These people are the most trivial, juvenile, time-wasting people in the long, stupid history of celebrities. Brits everywhere should hide their heads under paper bags for allowing them to encroach on our consciousness when there are sock draws desperately needing order and curling championships to watch.

Today we are told the shocking “news” that Kate Middleton celebrated her birthday a few days ago on January 9 and apparently Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didn’t wish her a happy birthday! One source “somewhat dramatically tells Rob Shuter’s ShuterScoop, ‘Not a peep. It’s deliberate. They’re making it clear they’re done. It’s a line in the sand.'”

Another source reassures us, thank God: “Kate? She’s calm, grounded, moving forward. It’s a quiet power play.”

What adult gives a flying fickle finger of fate whether someone remembers their birthday or not? How completely narcissistic and without purpose in life does one have to be to regard that as a “snub”? I’ve forgotten the birthdays of my friends and relatives more often than not: I just can’t store that stuff. I never could remember either of my parents’ birthdays. I remember my own, my late wife’s, because she would have murdered me if I forgot, my son’s, because it is October 27, the date the 2004 Red Sox finally won the World Series, my sister’s, because it’s the day before Halloween, and the birthday of an old unrequited love, who was born on Halloween. I also remember Abe Lincoln’s birthday and George Washington’s. For anyone else, it’s hit or miss.

But someone, anyone, not wishing “Happy Birthday” to a family member? How is this news? I would be more interested in a secondary Kardashian’s rash, the fact that Adam Sandler saves toothpicks, or the news that Joe Biden said a three syllable word without slurring. The current Royals, with a sliver of an exception for King Charles, do nothing, contribute nothing to the public good and deserve as little attention and respect as possible. It is more newsworthy when Chelsea Clinton solves a Soduku.

On the old “Best of the Web” column written by the estimable James Taranto (Happy birthday, Jim!), this would be known as the “Bottom News Story of the Day,” except that I bet 99% if not all of the items he included in that Wall Street Journal feature would have been above the “news” that Kate Middleton didn’t get a birthday card from idiot Harry and his trashy wife.

Thus it is that Ethics Alarms awards this story The Kaufman, because it meets the level of absolute disinterest the great playwright and wit George S. Kaufman delivered on a TV panel show when crooner Eddie Fisher ( father of Carrie, husband of Debbie Reynolds) asked advice from the panel because desirable women were refusing to date him because of his youth. Kaufman replied,

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope.  The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

Actually, I’m more interested in Eddie Fisher’s sex life than Kate Middleton’s hurt boo-boo over her birthday snub.

Here’s Eddie at his best…at least he could sing [Mark your calendars! Eddie’s birthday is August 10!]: