SQUIRREL!

NEVER let it be said that Prince Charles does not have a proper job. While commoner politicians have spent the past week running around like Chicken Licken on magic mushrooms, the Queen’s oldest son has been doing what he does best: adding to the gaiety of the nation.
Besides celebrating his 70th birthday with a party at his mum’s house, providing lots of lovely photo opportunities of various royals sweeping through gates, he has been editing the new edition of Country Life.
In a piece for the magazine he paints a charming picture of life at Birkhall, his home on the Queen’s Balmoral estate, and a place where red squirrels roam.
He writes: “They come into the house at Birkhall and we get them chasing each other round and round the inside. If I sit here quietly, they will do so around me. Sometimes when I leave my jackets on a chair with nuts in the pockets, I see them with their tails sticking out, as they hunt for nuts – they are incredibly special creatures.”
Interviewed elsewhere in the magazine, his son, Prince William, says his father has given names to the squirrels.
Not to be outdone on the amusing diversion front, it was also revealed this week that the Queen eats bananas with a knife and fork. In a new book, Eating Royally, her former chef Darren McGrady says the monarch cuts the skin off and slices the fruit into chunks.
It all goes to confirm that to be truly posh is to live in a foreign country where they definitely do things differently. Truly posh is not the same as rich. The truly posh, or those who reckon they are, can usually detect those who are not, as when Alan Clark, brilliant diarist, awful snob, and former Tory minister, noted that it had been said of Michael Heseltine: "The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy his own furniture.” The remark, attributed to the Tory chief whip at the time and published in Clark’s diaries for 1983-92, has dogged Heseltine ever since.
There will always be rich folk who like the idea of being truly posh, who want to fake it till their children eventually make it. Clark, ironically, fits into this category. His father, the art historian and broadcaster Kenneth Clark, bought his own castle. He, in turn, had benefited from a family wealth that came from textiles.
For the benefit of wannabes everywhere, and as part of this column’s endless quest to be helpful, here is a rough guide to being a truly posh (TP) person.
First, TP people only wear old clothes, with the ideal garment being three times the age of one’s oldest black Lab. Bought originally for a pretty penny, clothes are worn till they fall apart, and even then are put aside reluctantly. This is why TP people are often seen in holey or darned jumpers.
Second, TP people live in cold homes. Witness those photos of the Queen at Balmoral with a cheap fan heater in the background. It is too expensive to heat big houses, so TP people become accustomed to the cold. They even like to boast about it and can become fiercely competitive with each other about how many extremities they have lost to frostbite.
Next, would-be TP people should wave cheerio to package holidays. If one must go abroad when there is a perfectly good Scotland to roam around, it should be to stay at a friend’s house for free while they, in turn, take over your pile.
There is much more wisdom that could be dispensed, about TP people only eating the plainest of foods, for example, but by now you will be getting the gist. In essence, being truly posh is like being really poor, except it is much more fun. The posh already live like one of Pulp’s Common People, with the added advantage of being able to escape back to their home comforts whenever they like. Smart, eh?
So there we are. If you want to take your mind off Brexit Armageddon this weekend, have a go at being truly posh, including, as per Charles, inviting squirrels into your home for a run around. I hear the grey ones are such fun.

TAKING A PASTING

PLANNING a wedding for next year? Then you might like to get along to B&Q to pick up some wallpaper samples PDQ.
Following the example set by Gywneth Paltrow – and who among us doesn’t – it is now the done thing for couples to decorate their wedding marquee with wallpaper. In Gwynnie’s case, it was hand-painted gorgeousness from De Gournay at several hundred quid per panel.
Wallpaper in general is reportedly making a comeback. But as those of us who lived through the 1970s are only too aware, it has to be handled carefully, like dynamite. Many were the folk who dabbled in a “bold” pattern, only to be driven slowly mad by it. Where does such daring end? In an avocado bathroom suite, that’s where.
It is plain irresponsible of Gwynnie to start the unwary down this road. Who does she think she is? True cognoscenti know the real queen of wallpaper will always be Hilda Ogden and her “Muriel”. Gwynnie and Hilda: style sisters forever.

TRUMP THAT

JUST as Michelle Obama’s star rises ever further, so that of the current First Lady looks in danger of waning.
Melania Trump has rarely seemed at ease in the role. Every now and then she has put a toe in public life only to withdraw again as if in shark infested waters. Then there are the missteps, including the curious case of the parka with the phrase, “I really don’t care. Do U?” emblazoned on the back.
In general, she has left the job of generating bad headlines and taking flak to her other half. Now, however, she is in the news after calling for Mira Ricardel, deputy national security adviser, to be sacked. It is thought the two women clashed over Ms Ricardel’s insistence on going along when the First Lady went to Africa.
Far from retreating, Mrs Trump is doubling down and attacking the media for “ridiculing” her anti-bullying initiative at the same time as her husband continues to verbally pummel critics on social media. Her own Twitter feed remains as chirpy and sweet as a day old chick, and here is hoping it stays that way. The world is just about coping with one furiously tweeting Trump. 

TO SHINE OR NOT TO SHINE

ALTHOUGH the Brexit debacle has a while to play out yet, it is already becoming clear who is having a “good” crisis and who is faring less well.
We refer to the important people in this matter: the media, of course. You, mere mortal, may be worried sick about job losses and rising interest rates, but it is simply not possible to care about all the people all the time. The way some politicians are carrying on, they don’t seem to give a fig about anyone or anything save for their own careers.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg is putting in her usual Stakhanovite shift across television, radio and social media. There is a touch of the drama queen about Ms K, as there is with a lot of political editors on television. The job requires a strong personality, and Kuenssberg is cut from the same cloth as John Cole and Andrew Marr before her. 
Her ITV counterpart, Robert Peston, is even more actorly, so much so that one half expects him to appear on News at Ten with a skull in his hand.