now for years on end? That’s a sentence I never thought I would have to type out. (It’s up there with ‘Princess Anne debuts suit bought this century’ and ‘Camilla to do Veganuary’ in the probability stakes.)

The very prospect is enough to have one reaching for the cooking sherry for a quick midmorning swig.

You have to give it to Harry and Meghan, they are optimists – or, as a friend of Prince William’s has put it, “narcissistic and delusional”.

Let’s hope that Harry has not been eagerly waiting by their Montecito post box because the news is not good. (Pity the beefy bodyguards standing watch as the duke keeps opening the flap to check he hasn’t missed the gilt-embossed envelope.)

Charles has nipped this Sussex Christmas entreaty in the bud, with His Majesty reportedly unwilling to spend the holiday season discussing his sacral chakra or the rigours of getting a decent table at Nobu. The reason: the royal family aren’t entirely sure, reportedly, that if the Sussexes were to be there that whatever they say or do won’t find its way into print or end up being relayed, wide-eyed, to a nodding Oprah down the track.

Even if the King had been possibly tempted to let bygones be bygones and to submit to Meghan’s healing sage ceremony in the most flame-retardant Sandringham drawing room, his other son and future five pound note portrait William would have been dead set against it.

The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes has reported that the prince “would have been implacably opposed to joining any party for Christmas lunch which included Harry and Meghan.”

One friend of William’s told Sykes: “The whole idea of them coming for Christmas was typically narcissistic and delusional. There is no way William or Kate would want them there after what he wrote in his book. Would you want to sit down for a slap-up lunch with someone who had basically called you an asshole in public? It would be a total humiliation. William and Kate are never, ever going to sign up for that, and Charles wouldn’t ask them to.”

The Waleses’ reported refusal to come face-to-face with the Sussexes over priceless silver serving dishes of sprouts is entirely understandable. As we approach the one-year mark since the Sussex blitzkrieg of oversharing commenced in December 2022, the prince and princess have managed to make it through, though not without a few reputational dings.

The person who indisputably bore the brunt of the Sussexes’ opprobrium was William, a bloke who was painted as jealous, self-interested and a bit of a thug.

Nor did Kate escape unscathed, with the princess cast as having encouraged Harry to dressup as a Nazi and being squeamish about sharing her lip gloss with sister-in-law Meghan.

The Prince and Princess of Wales might be many things but masochists willing to endure the “total humiliation” of having to make nice with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex? N’est pas. I think we will sooner see Anne furiously peddling round Burning Man on a bicycle than this.

Hours after the news broke that the duke and duchess had failed to make the cut for Sandringham, there they were at an ice hockey game in Canada, drumming up support ahead of the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver and Whistler. The couple might not have seemed to have a care in the world as they clapped and cheered, but Charles has essentially just given his son the cut direct.

Blimey.

Adding insult to injury here is that while the Sussexes have been nixed, Camilla’s children and grandchildren are set to spend their very first Christmas right in the bosom of the royal family. Son Tom Parker Bowles and daughter Laura Lopes, and their five children, are about to, according to ITV’s Chris Ship, experience their first December 25th at Sandringham, alongside William and Kate and their small troop of tiny HRHs.

(Though the Waleses stay at their nearby Norfolk bolt hole Anmer Cottage, barely making do with 10 bedrooms and only one tennis court.)

The moral of the story here: Camilla has won. Her Majesty might have, according to Harry, “left bodies in the street” in her journey towards the throne but on Christmas Day this year, it will be the King and Queen’s blended families pulling crackers and gorging on figgy pudding.

If Harry is writing a letter to Santa this year, he might want to add some nice note paper, perfect for a reluctant semi-apology to his ‘Pa’, that is, if he wants to see a groaning Sandringham buffet anytime in his future.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

A HORSE IS PLAYING THE PIANO WITH ITS NOSE

Because why not. This silly video is still getting comments and likes after about 5 years!

FEEDING FRENZY on the Lake (They're eating out of my hand!)

Yet another magical afternoon on Burnaby Lake. Paloma, the white dove who has chosen a pigeon as her mate, still hangs around, but she does look uncomfortable. There were several doves hanging around the dock, in fact, all banded, so they were likely domestic birds that escaped or (I hope not!) were released  In fact, I swear I saw BLACK doves as well as white, though I've never heard of such a thing. 

The thing is, people now do "dove releases" at weddings and other events, and though they're marginally better than the balloon releases that leave TONS of slimy latex choking the waterways every year, there must be at least a few doves who lose their way and never come back. Like this one. I do wonder how long she will survive in a wild setting, even with a male pigeon protecting her. 

