The Awkward Girl's Guide to the Week | In Which There is Speculation

And also Bell's Palsy, oddly enough.

Hi, it’s Amber with The Awkward Girl’s Guide to the Week. This post is free to all subscribers, but a paid subscription gives you access to all of the content on the site, keeps me out of the fictional Victorian workhouse, and just gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart, which is totally worth paying a fiver for, trust me…

This was going to be a productive week for me.

The school holidays were over — and so was the Cold from Hell, and accompanying 100 Day Cough. I was making good OK progress with my new book, and had ambitious plans to maybe even leave the house to go for a walk or something equally exciting.

Then this happened:

“Kate Middleton trending with Willy Wonka and The Unknown?” I said, hardly able to believe my luck. “Hold all my calls: I’m going in…”

And so it was that the week was lost to an internet rabbit hole. What can I say, people — I didn’t choose the drama; the drama chose me.

So, for the benefit of those of you with actual lives, this week social media exploded into a frenzy of speculation when Prince William cancelled an engagement at short notice, and the Spanish media responded by suggesting that Kate must be in a coma.

“Sounds legit,” said pretty much everyone on X, including this guy, who goes by the name ‘Henry VIII’, but, you know, probably isn’t THAT one:

(I have no idea why I blocked out his name then told you it anyway. I don’t know what the etiquette is here, apologies…)

No rational reason not to release a photo of a woman who is known to be recovering from what seems to have been serious abdominal surgery, folks. None. None at all. All I can think about here is the photo my dad took of me when Max was 4 weeks old, and I was so strung out from anxiety and lack of sleep that I literally looked like I was in need of an exorcism. I actually cried when I saw it. If anyone had even thought about ‘releasing’ it, then so help me God, I would’ve… well, probably just cried some more, to be honest, because I was too tired to do much more than that, but you get my point, I’m sure.

Not so the good people of X, though. Here’s my favourite response so far to the “where is Kate?” mystery:

Hold up: a MAN is involved now. That means it’s serious. And I am so, so invested in this — not in wondering where Kate is, because it’s pretty obvious she’s just recovering from her operation, like we were told back in January — but in what this woman’s husband is planning to do if ‘They’ don’t produce ‘proof of life’ (Perhaps in the form of a photo of Kate holding up a copy of The Daily Mail, just to further enrage Hazza?) by the end of the week. No, you don’t understand: I NEED to know. The clock is ticking here. People aren’t talking about this enough.

As I said, though, the weirdest thing about all of this is that, as far as I’m aware, there IS no actual ‘mystery’ about the whereabouts of Kate Middleton. (Or The Princess of Wales, as someone will always pop up to remind you is her official title, normally by pretending not to know who ‘Kate Middleton’ is, and going, “Could you possibly mean CATHERINE, Queen of all our Hearts?!” in a smug, ‘gotchya’ tone which tells you everything you need to know about them, really…) I mean, I’m no royal watcher (Unless we’re talking about Meghan’s wardrobe, which I very much DO watch, tbf…), but I can clearly remember the flurries of inappropriate excitement back in January when we were told she’d been in hospital and would be out of action until after Easter. Seriously, though: that happened, right? I didn’t just imagine it? There was a statement saying she wouldn’t be working for a while? So why all the sudden conspiracy theories and demands for photos? Make it make sense, someone…

Some of my favourite theories so far:

• Kate was originally hospitalized as she was donating a kidney to Charles…

• … but something went wrong, which is why Harry flew over to donate a kidney to HER. (And then flew back home the next day, making it a complete mystery why it took my brother-in-law several weeks to recover when he donated a kidney to my husband…)

• Kate is Banksy, who’s work has ALSO not been seen since The Princess of Wales ‘disappeared’. Suspicious.

• Kate never actually existed, and is just some kind of collective delusion we all somehow entered into, but are now slowly emerging from.

• Kate was booked to play ‘The Unknown’ at The Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow this week — which brings me neatly to the OTHER thing I wanted to discuss in this newsletter, namely…

@tdrncoThey even created a villain name The Unknown (he makes chocolate and live in the walls) lmao #willywonka #willywonkaandthechocolatefactory #ai #viralvideo #viraltiktok #fypシ #fypシ゚viral

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The bored, staccato delivery of ‘What. Is. That?’ The way ‘The Unknown’ looks like he’s dancing to The Prodigy in a club in Edinburgh in 1996. The way the child who wails, “Noooooo!” is basically ALL OF US. This video is everything to me. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched it… by which I mean, I could, but it would be embarrassing, so I don’t want to.

For those of you who have actual lives and are therefore not chronically online, the video is from the aforementioned Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow this week, which went viral when people paid £35 each for a ‘magical’ experience, but instead turned up to find a more or less empty warehouse, plus ‘The Unknown’.

Here’s the ‘refreshment stand’ at the event:

You’ll have had your tea…

I am DECEASED.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to go to the Willy Wonka Experience as it was apparently advertised, because I tend to detest anything that can have the phrase ‘madcap fun’ used to describe it, but I would 100% pay £35 to see all of the memes of ‘The Unknown’ presented in the form of a short movie. Absolutely. Excellent content, people. Keep up the good work.

Anyway, in non-internet related news, this week’s ‘real life’ plot twist was Terry waking up on Saturday morning looking like he’d had a stroke: and that’s not just my way of saying he looked a bit rough — I mean he actually looked like he’d had a stroke, with one eye drooping weirdly, and the other one constantly blinking.

“Is Terry OK?” my mum whispered that afternoon, when we went to visit my parents for dinner. “It’s just, his face looks a bit… strange?”

“Does it?” I asked, surprised. “I hadn’t noticed.” (Context: I haven’t been able to afford contact lenses for ages now, and I’m too vain to wear my glasses unless I absolutely have to, so I rarely see much of anything these days. I just exist in a blurry, half-world of my own.)

But it was true: Terry looked like he’d had a stroke — which was worrying for everyone except Terry himself, who would literally rather die than admit to feeling unwell… and who, this time, it seemed, quite possibly would.

“What happened to your face?” said his brother, John, when we met him and his wife for lunch on Sunday. “You look terrible. You should see a doctor.”

“Nah,” said Terry. “I’m totally fine. Nothing to see here.”

Fortunately for him, though, he happened to have an appointment with his consultant on Monday morning anyway, as part of his regular renal checkups (For those who don’t know, Terry had a kidney transplant many years ago — much like King Charles/Princess Kate/ Harold — and sees his consultant regularly to make sure everything’s OK), so he went along to the hospital where, of course, his doctor immediately sent him to a specialist, who diagnosed him with Bell’s Palsy. Which isn’t great for Terry, obviously, but still significantly better than the stroke I was starting to suspect he’d had. He’s now on medication for that, and is also having to tape his eye down at night, like a pirate. He looks a bit like The Unknown himself, actually, which means I now get to walk around pointing at him and going “What. Is. That?” How we laugh. Love that for us.

And so ends February. For the shortest month of the year, I have to say it’s felt like the longest so far, which makes me very glad to be able to finally bid it adieu, and look forward to March, and whatever it may bring. Until next week, folks…

P.S. My new book has a cover! You can pre-order it here!