The Cynical Soak

  In an explosive development that has left Britain somewhere between bemusement and full-scale thermonuclear panic, Meghan Markle — Duchess of Montecito, Netflix Rock Star, and part-time lifestyle sherpa — has apparently plummeted from the rarefied ICON status on ShopMy to the pedestrian level of ENTHUSIAST.   ShopMy, for the uninitiated, is the online platform where influencers — the apex predators of the digital ecosystem — post links to cashmere sweaters, mascara, and overpriced candles, thereby turning your thumb-scrolling habit into a VAT-inclusive passive income stream.   “She was an icon,” screamed one commentator while clutching their pearls, “and now she’s basically a starter Pokémon.”  THE £14.6M MONTECITO MONEY SPONGE   Following Megxit: The Sequel, the Sussexes’ $14.65 million Montecito compound continues to operate as what economists call a financial singularity — a swirling gravity well that sucks in content deals, book advances, and Netfl...

Netflix, in its unending quest to scrape the bottom of the celebrity barrel, has apparently decided to serve us a new delicacy: Meghan Markle, cooking on camera. One imagines this will be less about cuisine and more about sautéed self-promotion, garnished with the odd tearful anecdote. The Duchess of Sussex stirring a pot is not so much a culinary act as an allegory: ingredients reduced to irrelevance while the chef marinates herself in relevance. If ever there were a recipe designed for Instagram rather than the table, it is this. Expect the food to be photogenic, the knives unused, and the oven employed chiefly as a decorative prop. The enterprise is less likely to feed the hungry than to nourish the appetite of Netflix executives desperate to wring one more morsel from the monarchy’s side salad. When the credits roll, viewers may find themselves not full, but faintly queasy. In short: it’s less MasterChef, more Mistress of Ceremonial Self-Regard.