"End Game" by Omid Scobie - 2023


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I laughed out loud when I read it! So funny.
 
Thank you for the link.:flowers:

As I understand things only Parliament can remove the dukedom as it is a peerage. The royal styles & titles (prince, HRH) are entirely in the gift of the sovereign & can be given or taken away at HM’s pleasure. Recently demonstrated by The Queen of Denmark.

There is also the Princess Patricia of Connaught option whereby someone with a royal style & title can voluntarily relinquish them. A convenient & useful precedent for a reluctant royal I would have thought.

The Queen of Denmark isn't a valid precedent as the rules in different countries are not all the same.

The better precedent is George V who removed HH and HRH when he did his 1917 rules.

People seem to think that those rules have always been the case when in fact he 'reduced' the numbers of those eligible to be a British 'royal' as either an HH or HRH. He did away with HHs altogether (the Danes who were stripped of their royal styles were HHs not HRHs as the children of a younger son).

Queen Victoria changed the rules a couple of times in her reign with the best known the 1898 change that gave HRH to the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales as prior to that they were HHs as male line great-grandchildren of the Sovereign (if those rules still applied then Archie and Lilibet would have been born as HHs as would the children of The Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Kent and Prince Michael). George V reduced or removed those rules while Queen Elizabeth reverted the first one from George V's rules back to Queen Victoria's rules in 2012.
 
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The Queen of Denmark isn't a valid precedent as the rules in different countries are not all the same.

The better precedent is George V who removed HH and HRH when he did his 1917 rules.

People seem to think that those rules have always been the case when in fact he 'reduced' the numbers of those eligible to be a British 'royal' as either an HH or HRH. He did away with HHs altogether (the Danes who were stripped of their royal styles were HHs not HRHs as the children of a younger son).

Queen Victoria changed the rules a couple of times in her reign with the best known the 1898 change that gave HRH to the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales as prior to that they were HHs as male line great-grandchildren of the Sovereign (if those rules still applied then Archie and Lilibet would have been born as HRHs as would the children of The Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Kent and Prince Michael). George V reduced or removed those rules while Queen Elizabeth reverted the first one from George V's rules back to Queen Victoria's rules in 2012.

I assume you mean that they would have been born as highnesses - not as royal highnesses because as far as I am aware under no current or previous rules they would have been born as royal highnesses.
 
I wouldn't usually take a blind bit of notice of a word that's printed in the Guardian, but that's actually quite funny!
 
I wouldn't usually take a blind bit of notice of a word that's printed in the Guardian, but that's actually quite funny!

It was! They have a skilled writer on staff.
 
It was! They have a skilled writer on staff.

The Guardian have little interest in the royals. But when they do write articles, they bite heavy and probably as a result you pay more attention to what they say and the prevailing mood.
 
Some posts have been deleted because they were off-topic or veered into personal attacks.

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Insulting comments about other posters and royals are not permitted. Criticism is acceptable; insults and flames are not. We expect our members to treat each other with respect.
 
Did he move to America permanently? I can't imagine he'll be able to get much work in the UK anymore.
 
Omid has lost, if he ever had any, respect with regards his writing.

Some of historical information was wrong, all easy to check.

He claimed source including family members, then used tabloids stories as his back up when challenged on certain details. The Piers Morgan claims for an example.

A great deal was opinion rather than fact, as an interviewer said to him what he claimed he was writing could have been really interesting and a conversation worth having but what he produced was tabloid stuff.

It was a personal attack on individuals , in particular Catherines' journey from young wife new in to the family until now. He does not like her.
He was acting like a bully, saying how she was not a very confident speaker, well good on her for trying. A part time royal because she wants to spend quality time with her children. Does as she is told, I would put that as being respectful of others.

Even his use of words in the interviews were misleading,' I did not sign off a book with names in it'. He was diverting attention, did not want to take responsibility for his actions. He obviously did issue something at some point that included names. He is better with words and the nuances when he is being interviewed than he is when writing a book. Maybe he should have used a co author on this one.

He has not done Meghan and Harry any favours, whether they helped or not he is giving the impression they did.

Regarding Charles letter, this would have been a personal hand written letter not something sent to the typing pool. Charles is known for his spider like writing a quick glance would not have been enough to work out what was in it.

