JAN MOIR: Harry flies 5,000 miles to see his stricken Pa and gets only 30 minutes. What kind of family behaves like that?

Like the rich yolk oozing from a cracked egg, sometimes the utter weirdness of the Royal Family spills unchecked into the public domain.

That happened this week with the sad news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis.

It didn’t just set in motion the usual Windsor welter of entrenched non-speaks and warring factions; of cashmere-wrapped wives bubbling with fury, while rushed meetings were set up for their menfolk in overstuffed drawing rooms as equerries hovered, looking at their watches.

It also seemed to suggest that the fault lines, so casually blown open by the vengeful Sussexes, will never fuse or heal, no matter what fresh tragedy befalls the family. 

In the doomed sea of royal conciliation, we’re far from the shallows now.

Prince Harry at Heathrow airport’s Windsor Suite after his visit to the UK this week

I can just imagine how it all went down. Upon hearing the bad news over the phone from King Charles, Prince Harry impulsively took it upon himself to fly to London to see his father. There’s no need, Charles perhaps insisted. I’m fine, dear boy. No fuss, please.

Yet Harry would not be dissuaded. He’s already offsetting his carbon footprint on green baloney.com and lacing up his suede desert boots.

From California to Clarence House, from the land of the bland to the heart of the institution of persecution, the very place he professes to loathe most in the world, here he comes.

Nothing can stop him, even if one has to wonder what exactly motivates him and if his flight over the Atlantic was fuelled by filial love or a thousand gallons of guilt.

He certainly seemed to be on a self-imposed mission of mercy, but whose soul was he trying to save?

Then it gets even weirder. Harry flies more than 5,000 miles to see his stricken ‘Pa’ and is given only a half-hour slot in the regal schedule. Barely time for his cup of tea to get cold.

What kind of family behaves like that? Perhaps one that is very nervous. One that has been badly scalded by what went before.

For Harry’s intentions, no matter how well-meaning, must have been regarded as questionable by some Palace officials. How could they not be?

Charles and Harry at an engagement at the Natural History Museum in London five years ago

I don’t doubt for one moment that Harry is a concerned and loving son — but is he also a harvester of biographical detail, sifting for nuggets to be included in his next bestseller? Is he taking care, is he taking stock, or is he taking notes?

While concern for his father’s wellbeing must be genuine, it cannot be denied that Harry’s flamboyant show of air-miles compassion burnished his royal credentials on the global stage; cemented his status as a member of the Firm.

For Harry, being a prince is his only USP in the USA, where no amount of shiny medals hung round his neck by John Travolta can make up for the real thing.

So, was it all of this or none of this? Did love manage to manifest itself in this grisly, desperate, micro-managed scenario?

I hope it did, even if no one could expect the King and Queen to entirely overlook the terrible things Prince Harry has said and written about them over the past few years.

And while every fractured family harbour grudges, Harry’s shrill demands for public accountability from his nearest and not so dearest have been met with a deafening silence.

And let us not forget that it is barely any time at all since King Charles and the Princess of Wales were unveiled as the royal ‘racists’, who so very badly upset Meghan and Oprah.

Two scant months later, both Charles and Kate have been in hospital with serious medical issues. Does that give Harry pause for thought? Or is he mired so deep in his victim narrative that he cannot see that others might be victims, too?

Speaking of which, all sympathy to King Charles in his moment of personal crisis. It takes time mentally to process a cancer diagnosis — and come to terms with a future very different from the one you imagined for yourself.

In these early days of his new reality, it is not hard to imagine that the King would rather chat with his favourite agapanthus than have to deal with the emotional leakage from his disloyal but suddenly contrite younger son.

Even still, it was a revealing and saddening snapshot of royal life. Harry, full of love, rushing home to his father only to perhaps finally realise, like Lady Macbeth, that what’s done cannot be undone.

The unspoken words, the brotherly cold shoulder, the clatter of a Sandringham-bound helicopter, the loneliness of hotel room-service in the city of your birth — all of it suggests a bleak road ahead for the warring Windsors.

Tolstoy famously wrote that happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Yet the Royal Family take misery into a whole new gilded age of gloom, entirely of their own making.

Real reason Bilbo and his younger ‘lover’ are a turn-off

Fans of Jenna Ortega are ‘disturbed’ by the sex scene in her latest film. Primarily because in Miller’s Girl the 21‑year-old actress has to get it on with 52-year-old Martin Freeman, of Bilbo Baggins and The Office fame.

