Prince Charles’ Black Spider Memos released: harmless or really fascinating?

Author: | Filed under: Celebrities

Here are some photos of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall today in Liverpool. They were visiting the World Museum’s exhibition ‘The Mayas: revelation of an endless time’. I think Charles looks pretty sharp here, doesn’t he? While he’s not trendy or “hip,” he sort of has a timeless style.

Anyway, the big news for Charles was that the “Black Spider Memos” were released with much fanfare yesterday. Charles and various British government officials had been fighting the release of Charles’ correspondence to various government officials, but the British courts basically said that considering everyone involved was a public figure, the public has a right to know what Charles writes to government officials. They’re called the “Black Spider Memos” because A) the Brits love to give ridiculous names to mundane things and B) Charles’ handwriting resembles a black spider or something.

Some people behaved like they expected Charles’ memos to reveal some kind of terrible man giving terrible advice on the most pressing issues of the day. In truth, the memos revealed what we already sort of knew about Charles: he’s a pretty decent, rather harmless guy with varied interests and he’s happy to discuss those interests with whomever will listen. He’s rather funny in a cheeseball way (he makes a lot of jokes about being so old), he cares deeply about organic farming and the British food chain (not shocking), he pays close attention to the welfare and resources of soldiers fighting overseas (nice), he’s an advocate for herbal medicines and supplements, and more. He links bovine TB to badgers and he has harsh words for the Badger Lobby! Big Badger is going down!! He advocates for conservation many, many times. You can read some excerpts from the memos here and here.

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