That Telegraph article is one of the best I've read; it's frank but not jeering, has nuance, displays polls, and most of all, points up what so many of us have noted over the last two years: their leap to burn bridges before they knew what they could do in America was not only presumptuous, it was foolish. Now, they can't go back even if they wanted to.

I think they were badly advised by sycophants who told the Sussexes what they wanted to hear. In doing so, the American counterparts of those "courtiers" enabled the Sussexes to ignore the handwriting on the wall that good PR people would have insisted be considered: the polls on both sides of the Pond (including for the Cambridges); the failure of her book; the lack of real enthusiasm for their quasi-royal appearances; the booing at the Platinum Jubilee; the bored faces in the half-empty room at the UN; and, now, the universal jeering at the podcasts and the interview in The Cut.

The Williams podcast sank quickly, and episode by episode, Meghan didn't really "dethrone" Rogan. He didn't really have anything out that day. It's now down to #24. Those things are meaningless unless they tell the contractor that real money is being made.

One reason that the Sussexes are doubling down on their mistaken course is money, which the Telegraph article brings out. They have huge expenses, but in order to keep the money flowing in, they have to keep returning to the only brand the rest of the world is really interested in: their royal brand. As they burned any bridges back to becoming again part of the BRF fabric, they're forced to keep tilting at the Wind[sor]mill.

It's a bad look, but it is, in all honesty, the only sellable look they've got. No one cares about his polo games, no one cares about his speech to the UN, his suit against the Home Office is another Fuck You to a place he might have been able to negotiate a return to . . .

I think they believed that just leaving because they wanted to, but on cheery God Bless terms wasn't possible, they'd look like shirkers, so they cooked up the Woe Are We Victims Of The Windsors And The UK Media! cover. It probably looked like a good strategy at the time, with lots of headlines.

But over the longer term, it's serving them badly because they can't keep it up much longer, it's already played out even in America, never mind Britain, and they've been unable to move beyond it. Now, it's what they have to sell, and they need money, lots of it.

Hence the vicious backstabbing, astonishing lies, and veiled threats - and they just look sillier and lamer and more desperate with each throw of the malign dice.

It is truly fascinating. The Telegraph article is the best on the two that I've read yet because it ignores all the narcissism, jeering, partisanship, indignation - it simply drills down into what is the Sussex situation.