British Royal Family Gossip: Part 25

Thank God Kate didn't completely copy the model's outfit.

The Queen and Princess Anne received the King and Queen of Jordan today.

The gorgeous emerald tiara worn by Princess Eugenie at her wedding is also on display along with her wedding gown.

Some interesting articles about the Royals have appeared in the more political UK press. Right wing, hate everyone except maybe the Queen. "How the cult of victimhood took hold of the royal family Why have the younger Windsors lost sight of the fact that they are privileged beyond belief?"

Kate wore a darker blue dress under her light blue coat @R1. This child gave her a cookie and candles.

Left Wing politics mag "The silencing of Meghan Markle. The Duchess of Sussex was meant to be an icon of a new progressive monarchy. But is she fated to become yet another human sacrifice?" The title and the article seem to be two completely different things. So weird.

Kate looks too thin.

She's a natural with children. William is quite good too.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

Anne curtseying to the King and Queen of Jordan.

I love how Queen Rania is all, “How ya doin?”

Whatever happened to Queen Noor by the way? I remember when she married the king of Jordan, this young Ivy League educated American girl. She had an interesting look but was one of the first people who I remember thinking had really changed her self with too much plastic surgery.

Re: R2, that ring-shaped scar on the Queen’s leg looks like a healed ulcer. I’ve never noticed it before, but I don’t think she’s been out of sight long enough for it to be that, has she?

Lisa Halliby, I think, was her name - going from memory years, and years ago. I'll flip if I'm right about that.

R4 - The Spectator is one of the oldest and most prestigious publications in Britain- established in 1828; it also has an American edition. The owners also hold the Telegraph. Don't put what you read the Speccie alonside what you read in the DM or Express. It is conservative, as opposed to "the right". It also publishes columns that run counter to its general slant. It's a highly respected publication.

Sapphire blue is tremendously becoming on Catherine. She already looks like Princess of Wales.

It’s Lisa Halaby, r13. So you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Completely disqualified, and wrong!

So very wrong.

^ Hahaha. Okay then.

I like Kate generally, but that 'broody' comment mentioned by 598 in the other thread is rather silly. Why would looking at a baby make her feel that way? She has a young baby at home!

r4 Thanks for posting that - it pulled it all together in a way I hadn't seen before. Royalty identifying as victim has never been a thing until Diana. And then it only ever partially worked for Diana, with half the country (the older, the wealthier, and the more establishment half) thinking she was a deluded attention seeker and the other half thinking she was hard done by (working class and single mothers etc). Anyway, right before she died even her sympathisers were turning on her because swanning around the Riviera and flaunting opulent wealth with Dodi was too unsympathetic a look.

But to see so many examples of present day royals claiming various types of victimhood status is just cringe. And with DoS it's worst of all because she is pairing it with insanely gross displays of wealth. I really am beginning to wonder if the clock hasn't finally started ticking on the British Royal Family's position.

“Is just cringe”, R19? What does that mean?

R6's linked article is a very good read. Thanls!

R19 - "DoS it's worst of all because she is pairing it with insanely gross displays of wealth. I really am beginning to wonder if the clock hasn't finally started ticking on the British Royal Family's position."

Nothing lasts forever, not even the Windsors, but they have survived quite a few crises - they're good at moving on past crises. Still, sometimes in history all it takes is one little feather to bring down the whole show.

I wouldn't want to make predictions, but if I were the BRF and you gave me a shot of truth serum, and asked me about Meghan Markle, I would have to say that I would wish her gone and that Harry had matured in a different way.

R20 it means so embarrassing you cringe on their behalf.

Re: Kate' s broody comment sounds like shots fired.

Kate sees Meghan dominating the entertainment news cycle and starts working out with Beyonce's Formation on repeat.

I'm back.

By popular demand.

I did not come to play with you hoes.

Meghan's daily affirmation in the newly-built yoga studio

That “Fame” intro still sends chills down my spine...

I wonder if Meghan will have twins as her next pregnancy (if not this one) to catch up to Kate...

And then if maybe Kate will pop out another one just to keep ahead.

From the article at R6

[quote] “I was always the smart one,” she has said. “My self-identification was wrapped up in being the smart one.”

Oh, brother.

Delusional much, Sparkle?

Where she's from, "smart one" meant having the johns pay for the abortions and making the most of looking like her mother drank heavily in the first trimester.

There was an article in the Independent (former Broadsheet, now online - left wing), an opinion piece warning about the dangers of Markle's excess. I tried to post it but DL doesn't like the Indie for some reason so try copying Marie Antoinette’s showbiz image shone a spotlight on royal excess. Now it’s Meghan Markle’s turn. Anger about the £30m private jet Meghan used to get back from her recent trip to New York could easily morph into an intensification of anti-royalist attitudes Nabila Ramdani

The name Marie Antoinette is always evoked when hugely privileged women flaunt their wealth. Unlikely myths still surround the aristocrat who was Dauphine of France at 14 and Queen at 18, including her apocryphal suggestion that starving peasants running out of bread should “eat cake”.

While all members of Marie Antoinette’s court were living it up towards the end of the 18th century, the populist pamphlets singled her out for allegedly obscene extravagances. Occasional kind acts towards the poor, including founding a home for unmarried mothers, failed to save her from the guillotine when the French Revolution finally swept the Ancien Régime away.

Now it is the turn of Meghan Markle, the 37-year-old retired American actress who became the Duchess of Sussex after marriage to Prince Harry last year, to be likened to the tragic Habsburg. The comparisons are not just being made in Britain, but also in French language outlets.

