King’s song for Trump rattles the teacups as he tells the Donald to stick the World Cup up his, er, …
Buckingham Palace, late morning.
The King is awaiting the arrival of Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, for the weekly audience.
There is a knock on the door and an equerry enters, closely followed by Starmer.
Equerry: The Prime Minister, Your Majesty.
The King rises and crosses the room to greet Starmer, who extends his hand and nods his head in an approximation of a bow.
Charles: Good morning, Prime Minister. Do sit down. May I offer you some tea?
Starmer: Thank you, Your Majesty.
Charles (laughing): Actually, you look as if you could do with a large Glenlivet. I happen to have a bottle.
Starmer: “Tea is fine, Sir. But you’re right, it has been a bit of a week.
Charles: That Trump fellow, is it?
Starmer: A very difficult man, Sir.
Charles: I don’t need reminding, Sir Keir. I’m still recovering from his stay at Windsor. He’s vulgar and a barbarian. But Mrs Trump is quite charming. It’s all to do with his wish to make Greenland the 51st state, I suppose.
Starmer: Quite right, Sir. We can’t allow it. You can’t just walk in and take over another country. It’s disgraceful, flies in the face of justice and international law.
Charles: Hmmm. India, Canada, Australia and, dare I say it, America – we built an empire on walking in and taking over. Still, I gather he’s threatening trade tariffs. So, what are you proposing as a counter-attack?
Starmer: Well, I’ve called him, Sir; told him the tariffs are wrong.
Charles: Wrong? I’ll say. My people are telling me they could cost us £6 billion and 2,500 jobs. Is that about right?
Starmer: Precisely so, Sir.
Charles: The man’s a playground bully. Isn’t it time we taught him a lesson?
Starmer: Perhaps, Sir. I’m in close touch with our friends in Europe. They’re thinking of retaliating with £81 billion of tariffs, though we won’t follow suit – a trade war is just too dangerous.
Charles: He started it. In fact, the latest is that he’s threatening Macron with 200 per cent tariffs on wine and champagne. Imagine! And he’s blaming the Norwegian government for his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize when they don’t have anything to do with it.
The King picks up a paper and reads out a passage from it.
Charles: Here’s what he said: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant.” Then he said: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.” The man is descending into madness. We need to hit him where it hurts – in the ego.
Starmer (smiling): Do I take it you have some ideas for me, Your Majesty?
Charles: Sir Keir, do you know the two things a monarch craves above all else? It is someone who will tell them the unvarnished truth. And the freedom to say and do what they wish, rather than what others wish. I do understand my role, Prime Minister, and the conventions that go with it, but pouring out flattery and platitudes to that oaf…
Starmer: So, what do you suggest, Sir?
Charles: You know, of course, that I’m invited to the United States in April – it’s to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. Which reminds me, they haven’t paid us yet for the 342 chests of tea they tipped into Boston Harbour.
Starmer: The Boston Tea Party, Sir?
Charles: Yes. £10,000 those chests were worth – in 1773. The equivalent of £1,332,921.30 now. If I do go to Washington, I’ll take it up with him. But what if I can’t go?
Starmer: Trump would take it very personally.
Charles: Quite. That’s the point, isn’t it?
Starmer considers this for a few moments.
Charles: I could soften the blow by pleading illness. Not entirely an untruth. Or I could rub it in by suggesting I send my brother Andrew in my place. They could exchange stories about Jeffrey Epstein.
Starmer: That might be a step too far, Sir. They’d probably arrest him.
The King smiles, eyes gleaming at the prospect.
Starmer: Will you let me think about it?
Charles: Then there’s the World Cup.
Starmer: What about it?
Charles: It kicks off on June 11, round about the time Trump is planning to raise his tariffs from 10 per cent to 25 per cent if we don’t fall into line. We could boycott it, perhaps persuade other European nations to do the same. What sort of competition would it be without us, the Germans, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch and so on. I dare say the South Americans would turn up and the African nations too. But could the winners really call themselves champions? It would be embarrassing chaos.
Starmer: Would England do it?
Charles: I’ll ask William to help. He’s Patron of the Football Association. In fact, he’ll be in the States himself for the opening ceremony.
Starmer: He might swing it but England aren’t the only team from these islands in the World Cup. Scotland are playing too, for the first time in 28 years. And, with respect, Your Majesty, they won’t take kindly to you or me asking them to forgo the chance.
