THE King demonstrates the true value of never complaining, never explaining and never flinching when someone throws an egg – real or metaphorical – at your royal head.

This should have been a very tough week for the monarchy.

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The King demonstrated the true value of never complaining, never explaining when a slack-jawed eco-activist chucked eggs at him in YorkCredit: PA

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The fifth season of The Crown dropped on Netflix just two days ago, in which the then Prince of Wales is played by Dominic WestCredit: Netflix
The fifth season of The Crown dropped on Netflix just two days ago, before a slack-jawed eco-activist chucked eggs at King Charles in York.

But somehow it is the spiteful republicans who have ended up with egg all over their cakeholes.

The irony of green goon Patrick ­Thelwell, 23, lobbing eggs at the King is that Charles was fighting for the ­environment before this cretin was born, and decades before green issues were even remotely fashionable.

When Thelwell threw those eggs at him, Charles did not even blink.

Just as he has not reacted to the ­makers of The Crown rifling through the most private corners of his life.

No lawsuits. No complaints. No expression of outraged hurt.

The King made it look easy — ignoring the eggs whizzing just past his magnificent ears, blanking The Crown smacking its salacious lips as it drools over the ­collapse of his marriage to Diana.

But ignoring these assaults can’t have been easy.

I am watching the fifth series of The Crown in the same way that I will watch the World Cup in Qatar. Somehow it feels all wrong, slightly shameful, but wild horses could not stop me from tuning in.

Because for all its distortions and big fat fibs, The Crown remains the most compelling thing on TV.

Former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major condemn the new season for its “utterly untrue” storylines and ­“complete and utter rubbish” plot twists.

And yes, there are elements of The Crown that make Spitting Image look like a documentary.

The Crown’s unfeasibly hunky, spunky John Major (Trainspotting’s Jonny Lee Miller) looks like a Chippendale ­auditioning for a Grecian 2000 advert.

The new Charles is comically butch — Dominic West looks like an Old Etonian Bruce Willis.

And after all these years, The Crown’s makers still get nowhere near to truly capturing the Queen.

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For all its distortions and big fat fibs, The Crown remains the most compelling thing on TVCredit: PA
None of the show’s incarnations — Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton — give any sense of the warmth, humour and sense of mischief of our late, lamented Queen. You can’t ­imagine any of them taking tea with ­Paddington Bear.

The greatest argument of all against The Crown is that millions of simpletons around the world will believe that every word of this frequently made-up stuff is the gospel truth.

Yet it has to be said — this twisted ­version of real lives, now so close to our own time, is beautifully shot, brilliantly written, and sometimes the acting is so good you want to throw Oscars.

Elizabeth Debicki is undeniably electric as Princess Diana. You sense that the makers of this flawed, fabulous series, grown rich on feasting on royal flesh, would like to think The Crown has done lasting damage to the institution of the monarchy.

But they overestimate their importance and their impact.

In this country, the Royal Family is more than a soap opera to entertain the masses.

As we saw with total clarity at the funeral of the Queen, the monarchy matters as the focus of our collective memory, the living embodiment of our island story.

The monarchy endures and survives because, like the British people, it can manage a wry grin even in the most ­trying of circumstances.

The Crown plunders the royal laundry basket like never before while a green goon chucks eggs.

And King Charles just smiles.

Lessons from holiday

THE best holiday of my life was spent with an Ashanti family in Kumasi, Ghana.

The family I stayed with were lovely people, endlessly generous and kind.

I even picked up some of their ­­lang­uage — Twi — and learned about the Ashanti’s fascinating history.

For 200 years, from 1701 to 1901, the Ashanti had an empire. They fought five wars with the British, won most of them, and grew rich on trading gold.

And slaves.

It was the Ashanti who supplied ­Europeans and Americans with the slaves that were taken from the west coast of Africa.

So when King Charles says he wants “honest discussions” about the transatlantic slave trade, I hope we can be truly honest.

And mention the fact that Africans were involved in the slave trade too.

One Ron makes a right

TRUMP is finished. Biden is done.

The low popularity and faltering mental faculties of Biden, 79, mean the sleepy one will not stand for president in 2024.

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Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis seems certain to snatch the Republican nomination from Donald TrumpCredit: AFP
And the kicking that Trump’s candidates got in America’s mid-term elections reveals there is no appetite to see the orange-tinged democracy-denier make a comeback.

Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis seems certain to snatch the Republican nomination from Trump, 76, and is favourite to become president when Biden’s nurses finally gently lead him from the stage.