The Duchess is firmly associated with a five-star lifestyle – from eye-wateringly expensive designer clothes and jewellery, to private jets, penthouse suites, and monster-sized chauffeured cars bursting with taxpayer-funded heavies.

Like Marie Antoinette – who was born an Austrian Archduchess – Meghan is considered an ambitious arriviste, albeit one whose antecedents are decidedly more ordinary. She has been a determined performer in every sense of the word – one who until recently advertised her “enviable lifestyle” (to use glossy magazine parlance) on social media and in blogs. All were about embellishing her work as a jobbing actor, and magnifying it into something that might sell the Meghan Markle brand to potential fans.

Part 2 That might be important for showbiz stars these days, but such an out-there public profile is a very uncomfortable one for royalty. The institution is, by definition, immensely snobbish, but discreetly so. It is also intrinsically about maintaining a rigorous class system. Parvenus who think they can challenge all this threaten the entire fantasy.

Thus Meghan has to rely on her own aggressive PR to project herself as a humanitarian devoted to charity and good deeds. Like Marie Antoinette, she favours trite gestures guaranteed to capture public interest – bland messages scribbled on bananas and intended to “empower” sex workers, for example.

Photographer pens were set up outside Meghan’s nominally private baby shower in New York last week. The choreographed turns for the camera by the leading lady and her supporting friends – all big sunglasses and cheesy grins – were like an Oscars parody act. The images were no longer designed for Instagram, but for rolling news channels. We then get the breathless fascination and condemnation from “royal watchers”.

It is by no means just the revolutionary-minded who are attacking Meghan for all this hyper vanity. Over the past week, former senior courtiers have joined in the negative clamour.

There was particular anger about the £30m Gulfstream G450 Meghan used to get back from New York. No matter that the tab was rumoured to have been picked up by Amal Clooney, it not only left a carbon footprint that makes a mockery of environmental concerns Meghan said she had about a dying planet, but raised serious questions about influence peddling.

[quote] I wonder if Meghan will have twins as her next pregnancy (if not this one) to catch up to Kate...

You can't deliberarely get pregnant with twins, though (unless you mean that she'll find a surrogate who's already carrying twins?).

Part 3(final part of Independent article) Crucially – and perhaps most importantly – the episode intensified criticism of all the other members of the royal family whose jet set lifestyles are allegedly “privately funded”.

The cliché was rolled out within hours of Meghan’s debacle, when Prince Edward and family were pictured landing in Switzerland in a Gulfstream G650, and then hopping into Range Rovers with tinted windows along with their police guards. Their destination was St-Moritz, arguably the most glamorous ski resort in Europe.

The truth about Meghan is that, like Marie Antoinette all those years before, her showbiz image is drawing attention to a system that many would like to change.

This is not to suggest that a constitutional monarchy headed by a 92-year-old Queen with an outstanding record of service is under threat. Elizabeth II is duty bound to show off the trappings of state, but the impression is always of refinement, not to say stoicism. Efforts to investigate the Windsor’s shadowy and sprawling financial arrangements have occasionally caused discomfort, but until now this has been muted.

Meghan is changing that. During a period of instability and grotesque inequality, a slimmed down, less profligate royal family would seem highly appropriate. Even the official Twitter account for Kensington Palace last week highlighted the growing poverty gap, especially as it related to children (and not, we must assume, in an effort at ironic black humour).

Reactionaries who slavishly support the royals claim they bring far more into the economy than they take out. The trouble is, this is contradicted by the French model, where relics such as the Palace of Versailles still attract millions of tourists, even though the kings and queens who once inhabited them with such certainty are now long gone.

There are delightful properties built for Marie Antoinette herself, including Le Hameau – an idealised farm where the Queen dressed up as a peasant and played at being ordinary. It was all part of the fakery that infuriated an increasingly skeptical public. As she adapts to her new role, Meghan Markle would do well to learn from the history of such disastrous follies.

R23 What’s embarrassing is that R19 doesn’t understand the difference between a verb and an adjective.

I do believe Kate and William will have a fourth child. I'm more convinced of it after Kates remark today tongue in cheek as it was meant to be.

R32, you certainly can get deliberately pregnant with twins... when they’re conceived in a Petrie dish and implanted by a doctor.

R32, you can increase your odds of having twins by using in vitro fertilization and transferring multiple embryos. Doctors generally discourage this, since multiples are medically higher-risk than singletons. But it's common for patients to request it, as IVF is so expensive (up to $20,000 per cycle, including medications), and, for many people who have finally turned to technology to help them conceive, time is of the essence.

None of that applies to the pampered and privileged Meghan, of course — for her, $20,000 is the cost of an outfit, not the cost of a family. But I think that's what R27 was referring to: the use of assisted reproductive technology to try to "catch up" efficiently, with as little damage to her figure and inconvenience to herself as possible, in order to cement her position.

The article posted at r30, r31 and r33 is right on.

That vulgar debacle in NYC was a huge mistake and I wouldn't be surprised if, now that the reviews are in, every woman that attended it isn't having 2nd thoughts.

I sensed a bit of defensiveness by Gayle King when, the next morning after the shower, she described the DoS as "a very private person" when, if she actually were, King wouldn't have, in the first place, been asked about her. Too late. They all strutted into that shower in full view of the world as though they were the Green Bay Packers being introduced from the tunnel of Lambeau Field.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with whoever it is that Amal and George Clooney want to be named as Godparents.

[quote]They all strutted into that shower in full view of the world as though they were the Green Bay Packers being introduced from the tunnel of Lambeau Field.

Della, this imagery is perfect.

Spot on [R37].

Thank You and Smooooches, r39.

