Friends of Andrew say he has been doing “a lot of thinking and work on himself”.... There is much more thinking to be done as Andrew, who once described himself as “an ideas factory”, contemplates a permanent retirement devoid of flummery. Some in royal circles believe a safe option would be for him to run one of the Queen’s estates. Others, including the royal historian Hugo Vickers, think he should devote himself to a life of charitable rehabilitation.
“Prince Andrew needs to start up an animal sanctuary and work there, Profumo-style,” Vickers said. “The British love animals.”
Retirement devoid of flummery... "Flummery" is one of those words that gets my attention. Oddly enough, I have a tag for "flummery." I'm not sure how that happened. My favorite word is "flummox," as I've mentioned a few times on this blog. And yet I don't have a tag for "flummox," only for "flummery." It makes you wonder, what is flum? Is it like phlegm?
As I've discussed before — here — the OED calls the word "flummox" colloquial or vulgar and suggests it's onomatopoeic, "expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily."
But what about "flummery"? That's not connected to "flummox." According to the OED, "flummery" originates as the name of a food — a "coagulation of wheatflour or oatmeal." From there, it got figurative: "Mere flattery or empty compliment; nonsense, humbug, empty trifling" or "Trifles, useless trappings or ornaments."
Yes, we don't need any of that from Andrew.