Will they change the culture of their new home?
Will they change the culture of their new home?
T he quaint English village of Blemblingbun-on-Blury (pop. 6) is famous for its Mumble Tart, made from the berries of a local bush, and the ruins of a monastery consisting of one large stone in a field on the edge of town. Every year, the village holds a fete to celebrate the stone and tell stories about the village ghost, Mumble Stony, who wanders around at night making dire predictions no one can understand. The ale flows freely, and the residents — fiercely proud of their history, freedom, and incomprehensibility — end the night with a bonfire that could be seen for miles, if anyone cared to look. But all that might soon change.
“We don’ wan’ ’em,” said one local. “Who’re they t’know our ways?” Such a sentiment is common among the town’s residents, who find themselves thrust into the nation’s immigrant debate. Following the PM’s desire to place migrants in posh places instead of distressed locales, it seems as if Blemblingbun-on-Blury will soon host not one, but two migrants.
“Boat people, that’s one thing,” said another local, “but Harry and Meghan?”
The non-royals will be returning to England soon, leaving their comfortable life of doing bugger-all in California to do bugger-all in Harry’s home country. He famously renounced his royal ties to move to America with his wife, a low-born actress, and the two spent years attempting to do something anyone would care about. To the mystification of many, Meghan embarked on a program of making bespoke jams, which she would display on her TV show, which was essentially “much ado about no one,” and working on a podcast whose audience was so small you could pack them in a London cab and have room left over for Sydney Greenstreet. Harry, for his part, spent his years sitting on a white sofa looking ruddy with the pained smile of a man on Christmas morning trying not to think about a gambling debt.
The failure of the couple to gain traction in America might have been explained by their royal status: There wasn’t any. Americans, if they are interested in royals at all, prefer them to be over there, getting out of carriages or waving from balconies or performing ceremonies in ancient churches while a small orchestra plays Walton melodies, not lounging around in California placing pieces of cheese on crackers for TV cameras and talking about themselves. Netflix has said the couple still has an arrangement with the streaming giant, which means Netflix has the right to reject their future ideas before anyone else.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Harry wanted to return home, as he’d given Meghan’s idea a fair go and was homesick for his native land. Far from welcoming them, though, the residents of Blemblingbun-on-Blury fear their culture will be overwhelmed by the influx of a single American.
“They come here, they drive on the wrong side, they fumble with the coins at the shop not knowin’ a ten-pence from a twenty, they smile all the time, and they tip. We’ve gotten on fine for 500 years, not tipping. And bloody hell, that woman’s teeth, if they were any whiter they’d stick her up in the lighthouse to keep the ships from running aground at night.”
Sentiment in the village seems to agree that Harry might be welcome, if he installed himself in the nearby abandoned country estate, Crumblin House, and brought it up to health and safety standards so people coming up for the weekend could tour it and have a scone in the coffee shop, but a few expressed reservations that TV cameras would follow Meghan around on the heath gathering mumbleberries for a line of jams to sell at the gift shop.
Labour has welcomed the couple back; the Reform party has said Meghan must fully accept British values and confine her fruit initiatives to making shredded orange marmalade; the Restore party has vowed to intercept her at the airport and send her back. Zack Polanski, leader of the Greens, has stated that his party welcomes the couple, as long as they surrender the entirety of their earnings annually. Tory spokespeople had no comment, because no one asked them what they thought and indeed had forgot for a moment the party existed.