They’re both professionals, what is the problem?

Fans of Jenna Ortega are ‘disturbed’ by the sex scene in her latest film. The 21‑year-old actress has to get it on with 52-year-old Martin Freeman, of Bilbo Baggins and The Office fame

Perhaps it is because she looks much, much younger than 21, while Martin looks much, much, much, much, much (and one more time), much older than 52. It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage — and Martin has a lot on the clock. Yet surely that only adds to his rugged charm?

Perhaps viewers are uneasy because the sex scene in question, like most sex scenes, is totally gratuitous.

And please, nobody say anything about Lord Of The Rings. However, those who wish to see Bilbo playing with his conkers again should forget Middle-earth and tune in here instead.

Why sporrans are way hotter than hoodies!

Mae West liked a man in a uniform and so do I. And not just because it suggests the dolts are used to following orders, although that is always attractive.

There is just something about military tailoring and gold frogging that can set off a spark in the dustiest old gal’s heart. However, the opposite also applies.

Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Thompson who is known as the ‘hot Equerry’, pictured at Sandhurst in April

‘Hot Equerry’ Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Thompson was seen in mufti recently, wearing truly terrible skinny jeans and — nurse, the smelling salts! — a hoodie.

Hoodies are the go-to tops for toddlers and teenage hoodlums, Johnny, not for the handsome pride of the Royal Scottish Regiment.

As my Aunty Morag used to say, a man is much diminished without his sporran. So, like any good Scotswoman, I’m just going to avert my eyes until Johnny is back where he belongs. In his kilt.

Are we sure Kanye’s near naked wife is really OK?

There has been increasing alarm for Kanye West’s wife, Bianca Censori. Her parents are worried about her, her friends are worried — and so am I.

Censori is frequently seen in public practically naked, her breasts perhaps covered by a cushion, her modesty by a tiny thong, her husband proprietorially at her side, basking in some fetid ritual of possession or dominance or God-knows-what.

Kanye West with his wife Bianca Censori, clutching a see-through plastic raincoat, in Los Angeles earlier this week

This week Censori was photographed with West in Los Angeles, wearing little more than a see-through plastic raincoat. His face was obliterated by a black mask.

It’s creepy, it’s unsettling and it’s wrong. If this is some kind of publicity stunt or performance art for a higher purpose, it’s gone too far. If it is a joke, it’s not funny.

Censori doesn’t look like she is enjoying herself, while the spectre of a masked man leading a semi-naked woman through a night-time city street is utterly repellent; it looks abusive and humiliating.

A decent man would not treat a woman in this way, while a rational woman would not allow herself to be thus treated. Please make it stop.

• Britain’s countryside is a ‘racist, colonial’ white space where people of colour can feel ‘out of place’, wildlife charities say. Oh God. Here we go again. Now even taking a walk to admire the bluebells in Dingley Dell is a racist act — but the last time I looked, the countryside was open to anyone who wanted to go there and enjoy it. You can’t force people to go for a muddy walk if they don’t want to. You either like the outdoors or you don’t. And if our green spaces are predominately white spaces, isn’t that because 82 per cent of British people actually are white? The charities involved are going to lose donations by wasting time and money on critical race theory nonsense like this. What next? Keir Starmer calling for Government funding for bobble hats and wellies grants. No one would be surprised.

Time to make hits not excuses

Singer Mae Muller says her record label pushed her to take part in the ‘traumatic’ Eurovision contest which made her lose her ‘authenticity’.

You might remember that Mae came second last in 2023 after delivering a less-than-convincing performance of a dull and hopeless song. In the same vein, Rebecca Ferguson now blames X Factor, racism, everyone else and you name it for scuppering her chances of pop superstardom.

Mae Muller came second last in Eurovision in 2023 with her entry I Wrote A Song but says her record label pushed her to take part in the contest

Isn’t the cold reality that neither of these performers had the staying power, the talent or the grit to get to the top and stay there? Look at Sam Ryder. He didn’t lose his ‘authenticity’ when he took part in the Eurovision Song Contest the year before Mae Muller. He came second but went on to become a big star. No one talks about his lack of authenticity.

Italian outfit Maneskin were on the X Factor and Eurovision but overcame both these uncool hurdles to become one of the biggest rock groups on the planet.

Today they are making hits, not making excuses. That is the difference.