Charles: Hmm, you’re right. I hadn’t considered that. Famously contrary, the Scots. It’s a shame, because my grandson, bless him, came up with a little song to go with our boycott.
Starmer: What, George, Sir? Is he a Villa fan, like his father?
Charles: No. More of a Millwall boy, I think. His mother scolded him the other day and he wandered off muttering, “No one likes us, we don’t care.” Anyway, would you like to hear the song?
The King uses a little bell to summon a flunkey, who arrives with some props.
Charles puts on an England shirt, a scarf and raises a banner scrawled with “Trump out!”
Charles: It’s sung to the tune of Cwm Rhondda, which you might know as Bread of Heaven. As you know, I used to be Prince of Wales.
The King suddenly bursts into song.
Stick yer World Cup,
Stick yer World Cup,
Stick yer World Cup up yer arse…
Stick yer World Cup up yer arse!
Starmer: Prince George, you say, Sir?
Charles: Yes. He’ll make a fine King one day.
Starmer: But perhaps not a member of His Majesty’s Diplomatic Corps.
Charles: Oh, I don’t know. Mandelson managed it.
Starmer: We’re back to Epstein again. It would be funny if the old pervert turned out to be the one who saves us from Trump.
*****
I don’t know what it is about the Irish, but don’t they make wonderful actors?
From this you might deduce – if you’re having one of your sharper days – that I have been to see Hamnet.
If you haven’t, I urge you to go. It is an experience not to be missed.
Jessie Buckley, who’s from Killarney, plays Agnes, Will Shakespeare’s wife. She already has a Golden Globe and it will be perverse if she does not also walk off with an Oscar.
The film is two hours and six minutes long and I sat riveted for every moment. Buckley, with her ethereal beauty and her ability to be whomever and however the director wishes her to be, displays visceral grief when her son, Hamnet, dies of the plague.
Shakespeare is played by Paul Mescal, from Maynooth, Co. Kildare. He too puts in a fine, sorrowful performance and it is impossible not to mourn with the couple as they struggle to put their lives back together after losing Hamnet.
I know it is a film but it struck me as a glorious piece of theatre freed from the constraints of a stage.
It is adapted from the novel Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell, born in Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, in Northern Ireland. O’Farrell also shares a screenwriting credit. The script is, by turn, bawdy, harrowing and ultimately joyous.
Perhaps when she was writing it, O’Farrell was thinking of the words of Irish-American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.”
Hamnet will certainly break your heart but by the time the credits roll, you will be smiling through your tears.
Incidentally, those who quibble about strict historical accuracy in such movies should remember the old Fleet Street adage: Never let the facts spoil a good story.
I’m a little afraid that I might never see a better picture than this.
*****
Just as the main feature was about to start, three old biddies shuffled into the auditorium, lugging the paraphernalia of a middle-class day out.
They struggled with bulging bags, macs, brollies and a walking stick. The trio, each of whom had at least one infirmity, fussed about looking for their seats.
They had booked the three next to me, designated in the online seating plan as places for the disabled. Trouble was, the management had removed two of the seats.
Panicked, they stumbled about, trying to make sense of it. In front of them, the Pearl and Dean noises had subsided and we were learning that Hamnet was produced by Thingy in association with Whatnot. The beginning was nigh.
Behind the floundering trio, murmurs and tutting began from people whose line of sight to the screen they were blocking.
One old duck, feeling about for a seat, said: “I can’t see a thing. I daren’t sit down in case I sit in somebody’s lap.”
And then she did. Sit in somebody’s lap, I mean. Mine.
“Excuse me,” I said, as kindly as I could.
That spooked her and she shot to her feet as if she were the cat in Tom and Jerry and I was Spike the bulldog.
“I’ve done it,” she wailed. “I sat on someone’s knee.”
It was so farcical I had a good mind to drop my trousers. No, I thought, don’t go the full Brian Rix, that might make things worse.
Other patrons intervened, guiding two of the ladies to spare seats nearby, while the third took the seat next to me.
When the film ended she turned to me and said: “Aren’t you supposed to be able to hear what they’re saying? I couldn’t hear a thing, could you?”
So, deaf as well as blind.
How do these people find me?
RICHARD DISMORE
21 January 2026
