Standing, looking, nodding, beatifically smiling, doing a bit more standing, a neat restrained wave. These are some of the skills that a top flight princess must master, along with not snorting with laughter every time you see your princely husband in the Tudor velvet bonnet he has to sometimes wear for work. (It’s not easy to look manly-like in an Order of the Garter get-up with ostrich feathers sprouting from your hat.)

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After 15 years on the royal beat, Kate, The Princess of Wales is a seasoned old-hand at all this, and this week’s Oman State Visit was her usual A grade performance. It really does take some skill to look like there is nowhere you would rather be on a drizzly Tuesday than on an unheated Royal Dais in the Windsor Castle grounds, to watch 800 service people and 120 horses prance past.

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Then that night, a be-sashed, tired Kate, positively clinking with Royal honours, including the Royal Victorian Order, got to float into the State Banquet in a caped Elie Saab evening gown looking like she was auditioning for a supporting part in the next Frozen.

If anyone might be keeping score, this was the princess’ 11th State Banquet. And a certain duke, possibly to be found schvitzing in the Soho Farmhouse sauna? Zero.

The closest Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex came to this honour was attending a private lunch hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace during Donald Trump’s 2019 State visit, during which Harry kept an awkward distance. (Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex was on maternity leave.)

Today, should one of Harry’s dearest wishes be to get the call-up to attend a State Banquet and to sup on croûte of Scottish Langoustine while Prime Minister Andy Burnham reapplies his go-to Maybelline mascara behind a flower arrangement, then he faces even more disappointment.

In returning to the UK, this is Harry’s new reality, of coming face-to-face with the full forfeit of Megxit and watching from the sofa while his family gets on with the big, shiny moments, from which he is barred forevermore.

Moments like seeing Prince William, as the Colonel of the Welsh Guards, riding the very glossy mount Darby in Trooping the Colour. Harry, even though he was Captain General of the Royal Marines, wasn’t around long enough to be made a Royal Colonel, as he inevitably would have been and which would have entitled him to saddle up. Now he will never know the feeling of a towering bearskin hat. (And yes, they are still made out of real bear skin.)

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Ditto getting to augustly process from Windsor Castle to St George’s Chapel while dressed like a hey-nonny-no fop for the Order of the Garter ceremony. In 2008 William was made a member of the Garter, the most exclusive chivalric order which dates back to 1348. Watch out for Kate being made a member when William accedes to the throne, if not before. Harry never will.

The same goes for getting to live in a historic pile so large that games of hide-and-seek require health and safety waivers. All four storeys and roughly 80 rooms of Clarence House were earmarked for Harry and Meghan; now Queen Camilla is guaranteed to have somewhere in Town to keep her collection of Jilly Cooper first editions for the rest of her life.

This is the difference between being “working members of the royal family” and not, even though a friend of the Sussexes handily popped up to tell The Times recently that the duke and duchess “hate” that phrase.

The Sussexes, the friend said, “baulk” at being labelled “former royals”.

“Harry is the son of the King, he is still a member of the royal family, he’s just not a member of the institution,“ the friend commented. ”It’s misleading to call them ‘former royals’. It has an impact on how they’re perceived and the way people talk about them.”

Unfortunately for the duke and duchess, no matter how they would like to identify, instances like the State Banquet and anything that involves the Household Cavalry in dress uniform, only drive home that, technically speaking, they are very much not.

But I ask you, does it matter?

Harry and Meghan have royal titles, are members of King Charles’ family, and are doing what looks and sounds like royal work.

Brits got their first taste of their look-we-made-it-ourselves non-royal royalling last week when the couple sailed into Nottingham. The crowds at their stops might have been pale shadows of the blockbuster numbers they used to draw, but an estimated 80-strong retinue of press, including four reporters from the Daily Mail alone, turned up.

Charles, as he did in September, might be dead keen on trying to drum into people’s skulls that his son and daughter-in-law are only “private citizens”, but can anyone who does not have a well-thumbed copy of Debrett’s tell the difference or actually care?

German psychiatrist Alfred Adler came up with the psychological technique of ‘acting as if’ and I think we can surmise the duke and duchess are big fans. No matter how much pretty Palace letterhead Charles wastes, the Sussexes are going to keep ‘acting as if’ they are still proper ‘R’ Royal and the public will likely see them that way. If it quacks like a duck, and prettily accepts bouquets like a duck…

However, no amount of ‘acting as if’ will reduce the number of possibly painful moments coming up for Harry.

In only a few weeks, on Remembrance Sunday, Harry, despite serving two tours in Afghanistan, will not be taking his place at the Cenotaph.

For all that Harry and Meghan can mimic much of real-deal royalty, doing all the charity events, schoolchildren-charming, and community-centre active listening they want, come the actual tentpole royal events that require gold carriages or someone to rouse the Dean of Windsor or an RAF flypast, they will be nowhere to be seen.

So too any private royal family gatherings, for which they should not be waiting with bated breath for any invitations. At Christmas, the duke and duchess will likely be back in the land of almond milk and artisanal honey, not enjoying another unctuous slice of fattened goose at Sandringham as Princess Anne tips an entire silver salver of brussels sprouts in her Waitrose bag-for-life to take home for the horses.

But hey, maybe there’s an upside. Does anyone really like goose? And bearskin’s gotta be really hot. And Andy Burnham’s luscious lash tips? Meghan definitely does not need those. The post-Megxit lining might not be royal gilded but at least there is some silver.

Daniela Elser is an editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with Australia’s leading media titles.