Anyway, I post all my criticisms of the DoS in her best interests. No, my cheese hasn't slid off he cracker and I'm now enjoying delusions that she reads this thread, but, isn't there anybody around her that can say, "Girlfriend, as Ari Melber would say, you need to fall back"?

I would prefer not to see her end up as the former 1st wife of PH, fortyish, trying to arrange introductions to a billionaire with a "Will somebody pick me up please? look of a floozy sitting at the end of a row of barstools at closing time.

If you get your news from social media personalities and mainstream American magazines, then yes, you're going to think Meghan is being unfairly branded as social climber with extravagant and tacky taste. And yes, you're also going to think she's being railroaded because she's biracial, especially if you're in your 20s-30s, as this age group is very keen on judging others to be racist. Ironically they see everything through the prism of color. Most of women in this age group (that I know/ interact with) feel all of those things and they're very pro-Meghan. They also don't follow or know anything besides bare basics about the BRF, they just like the fact that there's a biracial American princess who's into the same shallow shit they're into themselves.

R42 my friends are the same! I try to gently suggest that the positively biased veil through which they’re viewing Meghan isn’t necessarily the full truth, but they’ll hear NONE of it.

I wonder what the ratio is between people who think Meghan is great vs people who see her for how she really is.

R43 The women I interact with are people at work, I can barely tolerate them as they're mostly into shallow things, like I say. But yes, they're very pro-Meghan and I remember one of them was so crushed when she saw Meghan's dress with the tags still on, in Australia I believe. They only know what's going on now with the BRF, through media filters. They don't read anything about the history and realistic stories about Meghan's past as well as current behavior. They literally just want more stories about outfits she wears, makeup brand she uses. I feel like Meghan's biggest fans are also the ones who know the least or want to know the least about the BRF and about Meghan's shadiness.

I don’t believe Amal Clooney can be a godparent, as she is not Christian.

I'm not even sure she's human.

Just bringing this over from elsewhere.

"I'll try one more time. The DoS "friends" and the companies sponsoring DoS baby shower have agreements/contracts to post social media content and pre-arranged press releases."

I believe it - it's all merching. Just want to know why Amal Clooney wants to do it, although I was surprised that she and George showed at the "royal wedding" and George spent the reception pitching his tequila.

George Clooney looked like Nathan Detroit at the wedding.

And the person next to him in yellow was not Miss Adelaide.

Merching in the way it's used for Meghan is a vague definition created by the Tumblr-verse AFAICT. It's migrated to DL and the DM.

Merch and merching were gamer and fandom terms but the idea of celebrities receiving free stuff to publicize them falls into product placement or being a brand ambassador.

How do you know how MM really is R 43. Have you met her or worked with her?

That article on victim culture just shoved too many agendas into one piece. Particularly the comment about Kate saying she wouldn't hesitate to send her kids to therapy if they needed it. The article didn't like that. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with therapy.

I think Kate and Will are trying to say everybody struggles at times, even royals. It's the human condition. They are trying to be relatable while they highlight their initiatives and projects.

Harry and Meghan, OTOH, truly feel hard done by, Harry in particular. Meghan is just exploiting victim culture to try to climb back onto the high road.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The Spectator article on victim culture — the one we’re not supposed to mistake for a trashy Daily Mail article — was written by Jan Moir.

She and Piers Morgan have filled the #1 and #2 spots in the DM’s troll department ever since Katie Hopkins was shipped off to Rebel Media.

Perhaps that explains it, r51.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Grey and white is a boring color scheme for a nursery. It's prison colors.

[quote]Meghan Markle has revealed to friends that she and Prince Harry 'plan to raise their child with a fluid approach to gender' and won't impose stereotypes on their royal baby, a Vanity Fair report claims... The revelation comes just a month after it was reported that they had designed a gender-neutral nursery in shades of white and gray for the baby.

Translation of R52's article: She wants to be lauded as a trailblazer for doing what any decent parent would do, e.g., encouraging a daughter's interest in mathematics or a son's interest in ballet. And, if throwing around trendy phrases like "gender fluid" increases her cachet among the American SJW crowd, that's just icing on the brand cake.

r54 The source is US weekly. Sounds like her PR. Reminds me of the Doria Sandringham story.

[quote]I feel like Trumps biggest fans are also the ones who know the least or want to know the least about the Trump business or how government works and about his shadiness.

I replaced the proper nouns and pronoun. Stans are to celebrities what followers or devotees are to cults of personality in authoritarianism. They are uninformed in general and despite their ignorance have strong, unyielding opinions that aren't penetrated by any sort of evidence to the contrary.

Gray and white for a baby's nursery? What a way to stimulate the visual cortex and promote brain development (insert sarcasm icon for visitors to DL)

Excellent post, R58. I had the same thought when I read R44's comment: that, beyond Meghan Markle, it was a sad summary of our times.

R57, if the next article is about a fraught and brittle Kate having a breakdown caused by the feelings of inadequacy she's facing as she plans a party for a VIP of Bean's stature, we'll know.

We'll [italic]really[/italic] know, if the article ends with...

[quote]..a source close to the Duchess of Sussex assures us that Kate has nothing to fear, as the ever-gracious Duchess of Sussex is touched by Kate's grovelling gesture. The source goes on to say that the Duchess of Sussex finds beauty in the most humble of affairs — a speared baby octopus eaten whilst still wriggling on a Dalmatian Coast beach; a filthy pat of briny French butter adorning a coarse crust of bread offered by a diseased peasant child; most shockingly, even an arriviste-thrown baby shower decorated with tat gotten wholesale though one's monger-class, scandal-plagued, coal-stained family. The Duchess of Sussex is nothing if not #grateful.

R61, I won't blow your cover, but it is delightful to see you again. You are hands-down my favorite writer on DL.

