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JANE MOORE
Poor Kate’s planned absence from royal duties is not some sinister mystery that needs to be solved
A not so surprising fact about obesity is shocking nobody
IS that Kate pictured in a car with William, or a Putin-style stand-in?
Is that actually her in the Mother’s Day photo, or has she photoshopped her own head in?
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Is all this nonsense a sign that everyone has lost their minds?
Er, yes.
Kate had three God- awful pregnancies that made her feel very sick.
And now she’s had an “abdominal” operation which, while the details remain undisclosed, is highly likely to require not only bed rest in the immediate aftermath but time to rebuild her strength too.
READ MORE ON KATE MIDDLETON
So schlepping to, let’s say, Uttoxeter to press flesh at a new council facility is quite rightly off the menu for a while.
Yet still, conspiracy theorists online are treating her continued and, crucially, planned absence as if it’s some sinister mystery that needs to be solved.
Poor woman.
Does she have to post a video of her holding today’s Sun to prove she’s alive?
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Even then, some numb nut would claim it had been deep-faked.
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Editor of The Sun newspaper Victoria Newton says it's time to give the Princess of Wales a break from the backlash to her edited Mother's Day photo
Brave Earl
GROWN men often turn misty-eyed with nostalgia when they reminisce about losing their virginity to the babysitter who was supposed to be looking after them.
There’s even songs about a boy’s sexual awakening at the hands of an older woman.
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“Wake up, Maggie, I think I got some-thin’ to say to you, it’s late September and I really should be back at school,” followed by, “The mornin’ sun when it’s in your face really shows your age . . . ” sings Rod Stewart in Maggie May.
Or how about Bobby Goldsboro’s Summer (The First Time) . . . “She was 31 and I was 17, I knew nothing ’bout love, she knew everything . . . ” after which she apparently chased “the boy in you away” and he “saw the sun rise as a man”.
So when Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer revealed to certain male friends that he’d been sexually abused from the age of 11 by an assistant matron at his boarding school, he says they tended at first to “give me a laddish thumbs-up” and say ‘lucky you!’
He responded: “Would you say that if the genders were reversed? You know, if it was a 20-year-old man sexually molesting an 11-year-old girl?
“Then they get it,” he adds.
In his memoir, out now, he reveals in heartbreaking detail how the woman he describes as a “voracious paedophile” abused her position of power at Maidwell Hall school near Northampton to emotionally manipulate and sexually abuse him and other young boys.
All credit to him for speaking out, because in a world where predatory behaviour is generally viewed as an issue of older men preying on young girls, it’s a salutary reminder that the supposedly fairer sex can be the perpetrators of this terrible crime too.
And that because it often isn’t viewed as seriously, it can take much longer for victims to recognise it and come to terms with the damage caused.
Charles, now Earl Spencer, says it wasn’t until he had therapy in his early forties that he fully understood the impact it has had on his life and subsequent relationships, not least paying a prostitute at the age of 12 to lose his virginity.
“I was simply completing the pro-cess set in motion by the assistant matron’s perverted attention,” he says now.
“Afterwards, I felt hollow and cold.”
To make matters worse, there were also two “terrifying and sadistic” male teachers who regularly beat the boys and ensured they left school “with demons sewn into the seams of our souls”.
He adds: “Innocence, trust, joy — all were trampled on and diminished in that outdated, snobbish, vicious little world that English high society constructed and endorsed, handed over to the care of people who could be very dangerous indeed.”
Horrible memories
The men — headmaster John Porch and Latin master Henry Maude — are both dead, but Charles has no idea what happened to the assistant matron, who regularly sexually assaulted him and had full intercourse with some of his contemporaries.
Charles, who hasn’t named her, says she would now be in her late sixties, has married at least twice and probably now lives abroad or is dead.
In 2015 he contacted a lawyer to explore taking legal action against her, but the horrible memories it provoked made him realise it was beyond him at that point.
Yet now he has gone public with his private pain, he will undoubtedly hear from others who also fell victim to a female paedophile and wish to thank him for giving them a voice.
And I hope it gives him the strength required to track down that woman and drag her to court.
After all, she happily wreaked damage on him and her other victims, so why the hell should she get off Scot free?
Don't underestimate AI
OVER half the staff who use AI say it’s no quicker than their normal way of working.
That may be.
But it will get better and, unlike them, it won’t go sick, take holidays or bleat about wanting to work from home/beach on Fridays and Mondays.
So trust me, you under- estimate it at your peril.
Brad luck, Cooper
POOR Bradley Cooper.
I opened my fridge door the other day and there he was, promoting the movie Maestro in which he plays (excellently, I might add) the late composer Leonard Bernstein.
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But despite campaigning hard for that elusive Best Actor Oscar, it was stolen from under his nose by the laid-back Cillian Murphy, who makes no secret of his dislike of the promotional circuit.
Twas ever thus.
The try-hards always lose out to the hard-to-gets.
A bit like dating, really.
Fat facts
THE children of obese parents are six times more likely to struggle with weight in middle age, says a new study.
Next week: Bears defecate in the woods.
Jake's mistake
YOUTUBER Jake Paul is taking on heavy- weight boxing legend Mike Tyson in a fight on July 20.
“Iron” Mike may be 30 years older than 27-year-old Jake, but don’t be fooled: His ruthless mindset remains undimmed.
Famously, when one of his former opponents was being given a “you can beat him” pep talk in the dressing room by his manager, Mike’s fist suddenly appeared through the adjoining wall.
So good luck Jake.
Sounds like you’re going to need it.
Oscar for best actress in a leading roll goes to . . .
MY first thought when I saw this Oscar attendee falling on the red carpet was: “Who the hell is that?”
Turns out it’s someone called Liza Koshy, who acted in Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, a cinematic gem untroubled by any nominations.
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But it seems there was an ulterior motive for the Academy handing her such a hot ticket – she’s a YouTuber with an impressive 17million subscribers and her content has amassed more than three billion views.
A source says: “The Academy needs to connect with a younger audience, which is why they’re inviting influencers with millions of followers. They’re hoping Ken will go viral.”
But Ryan Gosling had to rehearse like a dervish, don pink sparkles and sing his heart out to go viral as Ken.
All Liza had to do is put on a pair of eight-inch heels and take a tumble.
What a web of liars
THE onward march of social media madness continues apace.
But even by the loony-tunes standards of its darkest recesses, it takes some beating that the biological mother of three children is enduring claims that she was born a man.
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Brigitte Macron has kept a dignified silence, but her husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, has said the rumours are “fabricated”.
Pas de merde.
Her daughter Tiphaine speaks for all of us when she says: “I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about my mother being a man.”
Quite.
Leggy success
ELLE MacPHERSON says true beauty comes from “a pure expression of who you really are.”
Hear, hear.
But it also helps to have legs up to your armpits.
Rough justice
SAS veteran Andy McNab says it’s “madness” that five members of his former regiment are being investigated for killing a terror suspect.
“The SAS are in the business of killing people – it’s not a knitting circle,” he says.
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Indeed.
As George Orwell once said: “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Book off
PRINCE HARRY’S memoir Spare has been shortlisted for two prizes at the British Book Awards.
Surprisingly, neither category is fiction.