Following the Duchess of Cambridge’s outrageous flashing of her naked behind in Australia, her steadfast refusal to wear panties in public, and other previous and repeated public episodes of crotch flashing and crotch pressing, Buckingham Palace has gone into full-blown damage control.

First, there was her brief exile from the Ralph Lauren shindig, during which someone high-high up most likely told Kate that her sexual exhibitionism had to stop. Or screamed at her. Or something. Maybe they threatened to take the tiara away.

The one they haven’t allowed Kate to be officially photographed in public wearing yet.

It appears that this time, once the Cambridges were back on British soil, Buckingham Palace did not permit Kate to immediately evacuate to controlling mommy Carole Middleton’s Bucklebury digs– a place to which Kate has promptly fled following almost every one of her public lapses of protocol.

This time, Kate was made to stay put.

Or perhaps, she was given a choice, and told that her escape to Bucklebury could be made into a permanent state of affairs.

When Kate next publicly appeared, she appeared to be a bit shell-shocked. She showed up in Scotland well-covered in a rosy-pink watermelon stripey coat that was buttoned up tightly right beneath her chin and just knee-level long, and appeared to be weighted down at the hem so that it would not fly up and expose her naked behind no matter if a whole squadron of helicopters suddenly appeared.http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/478948/Duchess-of-Cambridge-looks-radiant-in-red-as-she-and-Prince-William-arrive-in-Scotland.

It was a day without one hiney sighting!http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity/546550/kate-middleton-s-maternity-leave-is-definitely-over-then.html#index=1.

And about time, too.

But Kate did treat us to a bit of crotch pressing with her nude-colored clutch bag.http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/29/pictures-kate-middleton-and-prince-william-enjoy-a-wee-dram-during-visit-to-scotland-4744041/royal-visit-to-strathearn-6/.

Hiccup!

It’s a nasty habit, now very ingrained.

Cannot anyone at Buckingham Palace simply wrest it away from her?

Can Her Majesty not lend Kate one of her nice classic strappy handbags?http://hermesbagbirkin.blogspot.com/2012/03/princess-or-queen-elizabeth-starts.html.

Can Princess Anne not instruct Kate on how to carry a handbag efficiently under one’s arm?http://omgprincessanneshandbag.tumblr.com/.Or by the strap alongside one’s body?

Weird handbag carrying must run in the Middleton family. Pippa’s purses are often so oversized they make her look like a dwarf.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2538758/Pippa-Middleton-looks-chic-navy-white-spends-afternoon-shopping-London.html. Kate’s mother, Carole, famously carried a clutchy handbag to Kate’s wedding and pressed it into her crotch during the ceremony.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2008914/Newsweek-Princess-Diana-aged-50-Kate-Middleton-cover.html. And most of Kate’s clutch bags are so tiny that they just look like, like...like a prop for holding up a fake pregnancy prosthesis....

Uh oh, there goes my !$#@!&! computer again!

Those Birth Truthers will stop at nothing, I tell you!

Shoo! Shoo! Curse you, Birth Truthers!

Now, where were we? Ah, yes, back to the "new" Kate Middleton, post-Hineygate. Demure. Dresses DOWN. Is trying to be ROYAL.

One weird moment in Scotland was when Kate was apparently posing for a I-pad "capture" for a fan and made some kind of very odd frownie face that popped out her eyeballs and knit her black eyebrows together and made her look like a plastic-surgery "before" advertisement.

Or like someone having a bit of a nervous breakdown.http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/29/pictures-kate-middleton-and-prince-william-enjoy-a-wee-dram-during-visit-to-scotland-4744041/#jp-carousel-4744233.

Hiccup!

But then she pulled her eyes back into their sockets, and that moment quickly passed.

However, the point is not lost. A celebrity poses, or else acts like William Baldwin and attacks a photographer.

Royals should be different. A royal, when not officially posing in uniform or gown or for some important occasion that requires an official photograph, tends to look past a citizen photographer and go about their business. Normally, they do not ENGAGE.

They try not to connect, because to do so is to risk losing the psychological elevation upon which all royalty truly depends, if it is to work at all.

I mean, would Buckinham Palace’s balcony be so special if EVERYONE could just pile up on it, like spring break at a Florida beach condo?http://media.lehighvalleylive.com/nick-falsone_impact/photo/spring-break-florida-2b33a9b8f6041a5d.jpg.

A true, experienced royal personage does not usually pose for selfies, does not screw up their face and pop their eyeballs out or knit their hairy eyebrows together.