Oh, R62! My one true love, you are so unlike that beady-eyed, virulently ginger, almiqui-beaked victim thing I find myself subsumed unto, forsooth, and within. My lived experience within this aureately gilded cage is cruel. Oh, to be wrapped in your leathery arms, a single mug of mugwort-infused yak's blood cradled gently between our 21 enmeshed fingers. Dreaming of it gives me hope, mon choupinou.

These haters see only the what lies upon the surface ‚— breathtaking beauty, in so many words — they know not that inside beats the heart of a world-weary Alkonost, beaten down by the slingbacks and arrows of marginalization yet still ready to take flight. Ca-caw! Ca-caw!

XOXOXO,

Anyone think there's any truth to Kate having an event for MM? Who would she invite?

I doubt she’s going to do anything but if she did I’d like to think she’d invite a bunch of single parents who use the local food bank. That would be perfect.

If she did, it would be great if she only invited all the elderly members of the BRF, no one under 75.

Kate should fly in all the Markles. Surprise!

R67 for the win!

Haha that would be something indeed R67 ! Her family now with the babyshower . Doria Thomas Samantha and the others she kept from us .

If you were a design house with impressive credentials (Dior, De la Renta, Chanel), why on EARTH would you want somebody as unprepossessing as Megtoinette to be stepping out in your clothes?? That's the part I don't get. I wouldn't want a short, ugly person of dubious credentials to wear my shit if I'm Carolina Herrera.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

r71 that looks like a run of the mill blood test bruise. Even my hand bruises with that, and I'm not even close to half her age.

No way she is throwing her a shower. Like the other poster said above, this is just her trying to manipulate an invite just as she did with Doria at Christmas (and the other Kensington Palace apartment). After the NY extravaganza, MM is toast. They'll appear to be polite to her at state functions and the like, but will have nothing to do with her thereafter.

Although, now that I am thinking about, the infamous Christmas walk with Kate and Anne talking to her before Bea's wedding were the only times they've ever made a public gesture of kindness towards her. Other than that, they pretty much pretend she is invisible and only Harry makes any conversation.

The “Kate throwing Meg a baby shower” sounds like phooey and another “Doria invited to Christmas” ploy. Unless they’re as close as sisters, SILs don’t throw each other baby showers. That’s for a mom, sister, best friend. And I’m not even sure wealthy British women do that sort of thing (do they?)

It’s not going to work.

If there will be a shower you can bet that either Ma Middleton is behind it to make her daughter look charitable and/or the BRF for the same reasons. PR help.

Honestly, some of the comments on here are absurd. Why do some people assume that every single thing that ever appears in the press is someone’s PR? “Ma Middleton”? Really, don’t you think these people have better things to do than feed into tabloid gossip?

Baby showers aren’t completely unknown in the UK. Flashy people with money are most likely to have them, but other people do too.

It’s not impossible that Kate is doing something for Markle, probably because she’s been asked to by Charles. And I bet that Kate & Pippa both had baby showers of a sort too.

But, for fuck’s sake.....”Ma Middleton wants to make her daughter look charitable”? Don’t you idiots ever listen to yourselves? Everyone’s all behaving like Machiavelli all the time, according to you. So childish.

R44 I guess that type of non-critical, mindless admiration is what made the Kartrashians billionaires.

If they are planning to raise the baby with a ‘fluid approach to gender’, then they for sure wouldn’t want the baby to be given a title from HM. Because nothing says gender fluid like Lord or Lady......Maybe they know that there will be no title and are just trying to head it off or maybe they are just total assholes. ( WHET the She’s Such An Asshole poster?)

Amalgam of Lord and lady? Lardy?

Darly. Dorly.

I'm sorry but Meghan Markle as a mother is giving me serious Mommie Dearest vibes.

R76

Quick! Someone call the WAHHHbulance!

R54 - The key here is "reportedly", as in the way the completely unproven and unlikely story carried by mainstream respectable media about the Queen Mum (who was perennially skint in real terms, with her daughter paying off her debts constantly as her mother spent merrily and lived high) "reportedly" leaving the two grandchildren with the richest Papa each a multimillion pound trust - the "reportedly" covered their arses but there was never the slightest sign that the two grandchildren who needed it least got the lion's share of her nonexistent money., and the fact that when Harry's and William's worth is mentioned in media, the only income mentioned is their respective trusts from Diana and their father's annual "supplement" to their household budgets.

So whilst not necessarily untrue, the "reportedly" means their recycling rumour and a juicy story without having any idea whether it's true or not.

*that is, two GREAT-grandchildren, not even grandchildren.

If only they were this fun.

R53 - Journalists cut their verbal coats according to the cloth of the specific outlet. That is to say, they write differently for the DM than they do for The Spectator. The article in The Spectator has a noticeably differernt voice - and it's hardly without grains of truth.

"Flashy people with money" are not we.

R78 - They don't have to head off the Lord Dumbarton/Lady Mountbatten Windsor story, because there isn't a story there: one of those titles will automatically be the child's at birth. What isn't automaticaly the child's at birth is the coveted HRH, and the non-bestowal of said HRH by the Queen is probably the story they are trying to get ahead of. The Queen usually issues those Letters well before this stage of pregnancy. I wouldn't set it in stone, I suppose HM could just be tardy about it, but usually if announcement of an impending HRH hasn't appeared by now, it likely won't. The Queen made the announcement of the Cambridge kids being HRHs mid-way in Kate's first pregnancy.

