Boy George's newest tweet about the Meghan-and-Oprah interview.

Silly but funny! pic.twitter.com/oozoMIQdsg

— Boy George (the truth is in your breath) (@BoyGeorge) March 11, 2021

I'll just quote his previous tweets on the subject, oldest to newest: 

1. "I found the big @oprah interview to be hugely dull. Is there more? I pray not!" 

2. "The one person not mentioned in any of this Harry & Meghan saga is the little boy Archie. If they had left the royals without creating a shit storm (it could have been done easily) he would still be an important future member of our royal family. I hope he still can and will be. I feel neither family deserves applause."

3. "You'd think they would have in house therapists at Buckingham Palace and if they don't, now is the time."

4. Responding to someone who said Harry needed to protect his family from the pararazzi: "You are talking to someone who knows more about the press than you could imagine? Harry, has slagged this country for years, long before Meghan. Fighting the press, then embracing the press because it tells you what you want to hear? It's a mugs game!"

"'I went to human resources, and I said, "I just really - I need help,"' says Meghan, adding that her request was denied since she is not a 'paid employee of the institution.'"

"'There's no HR department for working royals because it's a family affair,' says BBC royal correspondent Jonny Dymond. But there is an HR manager for lower level royal staff and the household, as set out on the Buckingham Palace website. Just not for senior household or staff. Buckingham Palace says the HR department recently launched an investigation into Meghan over claims, which she denies, that she bullied several staff members into quitting. It has not responded to the allegation that the same department refused to help her."

From "Meghan and Harry: Questions the US had about Oprah interview" (BBC).

The NYT had multiple reporters doing minute-by-minute commentary on Oprah's 2-hour interview with Meghan and Harry.

Weird that they gave that such prominence. 

Here's how all that stuff is processed into something to read this morning: "A Raw Look Behind Palace Doors as Meghan and Harry Meet With Oprah: Highlights/In a two-hour interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle made dramatic disclosures, including that there were 'concerns and conversations about how dark' her son’s skin might be." 

Excerpt: 

Despite his life of privilege, Harry said, he felt trapped and “didn’t see a way out.” 

“Without question she saved me,” he said. 

Harry alluded to strained relations with his father, Prince Charles, and his older brother, Prince William, both of whom he also described as “trapped” in their roles.

Did Oprah ask them if they watch "The Crown"? I bet they do.

"Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are on lockdown at their $14 million Canadian bolthole after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau closed the country’s border amid the coronavirus pandemic."

In case you were wondering how Harry and Meghan are doing after running off to Canada into supposedly burgeoning new opportunities, Page Six has the answer.

I had to look up "bolthole." It's "a hole by which to bolt or escape; figurative a means of escape" (OED).

1877 E. Peacock Gloss. Words Manley & Corringham, Lincs. Bolt-hole, (1) the hole by which a rabbit makes its escape when the ferret pursues it. (2) Any unknown hole by which a person makes his way into or out of a house....
1924 E. Marsh tr. La Fontaine Fables 71 [The hare] heard a rustle, And took the hint to bustle Off to his bolt-hole.
1932 H. Simpson Boomerang xii. 306 A girl who had been jilted might choose any bolt-hole to hide her shame....

A very rabbit-y concept.

And while I'm here in the OED, let me look up "lockdown" (a word that we're seeing a lot this week and that I suspect will not go away for a long time). The oldest meaning is "a piece of wood used in the construction of rafts when transporting timber downriver." That goes back to the 19th century.  The next oldest meaning of "lockdown," dating only to the 1970s, is the prison meaning — keeping prisoners in their cells for a long time (notably after an outbreak of violence). Most recently, going back to 1984, the word came into use to refer to "A state of isolation, containment, or restricted access, usually instituted as a security measure; the imposition of this state." Examples:

1999 Computerworld 11 Oct. 8/1 (heading) Many users plan Y2K lockdowns.
2002 Quill (Nexis) 1 May 34 We heard the city was on lockdown and that it wasn't possible to get in.
2005 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 3 May 3/5 Contestants go into lockdown tomorrow isolated from the outside world as they prepare to enter the Big Brother house on Sunday.

I heard NY Governor Andrew Cuomo struggling with the word on this morning's "The Daily" podcast. He said it was a scary word, and he didn't want to use it. It would mean that people are required to stay inside their own homes, and he wanted to assure New Yorkers that he would not do that, yet it was obvious that he was going to say that whether it was true or not, as he openly talked about the problem of causing a destructive stampede to the stores.