making a mistake.

I don't intend this as a personal criticism, more of a whinge about the world in general. But this sort of thing isn't a mistake, and it bugs me when that language is used to describe it.

You could argue "I made a mistake" when you choose the wrong course of action when presented with a tricky dilemma. Or when you're misled by someone, or misread the circumstances.

But even associating with Epstein after the truth about him became known isn't a mistake.

He's also got a wife and kids who are high profile, his selfishness will extend to them, he wants them to be able to have legacies too or else he's going to die hated by the few people who still love him. Sarah is absolutely telling him not to go even near an open window right now, stay in the dark for the rest of time. He seems to actually listen to her a bit, too.

My crimes will be explored in as much depth as possible in any extensive biography

Probably not. Without any investigation it will all be speculation. Biographies are written for a commercial audience. Who's going to buy a biography of Andrew? People who like the royals, not people who hate them. If he'd actually appeared in court, the biography would have to address it. But, with it all just speculation, they can mention the speculation and move on.

It's possible that some of the people who met with Epstein did it because they knew he could introduce them to other rich and powerful people. They might not have known about the child sexual abuse. Or they suspected something, but thought that Epstein was always seen with barely legal 18-year-olds, and that that was the extent of it.

I personally don't think that Epstein introduced himself to billionaires by saying "Hi, I'm Jeff Epstein, I rape children, are you interested in raping children too?" I don't believe that being a billionaire automatically means you not only enjoy raping children, but are excited to share that hobby with other people. Epstein probably sounded them out, investigated them, and only went into details with the ones who weren't going to expose him. And, most likely, he got blackmail material on anybody who he did share his "hobby" with. He probably kept anybody who he thought might expose him at arms length, and he only let them see him with girls who were 18+.

So, while that plausible deniability exists, I'm sure Andrew wants to be able to claim that he was buddies with Epstein, but was so clueless that he never knew about the child sexual abuse.

I think we should, to a degree, separate peerages from KBE/CBE/MBE/OBE/BM - they're not political and there are (so far as I know) specific criteria that need to be met to achieve the various levels (for instance someone doing something locally will by definition never get anything higher than an OBE, because a CBE requires significant achievement at a regional or national level).

Peerages are a bit weird, senior politicians/lawyers/academics etc getting appointments makes sense because they're the upper legislative house and to a degree we want some level of political nous in the parliamentary body. However they're also given to the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber presumably as a reward for his achievements, which may or may not be deserved, but also mean he can be shipped in if required to vote on legislation.

Separation of "honours like" and "legislative like" peerages would be a good idea.