Columnists

Kathleen MacMahon: How to cope with life’s little frustrations when you’re a king

If you’re a frequent fountain pen user, it’s easy to sympathise with Charles’s irritation at the wayward writing implement, but Britain’s new monarch should perhaps take a more regal approach

Britain's King Charles III is, after all, human and never more so than he was in the week of his mother’s death when he lost it over a leaking fountain pen. Picture: Getty

As a student of character, I find myself conflicted when it comes to King Charles III. Even as a rabidly royalist 11-year-old, which I was when he married Diana, I was never entirely convinced that he was Prince Charming. Needless to say, we all sided with Diana in the years that followed, while she milked the tear ducts of the world, casting Charles and Camilla in the role of pantomime villains.

I felt sorry for ...