SARAH VINE: The so-called ‘Royal racist’ allegations are just ANOTHER example of how we’re all trapped in a cultural straitjacket and the lunatics are taking over the asylum 

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that offer the biggest insights. While having lunch with a friend recently, I remarked that her hair looked especially good. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I had a blow-dry – God, it was traumatic.’

She told me that she’d wanted to tip the person who had washed her hair but faced a conundrum: the individual in question was clearly male – with facial hair and pleasingly firm massage technique – but was dressed as a woman. What pronoun should she deploy? Him? Her? They? Hedging her bets, she decided to plump for ‘They’.

‘It’s her, actually,’ said the receptionist, witheringly.

Aargh! Wrong again. My poor friend fled, mortified.

Maybe it’s my age or there’s just something wrong with me, but modern life is increasingly a series of baffling obstacles and pitfalls. One feels adrift in a strange sea, lost in a fog of political correctness and constantly shifting rules.

King Charles is right to stay silent about the appalling allegations of racism, but why are Palace lawyers so circumspect? The institution Charles represents has a right to defend itself against unscrupulous publishers.

It’s as if they seek out any opportunity to be offended or upset – relishing the drama and the chance to bring others down. A glaring example is the so-called ‘Royal racist’ allegations, re-heated with a side order of triple-fried malice by Omid Scobie.

Daily life is filled with tricky tasks and challenges which, inevitably, I fail. I feel like I’m living in some surreal version of the Celebrity jungle, forced to swallow a variety of unpalatable concoctions and where, if at any stage I put even a toenail wrong, I could be cancelled: I’m a Gen X-er… Get Me Out of Here!

Of course, everyone experiences some form of age-related alienation. I’m sure that my grandparents’ generation were as mystified by the groups I once eagerly followed on Top Of The Pops as today’s fiftysomethings are by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

READ MORE: SARAH VINE: Royal biographer Omid Scobie may be a leech… but the treachery of Harry was so much worse

But even though different generations in the past didn’t always see eye to eye – culturally, politically, socially – mostly we respected each other’s views. Or even if we didn’t, we left each other to get on with it.

That’s no longer the case. Everyone is expected to accommodate – or else. We 43- to 58-year-olds must be educated, shaken out of our gentle Gen X slumber, in which we just bumble along making the most of life, to be pitched into a post- millennial minefield that could blow up in our face at any time.

Another example. A friend was stuck in a traffic jam when her hearing aids started making a terrible screeching noise. As she sat frantically trying to sort out her device, a cyclist took a photo and reported her to the police.

Now she faces a fine and up to six points on her licence. True, technically she was breaking the law. But sometimes the law is an ass. Sometimes people are also asses.

To my generation, such interfering, inflexible behaviour is anathema. We grew up minding our own business in a live-and-let-live way. Self-determination and free speech are central to our mindset. Common sense is our watchword.

However, the generation that gave us avocado on toast and matcha lattes – millennials – are very different. They try to shape the world in their holier-than-thou image. There’s an intractability and almost deliberate desire to seek offence about so many younger people that makes me think they’re almost doing it on purpose, just waiting for the rest of us to trip up, spoiling for a fight.

Anyone with half an ounce of sense knows that the whole thing is a completely overblown reaction to a most likely perfectly innocuous and possibly slightly jokey conversation about which of their parents’ very different physical characteristics the Sussexes’ first baby might inherit. The kind of conversation every family has ahead of a new arrival

It’s as if they seek out any opportunity to be offended or upset – relishing the drama and the chance to bring others down.

A glaring example is the so-called ‘Royal racist’ allegations, re-heated with a side order of triple-fried malice by Omid Scobie. Anyone with half an ounce of sense knows that the whole thing is a completely overblown reaction to a most likely perfectly innocuous and possibly slightly jokey conversation about which of their parents’ very different physical characteristics the Sussexes’ first baby might inherit. The kind of conversation every family has ahead of a new arrival. ‘Let’s hope the baby doesn’t have your huge nose/feet/terrible teeth’ and so on.

