Calamity Kate and the failed Photoshop
In late 2020, I was working on a story about how the far-right QAnon worldview was usurping the benign, eccentric beliefs of new-age hippies in the southwest of England. In Glastonbury — site of a famous annual music festival and where the legendary King Arthur once lived — witchcraft and druid rituals were being supplanted by anti-vaccine disinformation and 5G conspiracy theories.
I met Shannon in Glastonbury. She invited me back to her cottage right by the town’s famous tor, a spooky tower on a sandstone hill that looks out over the Somerset Levels. We sipped tea as we talked about her fears and premonitions surrounding the pandemic and her conviction that the vaccine was a “population control” project. All at once, she leaned in and started talking about the then-Prince Charles. “He’s changed, you know. If you look at pictures of his face over the last few months, it has completely changed.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, cautiously.
“I’m not saying anything,” she said, with a conspiratorial smile. “Just that the Prince Charles from before the pandemic is not the same man as we’re seeing now. It’s probably a body double.”