AMANDA PLATELL: Harry's silence about his father and sister-in-law Kate shows he has never been more isolated

What a shock it was to hear on Wednesday that both the Princess of Wales and the King were undergoing serious medical treatment.

We discovered that Kate had already had abdominal surgery which left her in hospital for a fortnight and Charles will soon undergo a 'procedure' for an enlarged prostate.

Still, not half as shocking as it must have been for Prince Harry, who reportedly knew nothing of Kate's condition or even his father until he saw media bulletins.

Buckingham Palace is said to have made every effort to inform all senior members of the royal family, including Harry.

But the public announcement about Charles came at 3:25 p.m., which is 7:25 a.m. in California.

So maybe Harry woke up and saw a news flash before the message from the palace. How isolated he must have felt. No time for a phone call from Dad to tell his son not to worry.

Not a word from William to explain what was going on with the sister-in-law he was once so close to.

Since the news broke, the Sussexes have kept quiet, not even issuing a public statement of support for the king or Kate.

Maybe they did that privately. I hope so, although given the desperately strained relations between the Prince and Princess of Montecito and the royal family, I fear this is unlikely. But this is certainly the time for all parties to make amends.

It must be unbearable for Harry to be so far away, so out of touch. All too soon after his beloved grandmother the Queen died, he was struck again by a sharp reminder of human frailty in his own family.

To promote his memoir Spare in January last year, Harry was asked by US broadcaster Anderson Cooper whether he still spoke or texted William. He said, 'Not at the moment. . . I look forward to us finding peace.”

How this petulant prince, who yesterday withdrew his libel suit against The Mail on Sunday, must now regret his grandiose demands that the royal family apologize to him.

I have been Harry's harshest critic because of the appalling way he treated his family. And yet I can't help but feel sorry for him now.

Harry is not a cruel man. He is kind, compassionate and loving, just like his mother Diana – and I can't believe he is anything but distraught about his father and Kate.

Good news for men with pants problems, as placing a Viagra tablet in a vase of flowers has been proven to keep them from lingering for two weeks, while others wilt within days. Saves men embarrassment at the pharmacy. They can now say: 'Not for me, I need them to stiffen my wife's gladiolus.'

Fifty? Kate is still a wild child

What's not to love about Kate Moss's £100,000 50th birthday party?

She took over the Michelin-starred Laurent Restaurant in Paris and partied with daughter Lila, best friends from decades ago, boyfriend Nikolai von Bismarck, 37, and her friends from the fashion world.

Great admiration for the fact that she has a handsome and much younger lover, pictured together, looks as fabulous as ever and, even after becoming a wellness guru, is only a teetotaler when she wants to be, and happily chain-smokes during her party.

My kind of girl.

Steel giant Tata is to close blast furnaces at its factory in Port Talbot, South Wales – with an expected loss of 2,500 jobs – and replace them with environmentally friendly electric furnaces, which will take years to build. Yes, we all want a greener world, but at what cost in lives? As the closure of the coal mines in the 1980s proved, when you close a pit, you destroy a community.

Telling the tooth

The British Dental Association blames the Tory NHS for more than 100,000 children in five years having teeth so rotten they required hospital surgery.

The only ones to blame for this are the parents who feed them junk food and sugary drinks. A report shows that children enter primary school without ever having had a toothbrush – let alone learned how to use one.

Kudos to ITV for having the guts to commission what was on the face of it a bleak drama about postmasters with the less than catchy title of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office. Their instincts were right with more than 10 million people tuning in for the final. And what's more, the drama ultimately led to action against this terrible injustice.

Marie defies the bra

Ageless former supermodel Marie Helvin, wearing an exquisitely skimpy pink thong and bra, defiantly asks, “Who says a woman in her seventies can't model lingerie?” To which most women over 40 would respond after a few children: “Me!”

Marie attributes her ageless figure to the choice not to have children and to remain single.

But I bet mere mortal mothers her age, surrounded by children, grandchildren and a messy husband, wouldn't want to trade places with her for a nanosecond.

Well, okay, maybe. . . just a few minutes.

So why did Meghan and Harry appropriate the queen's nickname Lilibet for their daughter? Why didn't she look at her own family? I think Princess Doria of Sussex, in honor of her mother, or Princess Doris of Sussex, in honor of her paternal grandmother, does not have the royal ring.

Train sets did not hit the buffers

Sad news for toy train enthusiasts like Rod Stewart and Pete Waterman as last year's National Model Railway Exhibition in Birmingham is declared the last – because enthusiasts are that old.

Not true! My nephew Pete recently dug up the train set his father left him and cleared it away for his three-year-old son Michael. He is in awe of the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard, restored and still honking.

Ex-footballers shouting about the rise of female football pundits will be sputtering into their beers after learning that top-tier presenter Laura Woods is a millionaire. Woods earned £250,000 at TalkSport, but her earnings shot up by £600,000 even before her move to TNT Sports last year. Enough to make an old misogynist cry.

Westminster Wars

• After presiding over the highest tax increase in living memory, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is now promising tax cuts for everyone before the election. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves is promising the same. Do they think we are idiots? Whoever wins will receive the same note that ex-Treasury chief Liam Byrne left the coalition government: 'Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards and good luck.'
• Any chance of getting the Rwanda bill done means it has to pass through the House of Lords, where it passed this week amid cries of “Shame!” was presented. Why should pompous, unelected peers who have never experienced a hotel full of immigrants next to their big houses decide the level of migration in Britain? Abolish them all!

It's heartening to hear that the real reason comedian Sandi Toksvig quit The Great British Bake Off was because it “wasted my brain watching the meringues dry up.”

The show has always divided opinion. Millions love it, but others, like me, don't. I'd rather swim naked to Alaska than make a fried one.

Shocking news, even in these difficult times, that we are tempted by simple funerals without even a short service. Some packages will see a loved one's cremated ashes delivered to your home for a 'celebration of life' party with a bill of £1,500. Crikey, you call that a party? I reserved twice as much just for drinks.

Perhaps the reason why Oppenheimer's apocalyptic film is winning all the awards for the relentlessly cheerful Barbie is that it is not in a pink world, but in a dark world that we are starting to fear – with the possibility of a Third World War, when everyone actually has nuclear weapons.