We have seen white barnyard ducks at the Burnaby Lake dock - three, then two, then one, then none - as predators picked them off for an easy meal (domestic birds not being street-smart like their wild counterparts). And then there was Bosley the magpie duck, who survived for many years in Lake Lafarge before being killed by a predator, along with his mate Belinda. 

The decline and fall of a spare heir

 

JAN MOIR: If Harry shovels steaming manure onto the family fruit patch, he should expect a rich crop of raspberries in return

By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:58 EST, 16 November 2023 | Updated: 08:17 EST, 17 November 2023

It still seems weird and somehow wrong that news about the British Royal Family is discussed first on U.S. outlets such as talk show host Kelly Ripa's podcast and on the pages and website of People magazine — next to stories about the Kardashians and actor Will Smith denying he slept with a man.

However, this is the world the Duke and Duchess of Sussex live in, this is the prism through which they are now viewed, this is where the absurd vanilla puffery of their softest-scoop ice cream is peddled in the hope that it will be swallowed whole.

Reactions may vary, as well as recollections. Some might even choke on the first mouthful.

Omid Scobie's new book Endgame is out at the end of this month and an extract has appeared in People magazine.

American readers might be surprised to learn that, according to this highly partisan account, the death of Queen Elizabeth II was not about the passing of a much-loved monarch and a sombre moment for British people and our shared history — it was all about Prince Harry.

Although Harry and Meghan have indicated they had nothing to do with the book, there is a great deal about who told him what and when about our 96-year-old Queen's final decline.

Also his travel arrangements to Balmoral, his disappointments about this and that, his sour surprise that not only was his welcome home far from warm, but that Meghan's presence at the Queen's deathbed was surplus to requirements, too. God knows what could have caused such family froideur!

Anyone with any ideas should write them on a silenced- not-silent postcard and send it to: The Toxic Racist Windsor Rotters, c/o Broken Dog Bowl Alley, London.

According to Endgame, Harry was especially peeved that his brother did not respond to his texts when he was trying to cadge a lift to Scotland on the RAF jet that flew Prince William, Prince Andrew and the Wessexes.

You have to laugh. What did Harry expect? If you shovel endless steaming manure onto the family fruit patch, surely you must expect a rich crop of raspberries in return?

Every action has a reaction and every piece of treachery is another brick in the royal ramparts.

The walls between the brothers are now so high that apparently William refuses to even 'properly talk' with Harry, while Harry is still moping about, seeking 'an apology or accountability'. From William to him, rather than the other way around. Cue even more sardonic laughter.

No doubt more Endgame extracts and leaks will be coming soon, but I am exhausted by it already.

Dear God, surely not more Sussexian victimhood? When are they ever going to wake up and smell the wellness- focused instant latte or count their many blessings?

Harry and Meghan now have two beautiful, healthy children, a gorgeous home in California, a chicken coop, free tickets to Beyonce and Katy Perry pop concerts and millions in the bank.

They have rich and powerful supporters on their side, including billionaire television producer Tyler Perry.

It was Perry who facilitated their initial entry into America, providing his lavish California estate as a sanctuary. Not many refugees fleeing tyranny are the beneficiaries of such largesse!

Perry was on Kelly Ripa's show this week, revealing how Meghan got in touch with him after he sent her a note of support.

They had not long been friends, but that didn't stop Perry becoming Princess Lilibet's godfather.

Meghan is not the first ambitious mother who selected a wealthy and well-connected patron to become a godfather to her children — but the shock is how little it took.

A few phone calls and the loan of a house? Honey, I pimped the kids.

What I am wondering is how much more of this can we all take? Harry and Meghan have found their freedom, they have made their great escape — can't they now just enjoy it all instead of endlessly picking at the royal scab and whining to their proxy, Omid Scobie? Or to their proxy's proxy?

Of course, as a one-dimensional author of limited scope, Scobie must stoke the fires of grievance and discontent between the exiled Sussexes and the core royals, otherwise he doesn't have a book, a narrative, a purpose, or indeed a pay cheque.

Even he must be alarmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are now denying that they are 'affiliated' with him in any way, although we have been here before. Denials that the Sussex camp had helped with his previous biography, Finding Freedom, turned out to be untrue.

Whatever, however, moreover — I think we can all agree that this endless drip of gripe and spite from a prince is the sign of a man who lost his way a long, long time ago.

The Troll Doll Channel: Best UnBoxing EVERRRRR!!

Such a hilarious time we had last night, unboxing a truly exotic dancing, crawling troll from Greece! She was even wrapped in Greek newspapers. The whole family got into the act.

 

AUTOTUNE CAT!

I can't remember if I posted this or not - so here it is again! This one jumped to over 2,000 views overnight, on a channel that's lucky to get 100. Don't  know why, because very similar cat videos hardly get any at all. Oh well, I guess  YouTube is just  as capricious as life itself.

