In light of new information, I hope the government will consider immediately reclassifying at least three career pathways as automatically worthy of a Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa. A few days after the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s baby, but a good six months into discussion of the event, it really is difficult to imagine that any job, at all, could be judged more skilled than “royal expert”, “body language expert” or “royal body language expert”. If things such as neurosurgeon and comic actor have to be bumped down to make way for these most awe-inspiring of technical disciplines, then so be it.
Without further ado, then, let us see which royal experts are distinguishing themselves most royally in their many media bookings following the birth of the royal baby. Incidentally, I should stress I am approaching them in no particular order of merit. To decide whether “baby name expert SJ Ljungstrom” is more or less vital to our national discourse than “body language expert Judi James” feels like forcing us to choose between air or water. No civilised country should require such compromises.
But given the name of the new baby is as good a place to start as any, let us begin there. Harper’s Bazaar magazine went for “the prowess of baby name expert SJ Ljungstrom, from parenting website Channel Mum”. According to SJ, Archie means “bold and brave”, suggesting she graduated summa cum laude from the “can use Google” module of her course.
This skill secured her appearances in numerous publications after the name was announced on Wednesday afternoon – and I’m thrilled SJ felt confident enough to get back on to the horse again, having spent the days before the announcement giving quotes such as: “One unusual choice they could consider is Seth.” Right. Here was the science bit: “It’s the most popular boy’s name in Botswana where Harry and Meghan fell in love – and Meghan also has a Botswana diamond in her engagement ring – so it would seal their love in the most romantic way as well as paying homage to Africa and the Commonwealth, which they both adore.”
Having expertly suggested Seth, SJ went for alternatives: “An outside choice would be Dorian, the male version of Meghan’s mother’s name Doria,” she theorised. “Although reasonably popular in the States and honouring the steadfast support from her mother, it may meet resistance in the UK due to negative connotations from the Oscar Wilde play The Portrait of Dorian Gray.” I cannot think of a more expert piece of expertise than the notion of UK “resistance” rising up in fury at the “negative connotations” of a reference to the “play” – I’m sorry, I’m running out of quotation marks here, but I do have one more set to use – “The Portrait of Dorian Gray”. Which, if we are being fussy about names, we must assume to be a reference to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Slightly less expert Googling than on the Archie front, it must be said, but all in all SJ is one of my favourite new royal experts and she is duly welcomed to the Pantheon.
Moving on to body language, there is simply no one to touch body language expert Judi James – but if there were, she would be on hand to explain what their touch meant. James has been putting in double shifts down the body language pit ever since the first baby photos were shown. It’s amazing what you can tell with the science of body language – according to James, Meghan is “protective” of her new baby. Harry’s “face softening” look implied “love”, while “equal parenting is probably on the cards”. That said, she reckoned Meghan had “slight inhibitions” about the reveal of the child. This is something quite a lot of people have picked up on, either because they can read body language, or because they can read the newspapers, who have been wetting their pants about not being given full access to the birth canal for what feels like at least a month.
So much for the ancient discipline of body language. But what of the less-established chancers? On Wednesday, two whole days after the child’s birth, I was pleased to receive an email from a PR firm offering expert comment from cosmetic surgeon Dr Benji Dhillon. According to this, Meghan “may now be considering post-birth aesthetic procedures in order to get her back to her old glamorous self”. May she indeed. Dr Dhillon would love “to describe what treatments and procedures Meghan may be about to embark on now that she has given birth. He can explain what he would do for Meghan in his expert opinion.”
Up against such modern experts, then, the traditional “royal expert” can seem rather off the pace, as with the one who told the Mirror that the nursery would feature the “the latest tech” – which apparently includes “a stereo”. Is it the 1930s? See also the Sun, which declared that the couple “are believed” to have decorated the nursery “with non-toxic paint”. How very interesting all these minuscule details are – and I am glad the paper was careful to not entirely discount the possibility that Harry and Meghan have, instead, deliberately selected toxic paint for the nursery.
Still with the baby’s bedroom, it has not gone unnoticed by some royal experts that Meghan has some celebrity friends. Thus the question becomes: how can we mention, say, Serena Williams in a sort of nebulous nursery-related way? You may be sceptical to learn from one royal expert that the 23-time grand slam legend has played a “massive role” on how Meghan has done the baby’s nursery. Has she? It’s rather difficult to imagine how anyone can play a “massive role” in someone else’s baby’s nursery other than in a DIY context. Unless Williams was up a ladder – or perhaps just up a tennis umpire’s chair with a paintroller – the more cynical reader might wonder whether advice such as “get a monitor but don’t bother with a bath as it’s just more shit plastic you don’t need” really counts as playing “a massive role”.
We will wind up, as so often, with the cosmic wind-up that is Paul Burrell. There’s no show without Punch, of course, and the most regal of all the royal experts has long been Burrell, who ascended to this throne the minute he got let off his trial for stashing loads of his former employer’s clothes in his attic “for safekeeping”. Of course, it wasn’t long ago that Paul was using media appearances to claim he used to give Diana “gallons of custard” to assist in her bulimia episodes. Thereafter, he claimed he would meticulously prepare the bathroom for the purging session, getting it all just how she liked it, along with other grotesque nonsense that I do hope he took money for.
Still, what you get with Burrell is an ability to move seamlessly from confected bulimia memoirist to potential-godfather-who-just-hasn’t-got-the-call-yet, and it was in this guise that he was touring the TV sofas this week to offer the usual killer insight and expertise. Or as one local paper had it: “Cheshire celebrity Paul Burrell says Diana would be ‘thrilled’ with new royal baby.”
