VIC MATUS

Washington Free Beacon

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Weekend Beacon: Behind the Scenes at Buckingham Palace
Also: How criminals are made, the difference between "jacked," "swole," and "yolked," and from the archives: Ukraine under siege
Vic Matus
Mar 1

February 28 - March 1, 2026

As we continue to monitor events, rest assured you can count on the Weekend Beacon to bring you the latest news from abroad. We begin with Dominic Green‘s review of The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess
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“Paul Burrell was a footman to Queen Elizabeth II from 1976 to 1987, and then an eyewitness to the marriage of Prince Charles, who is now King Charles III, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, who is now beatified as a human sacrifice to the House of Windsor. The Royal Insider is a cattily camp, tittle-tattling tell-all in the finest traditions of royal biography. It is also an autobiography, self-serving in its shameless autotherapy. Serious scholars of Windsor whispering may be tempted to skim the story of Burrell’s lonely childhood and troublesome prostate, the faster to gorge on his generous dollops of behind-the-scenes gossip. That would be a mistake. The Royal Insider is a study in the psychology of service.”

“Elizabeth’s palate never matured beyond teenage sweetness, so she stuck with German whites at lunch, but the Queen Mother loved a ‘full-bodied claret.’ Burrell poured vintage Chateau Margaux into a crystal decanter, then left it to warm on a hot plate, so it could be drunk ‘at the temperature of mulled wine,’ just as ma’am liked it. She also loved champagne but not the bubbles, so she stirred them out of her glass with a ‘special ivory swizzle stick.’ The reader begins to understand why the French invented the guillotine.”

“Our periwigged lurker calls Charles III ‘spoiled and eccentric.’ His valet squeezes the toothpaste onto the royal brush using a silver key, to avoid waste. He expects the cord on the royal pajamas to be ironed flat, like his shoelaces. ... He and Diana fought viciously: ‘Having set a candle-lit dinner for two on a card table, I arrived in the sitting room to find Charles crumpled on the floor in his silk dressing gown, covered in salad dressing and surrounded by broken china and glass.’ Prince Harry has ‘a wrecking-ball mentality and seems to be living his own Truman Show.’ The freeloading playmate of Jeffrey Epstein previously known as Prince Andrew ‘isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.’ Burrell also calls Andrew ‘out of touch and removed from ordinary life.’ This was written before Andrew found himself in touch with the British police and removed from ordinary life to a police station for the night.”