"Any suggestion that there isn’t gratitude for the institution, anything that could lead anyone in the public to think that senior members of the royal family aren’t grateful for their position, [William thinks] is really dangerous."

Said a source close to Prince William, quoted in "It wasn’t just the Queen: the whole royal family knifed Prince Andrew/After years of indecision, the Firm finally acted against the duke — and all his siblings were involved" (London Times).

Friends of Andrew say he has been doing “a lot of thinking and work on himself”.... There is much more thinking to be done as Andrew, who once described himself as “an ideas factory”, contemplates a permanent retirement devoid of flummery. Some in royal circles believe a safe option would be for him to run one of the Queen’s estates. Others, including the royal historian Hugo Vickers, think he should devote himself to a life of charitable rehabilitation.

“Prince Andrew needs to start up an animal sanctuary and work there, Profumo-style,” Vickers said. “The British love animals.”

Retirement devoid of flummery... "Flummery" is one of those words that gets my attention. Oddly enough, I have a tag for "flummery." I'm not sure how that happened. My favorite word is "flummox," as I've mentioned a few times on this blog. And yet I don't have a tag for "flummox," only for "flummery." It makes you wonder, what is flum? Is it like phlegm?

As I've discussed before — here — the OED calls the word "flummox" colloquial or vulgar and suggests it's onomatopoeic, "expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily." 

But what about "flummery"? That's not connected to "flummox." According to the OED, "flummery" originates as the name of a food — a "coagulation of wheatflour or oatmeal." From there, it got figurative: "Mere flattery or empty compliment; nonsense, humbug, empty trifling" or "Trifles, useless trappings or ornaments."

Yes, we don't need any of that from Andrew.

Judged by a wasp — "This tiny individual was judging me."

I'm reading Jordi Casamitjana interview: I’m a vegan thanks to Franco and wasps/An ‘ethical vegan’ fired by a charity has changed the law for his fellow animal lovers. His campaign began with a nest of insects" (London Times):

Something life-changing happened while Jordi Casamitjana was working on his PhD on the social behaviour of wasps. He was observing a nest when one of the insects turned and looked straight at him. “My heart was thumping,” he recalls. “This tiny individual was judging me. And it decided ‘you’re fine’ and didn’t raise the alarm [to the rest of the nest].” He vowed that day to devote his life to helping animals....

[His] devotion to his beliefs led a judge to rule... that ethical veganism is a philosophical belief and therefore a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010... 

Growing up in Catalonia in the 1960s under the rule of General Francisco Franco, he lived “in an oppressive state”. His parents were not allowed to write “Jordi” on his birth certificate; instead they had to use the Spanish spelling “Jorge”.

“Being oppressed was the root of my veganism,” he says. “It gave me empathy with those who are oppressed, and who is more oppressed than the animals? I found the world very hostile and animals seemed much nicer. From a very young age I just wanted to be close to them.”

That's from 2 years ago. I'm reading it this morning because it came up in the sidebar as I was reading something new: "Women who eat little meat and dairy put their health at risk, says scientist." Key message there: If you're vegan, you need to take special care to get enough iron, magnesium, iodine, calcium, and zinc.

Casamitjana's rule for living: “Everything I do is based on two things: minimising the damage I’m doing to others and maximising the help to those who need it the most. That’s it: that’s my entire life.”