He might slip in to the background now, although he will claim a best seller, even if it is , it does not make it a well written book.
 
Omid has lost, if he ever had any, respect with regards his writing.

Some of historical information was wrong, all easy to check.

He claimed source including family members, then used tabloids stories as his back up when challenged on certain details. The Piers Morgan claims for an example.

A great deal was opinion rather than fact, as an interviewer said to him what he claimed he was writing could have been really interesting and a conversation worth having but what he produced was tabloid stuff.

It was a personal attack on individuals , in particular Catherines' journey from young wife new in to the family until now. He does not like her.
He was acting like a bully, saying how she was not a very confident speaker, well good on her for trying. A part time royal because she wants to spend quality time with her children. Does as she is told, I would put that as being respectful of others.

Even his use of words in the interviews were misleading,' I did not sign off a book with names in it'. He was diverting attention, did not want to take responsibility for his actions. He obviously did issue something at some point that included names. He is better with words and the nuances when he is being interviewed than he is when writing a book. Maybe he should have used a co author on this one.

He has not done Meghan and Harry any favours, whether they helped or not he is giving the impression they did.

Regarding Charles letter, this would have been a personal hand written letter not something sent to the typing pool. Charles is known for his spider like writing a quick glance would not have been enough to work out what was in it.

He might slip in to the background now, although he will claim a best seller, even if it is , it does not make it a well written book.
I think there is even a tweet from 2012 of him criticising Kate for some reason so he never liked her anyways. I don’t think it matters much because he’s not a serious personality. Which family members would ever speak to him? I don’t any of them associate with him. His insults on Kate are old tropes that other people used like not being a confident speaker and “does as she is told” is just coded to say she’s a stepford wife.

A co author wouldn’t have helped, don’t forget finding freedom was also done with Carolyn Durand who barely said anything about the book when it was written.
 
I think there is even a tweet from 2012 of him criticising Kate for some reason so he never liked her anyways. I don’t think it matters much because he’s not a serious personality. Which family members would ever speak to him? I don’t any of them associate with him. His insults on Kate are old tropes that other people used like not being a confident speaker and “does as she is told” is just coded to say she’s a stepford wife.

A co author wouldn’t have helped, don’t forget finding freedom was also done with Carolyn Durand who barely said anything about the book when it was written.

He referred to her as a Stepford wife in this book. He has a lot of ground to make up.
 
Harry didn’t claim that ‘Spare’ was a best seller. It was acknowledged to be one even by his media detractors. And whether it was well-written or not is a matter of opinion. It did get some reviews (posted here) in the Press that were favourable. Also if it wasn’t as well written as some would like then surely Harry’s ghost writer bears some responsibility.
 
I think many acknowledged that it was a best seller, but as Hallo Girl said and I quoted in agreement, it does not make it a well written book. I agree that Harry's ghost writer bears some responsibility for it.
 
I think many acknowledged that it was a best seller, but as Hallo Girl said and I quoted in agreement, it does not make it a well written book. I agree that Harry's ghost writer bears some responsibility for it.

I've read plenty of autobiographies. If the subject is not a good natural storyteller, it is a huge burden for the ghostwriter.

"Spare" is an odd read. "Endgame", from the excerpts I have read, seems an equally repellent and biased accounting.

Scobie cancelled an interview in Paris a day or two ago. He's not exactly surfing the wave of literary success now, is he.
 
I've read plenty of autobiographies. If the subject is not a good natural storyteller, it is a huge burden for the ghostwriter.

"Spare" is an odd read. "Endgame", from the excerpts I have read, seems an equally repellent and biased accounting.

Scobie cancelled an interview in Paris a day or two ago. He's not exactly surfing the wave of literary success now, is he.

I read some of the reviews on Amazon, it is quite interesting the variation in comments, from 5 stars saying an amazing book, to 1 star saying poorly written and researched. You cannot please everybody I suppose.
 
It appears that Omid has retracted his previous claim that "there had never been a version" of the book in English with "names in it". He has now admitted that the names were in an earlier draft which was sent to the Dutch publisher.

In other words, once again, Omid admitted that he flat out lied.
 