But in a world where everything carries the threat of offence, and where even the best intentions are weaponised, such things can become battlegrounds.

Better just to keep your mouth shut or avoid taking the risk altogether. Don’t pay anyone any compliments, don’t comment, don’t ask questions – and for God’s sake don’t ever attempt humour. And that is why the world is becoming increasingly bonkers and intolerant, why it’s hard to escape the notion we’re all trapped in a cultural straitjacket, and that the lunatics are taking over the asylum. Because that’s what is happening.

I suppose the only consolation is that, at 56, I’ve only got to put up with it for, what, a couple more decades? Assuming that they don’t bump me off first.

 ● Forget Liz Truss’s 44 days as PM: she would have a legacy to be proud of if her proposed bill to prevent under-18s accessing hormone therapy passes into law, saving countless youngsters from ruining their lives before they’re ready to make an informed decision.

If politicians are so keen on net zero, why don’t they attend climate change summits by Zoom, instead of flying halfway around the world to places such as Dubai, global capital of conspicuous (and planet-combusting) consumption?

 ● Jozef Puska, killer of Ashling Murphy, tried to take his own life during his trial, but was thwarted by officers. Why? If such a scumbag wants to do us all the favour of topping himself, no one should stop him.

My cat could do with a Ted talk on manners

My fellow columnist Amanda Platell says her cat, Ted, disdains a survey claiming dog-walking can help stave off dementia. 

How different from my cat, which wakes me every morning with her razor-sharp claws demanding breakfast. 

How different from my cat, which wakes me every morning with her razor-sharp claws demanding breakfast

She then spends hours nagging to be let in and out, rushing around the house attacking my soft furnishings before settling down for the day, having covered everything in cat hair. 

Amanda, any chance I could borrow Ted? He might teach my cat some manners.

 ● King Charles is right to stay silent about the appalling allegations of racism, but why are Palace lawyers so circumspect? The institution Charles represents has a right to defend itself against unscrupulous publishers.

Claudia’s clone is a mini-me too far

New on my growing list of Things That Make No Sense Whatsoever is the obsession that otherwise perfectly intelligent women seem to have with Barbie. 

Now Claudia Schiffer, who I’ve always considered as one of the more sensible supermodels, dresses like a Disney princess, gushing about her ‘limited edition’ mini-me Barbie

The hysterical hype surrounding the film (starring Margot Robbie) was bad enough. 

Now Claudia Schiffer, who I’ve always considered as one of the more sensible supermodels, dresses like a Disney princess, gushing about her ‘limited edition’ mini-me Barbie. 

Come on, Claudia, you’re better than this.

 ● Parcel theft has soared – up 57 per cent according to one report. I’m not surprised. 

I’ve lost count of the number of times Evri or DHL has sent me a cheery message saying, ‘Congratulations, your parcel has been successfully delivered’, only to find it on my doorstep in full view of passers-by (not to mention the local meth addicts). 

It seems delivery firms just dump stuff and run – or return it to a depot so far away it might as well be in Ulan Bator.

Schools should be safe

One way extremist ideologues infiltrate society is by indoctrinating the young. Recent proof is how children have been skipping school to attend pro-Palestinian marches. 

Today, this newspaper reports that some Muslim pupils at a high-performing English state school are being bullied by older students for not fasting during Ramadan or wearing the hijab

Today, this newspaper reports that some Muslim pupils at a high-performing English state school are being bullied by older students for not fasting during Ramadan or wearing the hijab. 

Of course, everyone has a right to practise their religion, but schools should be safe environments where youngsters can expand, not shrink, their horizons, and make up their own minds about life without fear of intimidation or indoctrination.

 ● Tunnock’s Teacakes profits have plunged by more than 80 per cent. This is a national emergency. It’s the duty of every citizen to eat at least one Teacake a day – a task I’ll take very seriously.

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