SEVEN YEARS AGO TODAY, this was the headline: Harry and Meghan were "considering creating a second base in the US". Seven years, three countries and four homes later, the royal frauds are still bouncing back and forth like ping pong balls.
That very month Harry told a television documentary that Cape Town would be "an amazing place to be able to base ourselves". Days later it was California. By Christmas they were hiding out on Vancouver Island, and in January 2020 they announced they would split their time between Britain and North America.
Queen Elizabeth settled that at Sandringham: there would be no half-in, half-out.
Off they bounced to a borrowed Beverly Hills mansion, then to Montecito. Frogmore Cottage, refurbished for them at a cost of £2.4 million to the public purse before they repaid it, was handed back in 2023.
And of course two months ago they bounced back to the UK with their children.
Harry still cannot decide which side of the table he is on. One minute he tells the BBC he "would love reconciliation" with his family. In the same interview he says he cannot see a world in which he brings his wife and children back to Britain.
Seven years after that "second base", the only thing the manchild and his wife have never moved out of is their royal titles.