Royal mess

Much hand-wringing in royal cicles over the news that Sarah Forsyth, Prince Harry's former art teacher has won her case for unfair dismissal against Eton College. Part of Ms Forsyth's case was that Harry was led by the hand through his course with most of his exam work being done by others.

Bad news seems to follow Harry around. My first ever post on this blog was about him dressing up as a Nazi for an ill advised (but no doubt hilarious) "Natives & Colonials" party. Now he's been proven a cheat and worse than that, he could actually be too stupid for the army.

I bet you one thing will be missing from all mainstream media reporting of the story. No one, not one single royal reporter will say "And doen't he look like James Hewitt?"

While we're on the subject of reportage, I watched a bit of the BBC's Wimbledon coverage last week. In some ways it is very good, several ex players such as John McEnroe and Tracey Austin have become good commentators and technology such as hawk-eye is used well, but the attitudes of the BBC reporters seems to be stuck firmly in the 50's.

Sue Barker (who was actually British number 1 in the 50's) interviewed Maria Sharapova after her 4th round match with Nathalie Dechy. Barker's fourth question asked for Maria's opinion on Dechy's little white dress. Maria diverted the question by saying she was playing tennis so didn't really notice. This answer must have surprised Sue and it obviously made her think a little because when she interviewed Federer after his final win yesterday she didn't ask him a single question about Roddick's shirt. Or is it true to say that the British tennis establishment see the female game and female players as an attractive, but not very serious side show while the men have a little rest?