Usually I like to burst onto the page all guns blazing, firing off trenchant opinions in all directions, only satisfied when at least some part of the readership feels the burning need to go below-the-line to tell me I’m an idiot, writes columnist Rhys Griffiths.

Today, however, I am addressing a topic on which I struggle to form any coherent opinion, however lightly held. I just don’t care. And for someone who could pretty much start a blazing row with an inanimate object, this is a disconcerting position to be in.

According to a breathless scoop in today’s Guardian, the Prince of Wales once knocked his brother to the floor during a barney in London over the antics of Harry’s wife, the actress Meghan Markle.

Going all in, the paper describes the fraternal fracas as an “extraordinary scene”. Really? As someone who grew up as one of four boys, I’d say it’s all pretty run of the mill stuff. Maybe we, the great unwashed, expect some unrealistic level of princely decorum, but a bit of brotherly rough and tumble behind closed doors hardly seems worthy of headlines across the globe.

But here we are. Many may declare their boredom with the whole royal soap opera, and yet still the endless column inches, the social media spats and the Netflix specials are lapped up. The wheel keeps turning because, ultimately, millions upon millions of people around the world care, some very much indeed.

All, it sometimes feels, except me. And I can’t tell you how much I would love to care, to have a view, to be able to put forth an argument about why one party or the other is being grievously wronged. But however hard I try, I just can’t get there. I read the latest headlines, mull them over briefly, then shrug my shoulders and scroll on. Can you imagine how infuriating this is? Especially when this right royal rumpus is hitting the headlines, and I have a column to write.

'Hopefully one day the institution will decline to the point where eventually we all stop caring...'

No, I just find the whole thing rather tawdry and ultimately quite sad. In fact it is almost, and I stress ‘almost’, enough to make me sorry for Charlie. The chap has waited his whole life for the role he was born to play, he becomes King, and now it appears the story of his reign could end up entirely dominated by the fall-out from this transatlantic tabloid tittle-tattle.

Has Meghan been the victim of lingering racism and misogyny in the Firm? Quite possibly, it’s an ancient, antiquated institution that should be left to wither and die. Have Harry and William yet to fully process the pain of unimaginable childhood suffering? I am sure of it, and I wish they could be left in peace to continue that healing process. Must the King be frightfully embarrassed by the whole affair? Almost certainly, but I guess having your lives played out in public is the price of such privilege, and I am sure the King understands this as well as anyone.

Perhaps the reason I struggle to care, or take a strident view, is that this is all too complicated to be reduced simply to Team Harry vs Team Wills, the House of Windsor vs Hollywood, however much the spirit of the age demands we pick a side, choose our colours, declare our undying loyalty to the cause.

A hefty chunk of my mild republicanism is born of the fact I feel sorry for all of them, trapped in their gilded cages. Hopefully one day the institution will decline to the point where eventually we all stop caring, where we turn our faces away, and we allow these people - possessed of unimaginable wealth, but also our universal human frailties and faults - the space to live the lives they choose. Not the ones we choose for them.

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