The MR. PEANUT Talent Hour! (Bizarre '50s kiddie show)

Calling it talent is stretching a point. From a klutzy tap-dancer who can't quite stick the landings, to a woman puppeteer talking to her hand, to a terrifying man in a giant peanut suit, this is a lineup you won't forget, try as you might. And then there's the barbershop quartet.

And in case you start to forget who the sponsor of all this talent is, the lady with the thingie on her hand pulls jar after jar of Planter's products out of a basket, to the great enthusiasm of the thing on her hand (which looks a bit like a dog in a peanut suit) which keeps "talking" to her (whispering in her ear, of course, which lets her out of any attempt at ventriloquism). Then the peanut man shows us how to spread peanut butter on crackers.

Most of these kinds of shows disappeared into the ether, being live, or if taped were mercifully erased to make way for quiz shows. But I follow a YouTube channel called Free the Kinescopes!, which has a surprising array of "stuff" like this, almost unbelievably bad, but no doubt considered a wonder at the time. Early TV was either radio with pictures, or VERY bad vaudeville-type variety programming like this.

Stalking the Great Blue Heron

This was one of those magical moments of birdwatching that only comes about through patience and attentiveness. Birdwatching has saved my life in the past few years (along with troll-collecting, of course!), as it forced me to go out even during the bleakest point in the pandemic. It also requires that you be in the moment, and each time you go out, it's different. There can be mobs of birds, or virtually none. This heron was stately in his wading and fishing, and did not seem bothered by me on the shore as I followed him along. Finally he spread his vast wings and sailed away over Como Lake.

Some words to live by

 

The Troll Doll Channel: 💦I give my Dirty Trolls a BATH!💦

I seldom wash a troll's hair unless it's seriously dirty or sticky. The color can actually leach out, and the texture become frizzy and dry. But in this case there was serious dirt in the ceramic troll's hair. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was a bloody mess: though it was obviously meant to be pink, it was more of a stringy brown, especially at the ends. My cave troll was in better shape hair-wise, but I felt he still needed work. Pinkie first got a thorough shampoo, in which I really had to work the dirt out, and rinse and rinse. Cave guy was more of a swish job, but once it had been wet and fluffed and dried, a miracle happened and the mohair doubled or tripled in volume, while maintaining the nice wooly texture and contrasting coloiurs. My troll vids are getting VERY low views now, while some of my others are getting hundreds or even thousands - so I've had to adjust my expectations, though of all my videos, the bird ones and the troll ones are the most gratifying. They've helped me keep those vital hobbies going, and I have to sometimes tell myself - if even ONE person looks at my videos, it's one more than would have seen them if I didn't bother. So. . . I bother. 

The Prince and the Fraud: Prince Harry and Gabor Mate

 

'Trauma expert' Gabor Mate says he bitterly REGRETS controversial Prince Harry interview because of 'demeaning, dismissive' backlash he faced - saying 'foofoo' surrounding it took over his life and made him 'lose himself'

• Harry's conversation with the doctor, 79, was fiercely scrutinized back in March
• At the time, it was revealed Gabor had previously made anti-Zionist comments
• He has now addressed the backlash, admitting that it left him in a 'dark place'

'Trauma expert' Gabor Maté has admitted that he regrets his controversial interview with Prince Harry because the 'foofoo' surrounding it took over his entire life and made him 'lose himself.'

Back in March, the Duke of Sussex, 39, spoke with the the Hungarian-Canadian doctor, 79, about 'living with loss and the importance of personal healing,' while promoting his memoir Spare.

During their sit-down, which was live-streamed on the web and cost $33 to watch, Harry made a series of bombshell claims about growing up as a royal.

The conversation was fiercely scrutinized, especially after it was brought to light that Gabor had made a series of eyebrow-raising comments in the past - like comparing Hamas to the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, defending Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilians, and branding Israel's government as terrorists.

He is also an outspoken supporter of decriminalizing drugs, and has used the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness. 

Now, the author and physician has addressed the public's 'demeaning, dismissive, and distorted' reaction to his chat with Harry, while revealing that it left him in a really 'dark place.'

'There was an incredible social media reaction to it, which was, for the most part, so negative and so demeaning and so dismissive and so distorted,' he said during a recent appearance on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast.

'I barely even know how to talk about it. I thought by this age I would know better, but you know what, it really got to me.'

Gabor said the backlash left him in a 'really negative state of mind' and feeling like he 'lost himself' - leading to him eventually reaching out to a psychiatrist for help.

'I was in a dark place, I'm a human being like the rest,' he continued. 'It's so difficult to ask for help but I did.'

He accused the media of twisting his words and recalled them calling him things like 'stern, overbearing, and a merchant of pain.'