Apparently in a column for inews Mr Scobie tried to cast doubt over the role of the Dutch publisher. Xander Uitgevers has reacted and says according to royalty reporter Rick Evers:

‘The explanation of Omid Scobie in his column about the Dutch editorial process of Eindstrijd is factually incorrect and we do not recognize ourselves in his story.'

 
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Apparently he now tried to cast doubt over the role of the Dutch publisher. Xander Uitgevers has reacted and says according to royalty reporter Rick Evers:




I can’t imagine this is helping his reputation as a writer anyone would want to work with, given that he threw his publisher and several employees just doing their jobs straight under a bus.

His column really rubbed me the wrong way, because he claims any negative reaction is people not wanting to deal with the serious problems he wrote about- but I didn’t ever see him make a convincing case for any serious problems requiring reform in how the Duchess of Sussex was treated by the family and institution.
 
I can’t imagine this is helping his reputation as a writer anyone would want to work with, given that he threw his publisher and several employees just doing their jobs straight under a bus.

His column really rubbed me the wrong way, because he claims any negative reaction is people not wanting to deal with the serious problems he wrote about- but I didn’t ever see him make a convincing case for any serious problems requiring reform in how the Duchess of Sussex was treated by the family and institution.

I thought Scobie’s reputation was probably pretty poor before this book. Just about everyone knew he was nothing more than the Sussexes mouthpiece and not a serious royal reporter. He certainly wasn’t interested in THE truth, just their version of events. This has, I imagine, ruined whatever was left of his reputation though. Who would want to work with him after this? Well….he made a lot of money off of the Sussexes drama. I wonder if it was worth it.

He’s trying to deflect attention off of his lies. And doing a very bad job of it.

I don’t buy there’s a race problem either. I think the Sussexes have issues. That seems quite apparent after the last 4 years. And they also like to try and deflect attention off their own short comings by constant finger pointing at just about everyone and everything. Anything that keeps them from looking in the mirror, I guess.
 
Someone please tell me what Scobie said about the publisher? I'd like to know but as a translator myself, I'm not sure I could actually read this. It's horror stuff for me. It's hard to work under the pressure of knowing that you could be sued at any moment if you make a mistake in certain books... but this?
 
Someone please tell me what Scobie said about the publisher? I'd like to know but as a translator myself, I'm not sure I could actually read this. It's horror stuff for me. It's hard to work under the pressure of knowing that you could be sued at any moment if you make a mistake in certain books... but this?

Scobie says they were working off of an earlier version they were given to get the work started and then were supposed to update it with the final version and this is what happened in other countries where it was translated. Does this sound plausible to you?

Edit to add- here is the column:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/omid-scobie-endgame-backlash-confront-racism-2796706
 
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Scobie says they were working off of an earlier version they were given to get the work started and then were supposed to update it with the final version and this is what happened in other countries where it was translated. Does this sound plausible to you?
Thank you.

It does. Absolutely. The thing is, it's going to take time to ascertain who sent what, who received what and who contacted or failed to contact whom. Was the final manuscript sent in a mass email? Was only the Dutch one wrong? Was it the publisher who made a mistake?

Whatever. If it wasn't an elaborate plan to get the names out without risking the UK laws, then yes, it could have happened.

It doesn't change the fact that Scobie lied. He said he never submitted a version with the names in it and he did.

The translator has been vindicated. In the whole sordid affair, that was what interested me. It was her livelihood on the line. With the publisher not washing his hands with her and at the same time, not accepting Scobie's version, I'd say things were not as Scobie said. It didn't happen this way. Maybe they forgot to send the final manuscript over? Or it wasn't really the final one but one with just a few changes and the racist royals not one of them?
 
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It appears that Omid has retracted his previous claim that "there had never been a version" of the book in English with "names in it". He has now admitted that the names were in an earlier draft which was sent to the Dutch publisher.

In other words, once again, Omid admitted that he flat out lied.


Quelle surprise!:rolleyes:
 
It appears that Omid has retracted his previous claim that "there had never been a version" of the book in English with "names in it". He has now admitted that the names were in an earlier draft which was sent to the Dutch publisher.

In other words, once again, Omid admitted that he flat out lied.

Note the talk is about draft and books. When I watched his interview he was quite clear that he did not sign off on a book that included names . He was so specific that I knew there had been a draft.
 
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