Just as the Sussex story is that they "chose" Frogmore Cottage because they didn't want to raise their children in the "goldfish bowl" of Kensington Palace (like those unfortunate Cambridge kids) - when in fact, Frogmore Cottage was all that was on offer, not a stately country home in the actual countryside, no gorgeous huge apartment in a historic palace in central London was on offer, and (at least it appears right now), no HRH is on offer for their children.

Just as no tiara with emeralds was on offer and Poor Little Meghan had to make do with Queen Mary's Bandeau Tiara.

[quote]That vulgar debacle in NYC was a huge mistake and I wouldn't be surprised if, now that the reviews are in, every woman that attended it isn't having 2nd thoughts.

Anyone who thinks Meghan is having second thoughts about showing off like the star of "Toddlers and Tiaras" doesn't know MM. She is merely building her brand in the only way she knows.

As I say the griftiest grifter that ever grifted ! 😂

R53 - For what it's worth, the story in the Indepedent is more telling - not because the Indie is particularly pro-royal, it's leftwing, but because it was pro-Meghan for all the tiresomely familiar reasons: Yay, she's mixed race! Yay, she's American! Yay, she's an actress! Yay, she's 36 and worked for a living! Yay, she's divorced! Yay, look at all that modernity and falling barriers! Not unlike columns in The Guardian at the time of the engagement, applauding the match because now everyone could see that Royalness Is Not Only A White Thing!

And now Meghan is showing them that, indeed, seizing the perks of Royalness andmaking it clear what's great about being Royal and living the good life on someone else's dime is indeed Not Only A White Thing, and, as the Indie is now forced to acknowledge, it's just as distasteful in the Nonwhite as the White.

The articles appearing in the TIMES, Speccie, and Independent are of much more significance than those in the DM. This is the DM's bread and butter, but it's not for TIMES and Indie and Speccie.

Only the Telegraph, which I suspect is completely in the pocket of Clarence House, keeps valiantly evading with all its might anything critical of Meghan. Which is interesting, as the Telegraph and The Spectator have the same owner.

Meghan isn’t even African American, and she’s managed to reinforce all the awful stereotypes about AAs being flashy with money. It’s discouraging.

Interesting tidbits from the Northern Ireland tour:

Kate calls her daugther Charlotte "Lottie".

William revealed that George's favorite film is "How To Train Your Dragon".

R90 - "That vulgar debacle in NYC was a huge mistake and I wouldn't be surprised if, now that the reviews are in, every woman that attended it isn't having 2nd thoughts."

I agree with R90's assessment: Meghan Markle isn't reachable by reason or a patch of bad PR any more than Harry's mother was. She'll blame the media for being racist, not herself for being careless. She's already been divorced once, she's gritty and hard-arsed, she knows Hot Lurve is rarely a permanency, and she married Harry to live like this. She is going to enjoy draining this cup to the dregs, and if and when it comes up empty, she has every confidence that she'll leave better off than she was when she got in. And she'll be right about that.

It's Harry who'll look the fool and the BRF along with him.

In looking back at photos of Harry and Chelsy together, the look of unforced and happy attachment between them completely puts in the shade Meghan's handholidng backstroking grandstanding and Harry's unpersuasive smiles. Harry made a terrible mistake - he should have treated Chelsy better and persuaded her to marry him.

Meghan has an panel discussion planned for International Women's Day.

[quote]a special panel of female thought-leaders

OMG. Well MM does think she is special.

Princess Margaret as a young woman.

Princess Anne's second husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence turns 64 years old today. Here are some photos and info about him.

R95 - In other words, Meghan is continuing to ignore the constraint of being nonpolitical.

And, as always, Meghan's trumpeted "feminism" always makes me want to reach for the sick bag, considering that her first husband got her the job on Suits, and her second husband got her the life she's always wanted but couldn't achieve for herself. And then there's the little matter of how she ditched the father who ensured she got out of university with no loans to pay off and for whom she only had the highest praise publicly - until she started dating royalty and the fat loose-lipped slob suddenly was no longer on brand.

She really is nauseating.

Does baby Louis resemble his mother Catherine?

Excessive displays of affection in public and flagrant overspending irritates the British public.

I trust DLers on this thread caught the recent PBS two-part special on Pss. Margaret's life?

This viewer was quite amazed at one of those interviewed for the programme stated casually that Tony A-S was bisexual and considered a hot lay because he was "well-equipped" for his reputation. It passed nearly without comment. Ah well, I hope the feckless Margaret enjoyed it whilst it lasted.

The footage of her in the bloom of youth show a simply gorgeous young woman who had everything the Fates are so stingy about with most of the rest of us: beauty, wealth, social status, privilege, and an interesting persona.

And she died lonely and unhappy.

R100 - Yes, Louis is the spit of his mother, just as Charlotte so resembles both her grandmother Carole, and her great-grandmother the Queen.

R101 - I doubt it's solely the PDAs, it's the all too obvious use of the PDAs as part of a PR message that, after the fashion of overblown and overused gestures, suggests the message's opposite.

R97, that’s a beautiful photo. Thanks for posting it.

I’m a female thought-leader. Why am I not empaneled?

R70 that's been what I wondered. She looks a mess - why send her stuff? But if she's revealed nothing else, it's the insecurity of supposedly high end labels (and high end celebrities). The Clooneys for all of their money are grasping and insecure. So are all of the other demi-celebs who showed for her shower. I think Claire Wright Keller of Givenchy is eager for publicity and to secure her position at the brand, so to her MM is a means to do that. I think clearly Jessica Mulroney is just a go between, isn't around to "style" Meghan, and the labels are accustomed to having a stylist work with what they send a celeb. In Meghan's case that doesn't happen. Let's not forget how much lying goes on (PR) either. Bespoke this, custom that, worth 90k pounds, etc. A lot is hype. Claire Wright Keller kind of showed that when she explained the price of the wedding dress was down to who wore it. That's the assbackwards thinking. I've got a famous client, therefore I must charge a billion dollars for the dress (or claim it's worth that). In fact, lots of times I think the label purposefully conflates "cost" and worth. They're publicizing what they pretend it's worth, not what it really cost.