Not since Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, last left the royal fold, anyway.http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html.Who can easily forget Fergie’s ever-morphing facial expressions at the late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s funeral?http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/17/margaret-thatcher-funeral-fergie_n_3100112.html. But the Duchess of York has always been a pop-eyed gal.http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/1987/princess-diana-sarah-ferguson-relationship. It’s her equivalent of public crotch-pressing!http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2036533/Sarah-Ferguson-makes-begging-phone-money--time-going-charity.html.

Diana had an equally odd habit of rolling her eyeballs sideways while being photographed, which sometimes made her look like a living-dead kind of person.http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-revisit-deaths-of-princess-diana-and-dodi-al-fayed-8772654.html.

But anyhoo...back to Kate Middleton, who wears so much eyemakeup that normally we can’t see any of her eyes.

Scotland was a one-day visit during which Kate and William met some young school children and then went to a distillery and drank some scotch (what else?!, and we were all wondering when Kate and Prince William would collapse from exhaustion and sprint off to a luxury holiday on Mustique or the Seychelles or the Maldives, as they usually do after any foreign travel undertaken by them on behalf of the Crown.

But then, Kate pleasantly surprised us again when she showed up in France for the D-Day memorial celebrations wearing a long blue coat that not only covered everything, and again was buttoned up to her chin, but was the kind of thing that Queen Elizabeth II herself might have picked out!https://twitter.com/britishroyals/status/474955690209845248/photo/1. Of course, Kate and William were not in the thick of things, up the road, where the Queen and her consort, Prince Philip, and her son and heir Prince Charles and his mistress-turned-honest-woman Camilla held court. Perhaps because all the truly royal personages of genuine importance were up the road and not inspecting her hem weights or timing her prozac pills, Kate then allowed herself to be kissed by an elderly gentleman soldier and, although it is a moment of that "common touch" thing the Cambridges are said to so pride themselves on, the kiss, on the cheek or the mouth or whatever, well....

Hiccup!

That smootch.

It was something that the Queen would not do.

If a princess lets a man-not-her-husband get thatclose to her in public, who knows what could happen?

Would a really randy pensioner decide that, since they were all in France, one might as well have a French kiss?

Why not take advantage of the moment and plant a real smootcheroo on the future Queen consort (after Camilla’s turn, of course)? Why not decide to take a gander or a feely at some of the body parts and nether regions Kate has so recently shown to the international public?

Would that be a nice photograph for the daily newspapers?

Princess Diana would likely have graciously held out her hand, and let the old fellow kiss that, as she did once, so famously during her engagement.http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/HU005579/schoolboy-kisses-lady-dianas-hand. Nicholas Hardy, identified as "a schoolboy" (which indeed he was) became famous as the first hand-kisser.

Diana liked getting close to people, and they loved getting close to her, but as she eased out of truly royal life and its inherent protections and moved more in celebrity circles, Diana unwisely opened herself out to various public attentions, such as men publicly grabbing her rear-end at charity events.

And not cooty old pensioners, either.

She was said to have complained that it was horrifyingly "common."

But this is the world of a paid celebrity.

Kim Kardashian can act all shocked and indignant that some photog takes a photograph up her dress, but when there isn’t that much of a dress to shoot up from under in the first place, and this is how we all know that Kim and Company makes their money, well, it gets harder and harder to sympathize with the outrage of it all.

If Diana had not died in that Paris debacle, one wonders what other touchy-feely opportunists would have done.

Even that small hand-kissing moment marked Diana as not very experienced in royal circles, and she was reportedly advised to not do it again.

But Diana couldn’t help herselfhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3061409, and the men couldn’t help themselves,http://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/oct/07/paul-gascoigne-alive-kicking, and pretty soon, even Prince Charles started hand-kissing Dianahttp://diaryifat.blogspot.com/2011/05/prince-charles-and-lady-diana-wedding.html. He did it more than oncehttp://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prince-charles-kissing-princess-dianas-hand-during-their-news-photo/52118355, and we only wish that it could have gone on http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Prince-Charles-Kisses-Hand-of-Princess-Diana-During-the-Braemar-Games-Near-Balmoral-Castle-Scotland-Posters_i4175524_.htm, and on that way into happily ever after.

And who can forget that curtsy-hand kiss that made everyone in Spain jibber and jabber about whether King Juan Carlos and Princess Diana had a....a...a thing going on?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646700/RICHARD-KAY-life-times-womanising-King-Juan-Carlos-rumoured-1-500-lovers-pass-Princess-Diana.html.