Casey DeSantis, Ron’s wife and political soulmate, will be the best-looking First Lady since Jackie Kennedy.

“Thank you for honouring us with a win for the ages,” said the ferociously anti-lockdown DeSantis after winning re-election by a landslide.

“We have embraced freedom, maintained law and order, we have protected the rights of parents, we have respected our taxpayers and we reject woke ideology.”

I like him already.

But why does it matter to us?

Because on a planet containing nuclear-armed dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and after the wasted years of Trump and Biden, the free world can’t survive a third crap American president in a row.

Tony Adams is the true spirit of Strictly

ARSENAL fans stand accused of keeping Tony Adams in Strictly.

But his fan base goes beyond the Gooner community.

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Tony is still in Strictly because he was the hopeless amateur who learned to dance in the cruel, withering glare of the public eyeCredit: PA
Tony is still in Strictly because he was the hopeless amateur who learned to dance in the cruel, withering glare of the public eye.

The man who was mocked as a donkey during his playing career – “hee-haw!” they chanted at him for 20 years – can now dance a bit.

Tony no longer moves like Gunnersaurus (Arsenal’s dinosaur mascot).

Adams is the donkey who became Diaghilev. The ass who channelled Fred Astaire.

Isn’t this exactly how Strictly should be? Strictly should not be won by pop stars, thespians or stage school alumni who learned how to boogie as part of the day job.

If Tony and Katya Jones win, it will not be because of some nefarious Arsenal plot.

It will be because Tony Adams is the true spirit of Strictly.

Amour than close

I HOPE that Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron become great mates.

I hope their honeymoon lasts forever. I hope they are the next same-sex couple on Strictly, adorable in their skin-tight suits, their trousers just a tad too short.

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I hope that Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron become great mates because we will never come close to solving our migrant crisis without the FrenchCredit: AFP
I hope we can forget the recent unpleasantness – Macron stupidly smearing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Liz Truss stupidly blurting out that she didn’t know if the French president was “friend or foe”.

Because we will never come close to solving our migrant crisis without the French.

If you can get into this country, then it is almost certain you can stay forever. Around 12,000 Albanians arrived on our shores this year.

Only 710 have been deported. We will never stop the migrant crisis without stopping the boats. And we can’t stop the boats without France.

You can be furious that we are sticking another cheque for £70million-plus in the post to get France to police its own beaches.

But we need to start getting on with our next-door neighbours.

Because in a world containing a limitless number of people who quite fancy a new life in Blighty, this country no longer has the luxury of being enemies with France.

Saucy Sharon is not quite back to basics

SHARON Stone jokingly opens her legs in a photoshoot for Harper’s Bazaar mag and is inevitably said to be referencing her break-out role in Basic Instinct.

But if I remember the 1992 thriller correctly, Sharon did not do the splits – she just crossed her legs.

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Sharon Stone jokingly opens her legs in a photoshoot for Harper’s Bazaar mag and is inevitably said to be referencing her break-out role in Basic InstinctCredit: Harper’s Bazaar

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But if I remember the 1992 thriller correctly, Sharon did not do the splits – she just crossed her legsCredit: Alamy
And basically, I do remember. Because every frame of Basic Instinct is seared into my memory forever.

Cav tiks our box

DR RACHEL, a vet, tells TikTok about the dog breeds she’d never own.

She includes boxers (prone to cancer), pugs (breathing difficulties) and the cavalier King Charles spaniel, which is famously prone to a heart problem called mitral valve disease.

But we have a cav who turns 11 this month.

Our Stan has been a constant source of unconditional love and endless laughter.

And multiple vets have told me that Stan has a really strong ticker.

No doubt there are owners of boxers and pugs who could tell you similar stories about the long, happy lives of their much-maligned breeds.

I don’t doubt Dr Rachel knows her stuff.

But don’t believe every word you hear on TikTok.

Leave the journos alone

THREE reporters, including LBC journalist Charlotte Lynch, were arrested by Hertfordshire Police while covering the Just Stop Oil protests on the M25.

They were handcuffed, fingerprinted, subjected to DNA swabs, photographed and thrown in cells.

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Reporters including LBC journalist Charlotte Lynch were arrested while covering the Just Stop Oil protests on the M25Credit: LBC
 

That’s our police force in 2022, folks. They arrest journalists for doing their job.

But cops – and the entire criminal justice system – can’t see a fanatic from Just Stop Oil without wanting to wipe their middle-class bottom.