That Interview

“The trouble with you, is that you’re an inverted snob,” my oldest school friend told me when I was 13 and telling her that I didn’t understand the economics lesson.  I really couldn’t comprehend why money was the most important thing.
“I just think people who have too much money are a little, well, you know...”
(She didn’t know)
“Selfish and self obsessed.”
We lived in Billericay and she was a trailblazer for the time, already enjoying regular fake tans and a desire to be the first female Formula One driver. She couldn’t think that you could have too much money and thought I was just jealous.

I could have been. I’d not met many people with money and my philosophy could have stemmed from jealousy. However, now that I’m older and have met quite a few very rich people, my view has not changed very much.

Having money gives a person choices. Having much more than you need doesn’t automatically make you a bad person but it does enable you to make as many bad choices as good ones.

Everyone is talking about the interview Prince Andrew gave to the brilliant Emily Maitlis on the BBC on Sunday night.  It was absolute car crash TV and will go down in history, like Frost/Nixon and they will make films about it. Somehow, even though you knew he was lying and everything he said made it worse you couldn’t tear yourself away. It was funny too. There are things from this interview that will enter our culture and in time we won’t even remember where they came from. In the future people caught out lying will just say, “I couldn’t sweat,” or “I’ve only been to Wokingham a few times,” or “Pizza Express.”

The thing everyone is really puzzled by, though, is misplaced. No one is wondering why someone with so much money and power did such awful things. We are wondering why he did the interview. Why did he dig himself into a hole? We knew he could get away with it if he said nothing. We are wondering if maybe it’s about to emerge that the Queen has, in fact, been dealing crack Cocaine and he has fallen on his sword to be a distraction when it comes to light.

We know about money and what it does to people.
We know about Prince Andrew, who we called Randy Andy in the Eighties.
We know he had more money than sense and didn’t even have a true purpose.
We know that the very rich don’t even need to pronounce all the letters (Ghislaine Maxwell, ‘my friend G(pronounced phonetically) Laine’)
We know that very rich people can take advantage of very poor people.
We know that if you have no money you will consider doing anything to eat or get some of that status.
We know that very young people are more attractive than older people.
We know young girls are desperate for rich powerful men to love them and are easily manipulated. We know that providing a girl to give a relaxing massage was code for sex in the eighties.
We know that he wouldn’t remember one girl.
We know there were more than one.
We know he wouldn’t have even looked at her face or considered that she was a real person.
We know that you can take a position as an ambassador for NSPCC, working on a campaign to spot the signs of sexual abuse and not see that you are an abuser.
We know Epstein is everything they say he is.
We know they were friends.
We know that when you are very rich you can laugh about the suicide of one of your best friends.
We know Prince Andrew used young girls for sex.
We know some ancient Royal dame with a man’s name will leap to his defence, explaining that “these girls only have themselves to blame.”
We know normal rules for names don’t apply to the super wealthy.
We know that anyone who financially benefits from the Royals will defend his actions.
We know that, even though he his publicly disgraced, he can’t be asked to resign.
We know that money gives power.
We know that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We know that this kind of thing will go on forever. We might have abolished slavery but using people to make money, or because you have so much money you don’t even see them as real people, is fun.
We know people will call for the end of the monarchy.
We know it won’t happen.
We know young girls don’t matter. (If a fading alcoholic footballer can kiss a girl on a train without her consent then a Prince can do anything)
We know it’s all very depressing.

I wish I’d never watched the interview but then I can’t sweat or eat at Pizza Express in Wokingham.