What the hell is a female thought-leader? This is the problem with feminism today, it's a bunch of "thought-leaders" empaneled by academics in their ivory towers who have zero clue about daily struggles of women working unglamorous jobs. Instead, feminism is about getting Hollywood actresses to gain equal pay, or empowering female sexuality via social media fame whores shove their tits and asses in our news feeds. So this panel of female thought-leaders including Meghan is going to talk about what exactly? How to be a bitch to staff? Just once, I'd like to see these fucking moronic panels include one real working woman who's not from academia or think tanks or foundations.

This might be of interest

Oh my, Princess Margaret was NOT beautiful. Why do people keep saying that? That antsemite hag had a face like a horse. Not ugly per se, but some of you talk about this old cunt like she’s Helen of Troy! Cut it out!

The stans from those psychopath breeding grounds known as the Royal Forums have a invaded Datalounge. Where’s the fucking bug spray?

Yes, Princess Margaret is graded on a curve and also in comparison to her sister.

Meghan is not going to prise 37M from that family (that has been rumored which means she's the one putting it out there). But if they tell her they can only work out something based on Harry's income she'll have a fit and say something like "That's bullshit. Don't give me that." I think her and Harry have proven the queen and Charles are ridiculously lenient, so we'll see what happens. It's not just a matter of how the Harkles behave, unchecked, at their engagements, but also that Charles apparently made Kate and William miss Xmas at the Middletons in order to play happy families with the Harkles and make them look good. That was a completely unfair decision and IMO shows their real approach.

Kill yourself, r111. Just do it. Please.

I know that a title precludes working in many spheres (although Zara Philips doesn't seem to mind a bit) but what exactly is the value of an HRH? Who has it? I know Diana was very upset about losing hers.

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R114 I am certain she already uses fillers. When she was holding her mouth up to her lips when she was smiling (and everyone was saying she was trying to look humble/like Di etc) I think it was because she couldn’t smile very widely as she’d just had her face done.

She also looked weirdly plastic standing next to the German woman on Rememberance Sunday...and sometimes she looks a bit like a chipmunk.

I always thought Harry would be the kind of man who’d prefer the natural look, like Cressida & Chelsy had. Markle with her fake teeth, fake nose, reconstructed tits, hair weave & silicone filled face is their polar opposite.

Her face is filled with fillers so she looks pregnant . I bet she uses padding in her but also and in her bra . The only thing she can.t make thicker is her stick tin legs .

R109 - A difference in aesthetics should not be politically couched. She may have been an anti-semitic hag, but in my personal opiinion, she was a beautiful young woman: luminous skin, a tiny waist, huge blue eyes, and a sensual mouth. She inherited her mother's beautiful Celtic colouring.

If she was antisemitic, her views were ugly. But, sorry, just looking at her, the young Margaret was a very lovely young woman.

R116 Fillers don’t make your face fat like that, you annoying cunt.

I think Meghan's "girls" are her own. They may have been enhanced at one time, but if so she removed the implants. She is very much a manufactured persona , though, and yes she's had nose work, probaby fillers, the hair is obviously straightened and given its fragility proably hair weaves are in us.

Why Harry went from the exuberant, loving, funny, far more natural outdoors girl that Chelsy was to this - is anyone's guess.

I am astonished by the fact that there are 25 threads which are essentially dedicated to the bashing of Her Royal Highness, Princess Henry the Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton, and Baroness of Kilkeel! 25 THREADS!!!! That's nearing 15,000 comments! GET.............A............LIFE!

Harry, being Harry, couldn't keep his fly buttoned, but Chelsy was a party girl who saw the scrutiny and abuse piled on the very vanilla Kate and decided to bail. Being the daughter of a very wealthy family, she may have seen the 24/7/365/forever job that came with PH as less than alluring.

R120 You, of course, have read all 25 to know what they say, right?

“Get a life”? How about “Get an original thought”?

R113 - Zara doesn't have a title and isn't a working royal. All she's ever cared about is horses and Mike Tyndall.

HRH confers the status of "Roya Highness", and the law was changed decades ago to ensure that an automatic HRH stopped with grandchildren of the Sovereign in the male line. That's why William and Harry were automatic HRHs at birth, but their offspring, who are great-grandchildren of the Sovereign, aren't - except by decree of the Sovereign. The Queen decreed that William's children would be HRHs. She hasn't said anything about Harry's and quite apart from how she may feel toward his wife, the simple answer may be not to have a surplus of HRHs lying around. Harry is, after all, now only sixth in line, well back from the succession.

It's worth is status, mate, status. HRHs aren't precluded from working in any field - if Prince Louis wants to be a doctor when he grows up, he can.

What senior members of the royal family are precluded from is political statements or any attempt to influence the course of government- because it makes it look as if they are using their positions to exert the kind of power that it look centuries to wrench from them.

It also makes it look as if they favour one sector of the population over another, and a representative monarchy, no matter how putative the word "represenatative" may seem given their wealth and status, cannot afford that perception.

Not sure if this will work

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Wow, R125, I never heard of that. I'd have paid good money to see the stroppy ungrateful bf running away in tears after Zara beat him up. Makes me like Zara even more!

I laughed when I first read it. An alcohol-soaked lover's spat, no doubt. Who knows who started it, but by God, of course, Princess Anne's daughter ended it!