It’s only recently gotten into The Mail, but in Spain, the King Juan Carlos-Princess Diana connection has been rumored for decades.

After all, he bought her a Cartier bracelet.

And Juan Carlos was a king on a tight budget!

But let’s get back to Kate Middleton and her newly-covered behind.

The past two weeks, not only did Kate give us a virtual parade of longish dresses that were all very fitted and did not fly about her waist exposing her naked butt, but she actually appeared to be taking on various engagements!

Yes, engagements, as in...those things the Royals typically do to relate to the British nation and earn their keep.

Their work. Their job.

Kate appeared at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, had breakfast at the Maritime Museum to promote British yachting, rode in a carriage to the Trooping of the Colour, and went to Windsor Castle to watch her husband, father-in-law, the Queen, Prince Philip, and other Knights of the Order of the Garter parade about.

I think this is a first of some kind!

To show us that she’d not forgotten her motherhood role, Kate showed up at a charity polo game with Prince George, who toddled about. Disappointingly, Kate once again wore too-tight leggings and a too-short shirt, and bent down several times to show us all her hiney crack.

Sigh....

Hiccup!

But all in all, it was a pretty good couple of weeks for Kate.

She had one moment of exceptional photogenic dourness at the Trooping of the Colour while riding about in the carriage with soon-to-be Queen Consort Camilla and Prince Harry, but perhaps she had one of those dressing-downs to keep her dress down before the ceremony, just in case she’d forgotten.http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Kate+Middleton/Queen+Elizabeth+II+Birthday+Parade+Trooping/CgaOyZVlCoZ.

It was one frame short of a scowll, like the kind we used to see so regularly from Princess Anne.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/04/badgers-should-be-gassed-princess-anne-cull.

Or a rare one like that of Her Majesty about a year ago. Was she wondering what to do about Kate’s various wardrobe malfunctions?http://www.pinterest.com/pin/530791506052225458/.

Hiccup!

But then, Kate rallied and started smiling professionally, and all appeared to be well again.

Still, it isn’t the first time that Kate has appeared a bit unhinged while riding in a carriage with soon-to-be-Queen-Consort Camilla.http://www.contactmusic.com/photo/catherine-duchess-of-cambridge-kate-middleton-camilla-the-duchess-of_3720770.

It’s that kind of famously droll royal sense of humor that keeps making the courtiers deliberately put Kate into Camilla’s carriage at public events.

They probably take bets on how many seconds Kate can last in Camilla’s presence without turning into an overdressed Grumpy Cat!

Meanwhile, we were transfixed by the possibility of transformations of Kate and William into hard-working, thrifty royals. Kate was enthralling us by "recycling" her gala-event outfits.

Yes, "recycling." In Kate Middleton’s world, "recycling" means wearing the same outfit twice. In two or more years.

Which is different from my idea of recycling, where I go buy an outfit and figure that if it cost $100 bucks, then I will have to wear it at least 20 times at $5.00 a wear to get my money’s worth out of it before I "recycle" it by giving it to a friend or to charity or popping over it over to the re-sale shop. I only feel less guilty about not wearing it at least 20 times if I bought it for $30.00 or less at Dress Barn, except that there is the guilt factor about almost all their stuff being imported from China, which can adversely affect our balance of payments, and so forth.

During her week of wondrous public appearances, Kate wore a suit seen once before and a nude lace dress seen once before, and then she showed up at Bletchley Park where her hero granny worked for a few months before World War II finally ended, and she wore another outfit with gold buttons that had been seen once before, and it was like Ghandi being reincarnated, honestly, there was such a golden light all about the moment.

Recylcing! The Cambridges looked so thrifty!

They looked so thrifty, right up until the Queen went and rented them their own private helicopter for something like $12 million dollars.http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queen-treats-prince-william-kate-3735003.

Twelve million very public dollars.

Hic...hic...hiccup!

Because Kate and William need it so desperately, you see.

I mean, how many charities do the Cambridges actually support as patrons now? I have lost count, but I think it may be less than ten. But anyhoo, The Mirror claims that Kate and William need the $12 million dollar helicopter to ferry them about because they are now parents: "It will be an efficient way for William – who turns 32tomorrow– and Kate, also 32, to zip between official engagements so they can spend as much time as possible at home with Prince

George."

And don’t forget about their dog, Lupo!

Kate Middleton’s public rehabilitation continues apace.

But the $12 million dollar helicopter is a spanner in the works.

Hiccup!