A Right Royal Rant

Have you read Hilary Mantel’s attack on Katherine, the Duchess of Cambridge?  Amongst the many unkind things she said were that Kate had no personality and was a plastic princess designed to breed. If Hilary has children presumably she was also ‘designed to breed’.  If not perhaps it is pure jealousy over Kate being pregnant.  How dare someone who has no good reason (and can there ever be a good reason for all the vile comments she made) attack a perfectly blameless girl who never did anyone any harm?  It is so horrible.  A classic example of foul, distasteful and quarrelsome writing with no purpose other than self-aggrandisement.

It’s a nasty piece of writing from a nasty piece of work.  I don’t know Kate so I have no idea what personality she has.  Hilary Mantel doesn’t know Kate either but on the basis of Kate’s public face – which her role in life requires her to display – she has judged Kate as having none.  How in earth can you make that judgement without knowing someone?  I didn’t do stand-up jokes in my work place.  Should all my former work colleagues have therefore assumed I had no sense of humour?  I never swore in work – does that mean all my former colleagues should assume I never do swear or that nothing ever fazes me or annoys me?  I was never seen without a tie in work.  Does that mean I always wore a tie out of work as well. Of course not.  How would anyone have the right to describe me simply from my behaviour and appearance in work?

And yet, out of the blue, simply for a bit of self-publicity this Hilary Mantel has seen fit to judge and attack the Duchess of Cambridge calling her things like a plastic Princess, a breeding machine and so on.  Apart from one aspect of the behaviour of one female American politician I have never used this blog to attack anyone.  Never until today, that is.  Now her behaviour makes me want to attack Hilary Mantel but how do I do so?  I don’t even know the woman and unlike her I can’t just invent things.

Two things I can make a reasonable judgement about Hilary Mantel though.  Firstly, her writing has never deserved the acclaim and prizes it has won.  In my review of Wolf Hall – done long before this controversy – I rated it only eight out of ten and made the comment that "When The Times called it ‘The most gripping story you’ll ever read’  they lied but it is a passable historical novel."  Wolf Hall is by no means the best historical novel I have read and the reason for its Booker Prize I have yet to fathom out.  In particular I really dislike Hilary Mantel’s use of the word ‘He’.  I was taught that ‘he’ referred to the last male mentioned.  Sometimes Hilary obeys that rule but equally frequently she uses it to refer to Cromwell even if he wasn’t the last person mentioned.  It’s so confusing and whilst it may be a clever style it’s so difficult to follow at times that one has to re-read a paragraph to understand who the ‘He’ is.  That may seem like a petty thing but when it goes from start to finish it’s very off-putting.

A comment on my review said “My daughter gave the book to me for Christmas a couple of years ago. She should have blown the money on riotous living instead!” 

And secondly, in my view, she is very unattractive.  I have never said that about anyone before and probably never will again but I think she has made herself fair game.  However, I leave you to judge for yourself.

Her frozen smile looks like an advert for botox gone wrong.  How can someone whose face looks like that of a blow-up doll (not that I am overly familiar with such things) talk about the ‘plastic Princess’?  As a friend of mine said ‘How much did that face cost you, Hilary? I’d as ask for my money back!’ 

Despite not being a royalist, as you may have gathered the whole affair annoyed me. 

Rant over!!

P.S. At least Kate doesn't need to rely on publicity shots taken fifteen years ago! 

Rant now really over!!!!