Maybe Lard Dumbbatten, R79?

Funny ! R124

Meghan is a hashtag activist . That's why she though inspirational bananas would win her points .

Sophie Countess of Wessex at a rehabilitation center in Surrey.

Meanwhile, Prince Edward Earl of Wessex was in Glasgow, Scotland visiting schools.

I've always thought that the Queen was better looking than Margaret. Elizabeth seems softer looking to me. Margaret had bigger eyes but a longer nose and bigger mouth.

Three Scandals Rock The Palace! Hilarious headlines from the National Enquirer.

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Regarding that panel discussion planned for International Women's Day, other panel members are Annie Lennox and Adwoah Aboah. What will Megs wear? Will they toss her word salad? Will they get a word in edgeways? Is this a joke? MM, fake feminist, hope Annie rips her one. In the most respectful way, of course, by not letting her self divulge too much. What on earth were they thinking of getting MM on board for this?

R136 - edgy black of course to keep up with the trend setters.

Ouch, lol.

Change in Queen Elizabeth's appearance on currency. Pretty cool, huh?

I don't know how to tag the poster about Richard Johnson? Maybe someone would be willing to help me.....I was at the Albert Dock that night, and ended up in his party . I was introduced by a friend before a lapdancer and a barmaid turned up after work from a club in Liverpool. It was....raucous. He was hitting on the barmaid, she was a lot shorter than the dancer., who was quite frightening, to be honest. Girl was nice enough, though.

Oooh, savage, r138.

Jobson's recent book on Charles had the Tiara Gate story in it,including Harry's "What Meghan wants, Meghan gets!" and the Queen taking Harry aside and telling him that his intended needed some attitude adjustment.

And no one to this day has ever denied it.

The handwriting on the wall about this woman was evident early on.

"The American Grifter"

from R138

I love the Queen's no nonsense attitude which is what makes watching "The Crown" so interesting, to see her subtle but complex reasoning, always on the side of what is right.

That is why my friends say I remind them so much of her. We all watch "The Crown" together. This was first my brother's idea because he got bored with Project Runway. I prefer something educational and pertinent to my future.

According to Press Preview on SKY News tonight, the Palace is denying the "gender fluid" story.

I said at one time Sparkle would name a baby girl Margaret Victoria as obsequious tribute to HM's beloved sister and curry favor. Moreover it could blend into an egotistical reference to herself as they could nickname her as "Meg."

Now I am thinking if she really is going down this-in her mind-trailblazing road, she is going with a trendy, cutesy, instagram pretty name, something that is going to stand out in the books; therefore. I submit--

Ella Diana Doria

Their sycophants will coo, oh how sweet, Ella is a diminutive of Granny Elizabeth's name, and MEghan is like Cinderella herself marrying a prince. You guys, it's a real life fairy tale! ...blegh.

There’s already an Ella in the family, R146 - Lady Gabriella Windsor, daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.

[quote] If you get your news from social media personalities and mainstream American magazines, then yes, you're going to think Meghan is being unfairly branded as social climber with extravagant and tacky taste.

Yes you have to go to Tumblr and anonymous message boards to get the TRUE story.

Wrong! R146 ! Our child's name will be gender neutral!

Does anyone know when the gender story was first reported?

I caught the end of Steve Allen prattling on about it last Friday. Assuming he was just regurgitating a newspaper article I looked for a link to post here and couldn’t find anything. Now, here it is. I highly doubt that he has his own sources.

The fossilized old queen has become so OTT cunty about Bean (he has always eviscerated Dim) that it’s like listening to a Dangling Tendrils podcast when he gets started.

That’s a compliment.

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Arya, which means lion. The lion is Harry's spirit animal and the form in which his mother haunts him.

R140 -

Just type the number of the post with an ‘R’ in front of it, with no space between. No need to capitalize the ‘R’ or add brackets as Muriel’s round-the-clock concierge service does that for us.

Does Misha understand that no one, NO ONE, in the UK gives a flying fuck whether Meghan Markle was "glowing" at her sickening display of conspicuous consumtion and mutual star fucking at a "baby shower" in Manhattan?

*consumption

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R147 - Speaking of which, when IS Lady Gabriella's wedding?

R154 Savanna Guthrie asked the question about Meghan's pregnancy glow and the DM reported the story on the front page of their website so at least one person cares about it.

Meghan is developing a skin care and make-up line called Royal Glow, so it's PR and advertising for the future.

It's funny, Harry's PR up until this relationship was some piece of work. His fans were convinced he preferred the common folk to the royal, was a cheapskate (just like a regular bloke), as down to earth as anyone you'd find, When Chelsy was his girlfriend she reinforced this PR. While the daughter of a Zimbabwean landowner wealthy enough to buy Chelsy her own mine, she dressed bohemian in a very unforced way (not in a somewhat precious way a la Cressida bonus), her hair always look unbrushed and whipping around in the wind, she had a huge grin on her face, and was comfortable in her own skin. Which was why Harry's fans or stans didn't believe the Markle rumors when they surfaced. One look at her social media and they knew this wasn't the girl for Our Harry. He wouldn't give someone like that the time of day.

Me, I thought his stans took "Harry doesn't want to be royal" and ran with it in order to project every endearingly ordinary and unpretentious quality onto him. I never took it that way. I saw a guy who certainly didn't want an ordinary bloke's job - or ANY job, wanted to come and go as he pleased when he pleased, and do it all over the world - which takes big bucks. He hates responsibllity and obligation.

Oh my God, fillers can make a face look even MORE like that.

And going back even further to the Big Band Era . . .

These Little Things Remind Me of You - Billie Holiday, Ella, and Nat King Cole did wonderful versions.

