It's so embarrassing when you're caught slagging off someone behind their back, you've got to see them soon and you know they know. More embarrassing when that plays out in front of the world's media.
Just a few weeks after Prince Charles found his private remarks comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler in conversation with a former Polish refugee on a Royal visit to Canada splashed across the papers, the two are due to meet.
Charles is due to see Putin when he attends the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6.
Speculation is now rife that the pair will not in fact come face-to-face, especially not now. The BBC's Royal correspondent Peter Hunt suggested Charles is unlikely to be too ruffled by the furore, and would probably speak his mind again, but advisers are likely to take a less sanguine view.
Sergey Nalobin, the parliamentary counsellor at the Russian Embassy in London, tweeted his displeasure at the remarks. "Members of the royal family do not have the right to make such statements. Parliament is unlikely to be happy," he said.
With regards to the meeting at the memorial, Nalobin said: "As far as I know, a bilateral meeting was not planned. They just will participate in the same memorial ceremonies."
Thus far, there has been no reaction from the Kremlin. But there was a time, before Russia's annexation of Crimea, when Charles and Putin were not so estranged. Here's the pictures that Charles seems to have conveniently forgotten.