Andrew will reportedly accompany Queen Elizabeth to the races over Platinum Jubilee weekend. Video / AP
OPINION:
From time to time, charming titbits about various members of the royal family come out. Take the fact that the Queen speaks impeccable French with an accent worthy of the most soignée Left Bank Parisienne or that she keeps dog treats, a crossword puzzle and sometimes a penknife in her iconic, permanently attached handbags.
And at the diametric other end of the spectrum we have the new details which come out with curdling regularity about what Prince Andrew has been getting up to over the past few decades.
This week a flurry of some of the most eye-popping and wild revelations yet have emerged about the 62-year-old Duke of York, which is really saying something, all of which is courtesy of society insider and former Vanity Fair doyenne Tina Brown and her new book, The Palace Papers.
If there is one thing Andrew very clearly does not deserve it's an iota of sympathy. Just when you and I might think it would be impossible for Andrew to become any more of a distasteful character, then blame, something new and lip-curlingly icky emerges.
It's hard to know where to start with Brown's telling of the affair d'Andrew: His alleged 48-hour porn binge? Or that his buddy, convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, seems to have played him like Yo Yo Ma in full flight to make money in "obscure foreign markets"?
One of the many unsolved mysteries that have long swirled around Andrew is what he might have got up to while travelling the globe as the UK's trade envoy from 2001 to 2011.
Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. Photo / Getty Images
Brown writes that a former minister in the Foreign Office and Labour MP Chris Bryant told her the Duke would "go off on secret missions and return laden with gifts."
Clearly Andrew has not read the official royal gift policy states that: "In all cases, and particularly on official overseas trips, organisations and individuals should be discouraged from offering extravagant gifts." (Can't sleep? You can read the full policy document here. Guaranteed to have you snoring in no time.)
Bryant also said Andrew "was a nightmare because he insisted on more acreage in hotels than any other member of the royal family. When he went to Davos, he had a bigger chalet than everyone else, and everyone went: 'Why?'"
While it was father Prince Philip who was legendary for his racist quips, Andrew, in Brown's telling, could give him a run for his offensive money. Westminster insiders also recounted to Brown various instances where they were left gobsmacked by his ghastly conversation.
Take the time that Andrew made "awful jokes" which "involved camels" at a 2007 Buckingham Palace state banquet for the Saudi king, which left former Labour foreign secretary Jacqui Smith "slack-jawed".
Or there was the time now British Prime Minister, then mayor of London, Boris Johnson was left "appalled", according to Brown, after the Prince made "an inane pitch for city improvements".
"I'm the last person to be a republican, but, f***, if I ever have to spend another lunch like that, I soon will be," Johnson commented afterwards.
Is it any wonder then that according to the Foreign Office's (FO) Bryant: "It was common parlance that the last thing the FO wanted was Andrew on a trip, because he'd offend half the people at the dinner table."
What's so fascinating is that Brown also offers one possible explanation for Andrew's boorishness and all round dummkopf-worthy behaviour.
She argues Andrew has "exhibited classic symptoms" of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is a cognitive bias characterised by people of low intelligence who think they are much cleverer than they are. (The previous inhabitant of the White House is also widely rumoured to fit the diagnosis.)
Exacerbating the situation for the Duke of York is that "years of enjoying unearned obeisance to his royal position [has] allowed Andrew to bang on with a combination of overweening self-confidence and unchallenged ignorance. It also made him an easy mark for conmen and crooks," Brown writes.
Which brings us to Epstein who, per Brown, told people that his royal chum was "an idiot" albeit "a useful one".
While the vast majority of coverage of the decade-long friendship between the two men has focused on allegations of sexual assault (claims Andrew has always strenuously denied), Brown also frames their relationship as one driven by greed.
"Epstein confided to a friend that he used to fly the Duke of York to obscure foreign markets, where governments were obliged to receive him, and Epstein went along as HRH's investment adviser. With Andrew as frontman, Epstein could negotiate deals with these [often] shady players."
A dimwit Andrew may be, but Epstein still rolled out the red carpet when the royal turned up for a jolly getaway in New York.
In the Palace Papers, it is revealed the Duke of York stayed at Epstein's US$77 million (NZ$114m) townhouse "so often, he was given his own grandly decorated guest suite" which the financier dubbed "the Britannica Suite".
If there is one thing we have learnt about the Queen's favourite child it's that his ability to shock and horrify is unparalleled, Daniela Elser writes. Photo / Getty Images
(Still sticking to the line about Andrew that, as you told the BBC's Emily Maitlis, it would be "a stretch to say … we were close friends"?)
The mysterious financier, the origin of whose US$577 million (NZ$853m) fortune has never truly been explained, not only capitalised on the doors the HRH opened but played on his "sense of grievance".
"I don't know why people don't pay us royals more respect," Andrew is reported to have complained to a woman sitting next to him at a dinner at Epstein's house.
(There is a delicious satisfaction in knowing that if Andrew felt he was not getting the sort of forelock-tugging deference he deserved then, then he must be positively inconsolable these days.)
We've come this far and thus I need you to prepare yourself for what I'm confident is the most nauseating revelation of Brown's about the prince. (If you are reading this while eating a hot cross bun, put it down. Take a deep breath.)
According to Brown, in 1993, Andrew was in Palm Springs in California, staying at the vast estate owned by the former US ambassador to the UK Walter Annenberg and his wife, Lee. Dubbed the Camp David of the West Coast, a slew of US presidents and global power players had enjoyed the hospitality of the Annenbergs' and their 200-acre estate. Andrew, at this point, had separated from his wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York the previous year so he was technically footloose and fancy-free.
So did Andrew charm his hosts? Prove to be an exemplary guest? Never once leave a wet towel on a sun lounger?
"The Duke was always as oversexed as a boob-ogling adolescent," Brown says, and left Lee Annenberg "appalled" after he "holed up in his bedroom for two days, apparently watching porn on cable TV".
And there you have it ladies and gentlemen: The most repulsive Andrew story yet!
But let's double and triple underline that "yet" because if there is one thing we have learnt about the Queen's favourite child it's that his ability to shock and horrify is unparalleled.
What sort of adult goes to stay at a diplomat's grand estate and spends his days watching porn? Or makes camel jokes at a state dinner for a Middle Eastern monarch? Or is willing to let his mate ride shotgun on official trade trips so said mate can line his pockets?
Andrew's sins are not just the occasional bad choice or a misstep here and there. The man has demonstrated the clearest pattern of decades of loathsome behaviour.
Prince Andrew should be banished to Castle Mey, at the tip of ainland Scotland, writes Daniela Elser. Photo / Getty Images
The Queen owns the Castle of Mey, an enormous 16th century stone monstrosity, which was originally bought by the Queen Mother in 1952. It is imposing, looks freezing and sits on the northernmost tip of mainland Scotland. (It is impossible to get any further away from London without taking a boat.)
It's time to leave Andrew there.
He does not deserve a second, or more accurately 67th chance. He deserves the bad Wi-Fi, Scottish winters and being trapped with Fergie while she schills her juicer on the shopping network via Zoom from the spare bedroom. Best of all? No one will ever have to know if he ever decides to watch cable TV, cough, for days on end.