After speaking to a psychiatrist, however, Gabor said he later realized that his problems didn't have to do with the criticism, but rather, stemmed from an 'old unresolved wound' from his past. 

According to Gabor, he had reservations about talking to Harry from the start, since he was uncomfortable with the idea of making people pay to watch it.

Gabor said the backlash put him a 'really negative state of mind' and resulted in him feeling like he 'lost himself' during an appearance on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast

The conversation was live-streamed on the web and tickets were priced at $33. People who watched it received a copy of Harry's book, Spare

'I had a gut feeling all along that I shouldn't agree the way they set it up. Because the way it was set up, to watch it, people had to buy a copy of Harry's book,' he explained. 

'I thought, "This is not fair, four million people have already bought the book. Why can't they watch this interview?" They had to buy another copy. 

'I believed this should be a free public service from two people who are having a very interesting conversation. 

'But out of sheer opportunism I agreed to it. I didn't follow my gut feeling. I agreed to something that I didn't really like. 

'Not that I didn't like the idea of talking with him, I didn't like the idea of putting myself behind a pay wall. I lost myself just in agreeing to do it.'

Despite his regrets about the interview, Gabor insisted that he 'doesn't care' what the public thinks of him anymore.

But he said he wants people to 'see him' for who he is and 'not some distorted version.'

'I don't care if people agree with me or if they refute my ideas, but I want them to see me and what I'm actually saying, not some distorted version created by their own minds,' he concluded. 

'So what if someone says [something bad about me]. I don't live in the press. I don't live in someone else's mind. Here I am. Let them think and say what they want.'

Gabor said that after the interview, he had to reach out to a psychiatrist for help, adding, 'I was in a dark place, I'm a human being like the rest.' Harry is seen during their chat

Gabor has more than two decades of experience working with people suffering from addiction and mental illness - and he fiercely believes that all of the problems we face as adults stem from trauma we endured as children. 

Gabor has been scrutinized for comparing Hamas to the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, defending Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilians, and branding Israel's government as terrorists

He himself had a traumatic upbringing. He was born in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944, and when he was five months old his maternal grandparents were among the Jews murdered in Auschwitz. He was then taken from his mother and hidden with an aunt until the war ended. 

He is an outspoken supporter of decriminalizing drugs, and has used the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness. 

The psychedelic plant, which is taken as a brewed drink, causes people to experience hallucinations and other side effects, including vomiting - something Prince Harry has admitted to using to manage his 'trauma and pain.'

It remains illegal in the US, UK, and Canada, and in 2011, Canadian officials threatened to arrest Dr Maté if he didn't stop using the drug to treat his patients. 

On top of his shocking anti-Zionist comments, Gabor has also contributed to a pro-Kremlin website that defends brutal regimes around the world and has spoken warmly of the spittle-flecked Pink Floyd star and alleged 'Putin apologist' Roger Waters.

OK THEN! Time for the blogger to intervene.

I have too much to say about Gabor Mate (and won't write a poem about him, though I think I did once). I did meet the man back in 2003, interviewing him for January Magazine, an online publication which never paid me one red cent for all my hard work. He had just written his second book, When the Body Says No, which is one of those titles that sounds like a lot, but means very little. 

I think I was taken in by his guru-hood even then, though at the time he was still an actual doctor, a family practitioner working on the  cruel streets of Vancouver. He even gave me a tour of his downtown office, and showed me around the sights, i. e. the various addicts standing around in their different states of dereliction. He seemed hyper, severe, with an unreadable face that I was soon to learn only had one expression.

He's likely the only person I ever met who doesn't smile. I mean, he doesn't. In the rare "smiling" photos, it's more like a wince, with alarmingly dead eyes. He never laughs - I mean, he does not laugh. He was full of bombast during our coffee talks, but had no real warmth, no sense of the joy of living. In fact, I consider him one of the most joyless human beings I've ever met. And he cannot survive if he is not playing the role of the perpetual saviour.

Unfortunately, this has worked all too well for him, and his fans are cultish in their devotion. One even described him as "like having Jesus back here on earth". When you look at his detestable pro-Hamas views, his baffling and even frightening alliance with Russia, you've got to wonder how Jesus could have gotten so fucked up.

At any rate, though there's more, I am weary of the subject already and don't want to waste another brain cell on him. For all his Messianic posturing, the guy is about as resilient as an ice cube on a hot summer's day. There's no "there" there, no real substance, and no real joy.

The doctor has been unmasked, and he cannot stand it.. In one breath he says people's comments nearly destroyed him, then immediately says he does not care two figs about what anyone says. Hypocrisy, much? Or is his memory so faulty he doesn't remember what he said just a minute ago?