Night and Day - filled with longing, Astaire's version is supremo.

Ooops! Wrong thread, I through I was on the Favourite Torch Songs thread!

Apologies, all.

R162

This is a great photo of the Queen. She looks so relaxed and happy.

Nothing anonced other Spring 2019, R157.

But with Princess Mike as mother of the bride I’m sure we’ll all know all about it!

Gabriella’s fiancé is a looker - she’s done well - and just to keep things within the closed circle of the upper classes, he’s an ex of Pippa Middleton, so he’s marrying his ex’s brother in law’s grandmother’s first cousin once removed.

MeAgain is parroting the gender neutral BS most recently spouted by Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, LA airhead, Kate Hudson. Shameful that MeMe is a member of the RF.

The irony of women who have fucked to get where they are in life proclaiming this nonsense is rich.

Genderless is not Free to Be You and Me, it is Jazz and Stephen Ira territory. A grey and white nursery sounds institutional.

Apparently, this is genderless

well that baby is in drag.

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R167 That is genderless. It's hideous regardless of who is was meant for. Burn on sight.

R54 Ah, yes... MM's black maternity top with the outline not of a natural bump, but something that looks like a shoebox. Unless the Sussex fetus is a future member of Pilobolus, you must finally admit that MM is faking her pregnancy.

As for Kate, the Missoni dress that she wore in Belfast was one of the most flattering that's she has ever worn. I'm afraid baby Louis has Downs or some other problem. It could one of the reasons she looks so tired.

R88 Harry and MM made out just fine with Frogmore Cottage, which is on the prettiest grounds with the beautiful Frogmore House, York Cottage, and their new Cotswold house that is being built.

Louis does not look like a baby with DS, you must not be very familiar with the condition. Catherine looks the same as she always does, maybe a bit thinner.

R164 I think you look fabulous great grandma!

R172 there is no new Cotswolds house being built - you’re thinking of Soho Farmhouse in Chipping Norton, where they stay for free in exchange for merching on their part.

R172, The truth is. I would be thrilled with Frogmore Cottage, but I doubt the Sussexes will be. All that swampy land! Imagine the water and bog gardening opportunities! Astilbes, gunneras, lysochiton and such! And I like frogs and toads. I very much doubt the Sussexes appreciate them the same way I do.

Anyway, sorry for the strange diversion. Carry on!

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R175 You are wrong. They are building a house. They have been renting a house near Soho Farmhouse but have bailed on the 2-yr lease.

The Queen also gave them Adelaide Cottage.

They are renovating Frogmore Cottage, R178, Google it. It is currently divided into 5 flats. It is not a new build. The plans were publicly filed. They are also adding 2 parking lots. It is quite close to the road. They were not given any other homes by the RF. Frog Cot is it.

Beggars Lodg, the new house being built in the Cotswolds.

^^ Beggars Lodge.

Below is one of the best photos of Princess Margaret. Pinterest has a million pictures of her.

No, R178, you are wrong. They aren’t building a house (they can’t afford it, for starters).

Why would Her Majesty give them Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Great Park when she’s just given them Frogmore Cottage in Windsor Great Park?

The sixth in line to the throne and his current (soon to be former) wife don’t need two houses in Windsor Great Park.

Don’t make stuff up - it doesn’t make it real and just makes you look stupid.

Stupider, rather.

R179 I am not talking about the renovation of Frogmore Cottage which is Windsor. I am talking about the building of a new home in the Cotswolds (not the rental they've been using since their marriage).

Nope, they are moving to Frog Cot, those stories are outdated.

R184 They have more than one home just as William and Kate have.

R180 - your source is The Sun?

Your stupidity would be laughable if it wasn’t absolutely pitiful.

Back to Lainey for you.

No, their only home will be Frog Cot.

The stories of them building were speculative and are outdated, they are from last June.

MeAgain gets what the Queen offers and it was Frog Cot in the burbs.

No, R185 (and presumably R180, R183 and R184) they don’t have more than one “home”, as you put it - they will move into Frogmore Cottage and out of Kensington Palace because that’s all that they’ve been offered.

Harry is not important in the royal pecking order and his ex-yachting, ex-C grade actress wife never will be. They’re lucky to have anywhere to live that’s not self funded.

Back to Lainey for you.

No one here can say for sure that the Sun story at R180 is false, but given that it was written in the dog days of summer when there is very other royal or other news, and the fact that the article has generous lashings of speculative language, it seems more like a filler article than true gossip.

It's also dated as other posters have noted. No other media outlet has followed up on it and the Sun hasn't added anything to it in 9 months. The DM would love to have more ammo for the Spendy Sussexes storyline it has going. If the DM hasn't jumped on this angle, chances are, it's a dead end.

True or not, that cotswolds house is gorgeous.

Pics of Frogmore? Is it not as fancy as that one?

The Cotswolds house looks like a lot of dark rooms. The windows are quite small relative to the brick work.

You're all wrong. The Queen got REALLY scared after seeing the Beyonce video and decided to give Buck House to Royal Meghan. She and Philip will be moving to a converted greenhouse on Balmoral's grounds because Royal Meg thinks that's the best place for them.

The residents of KP are being evicted to make way for SohoBéBé's nannies, but don't worry about the Cambridges! Our beneficent Duchess is moving them to Southwyck House.

All of this has been accomplished via 5 a.m. email, and there's so much more to come.

Looking forward to more Queens' balcony, etc. in the future. MEghan will get her spotlight when she's solo or with Harry on engagements, and for her baby's christening. But it is clear there is a shift and HazBean will be increasingly relegated into the background--2nd row, if they're lucky.

It's going to be some funny shit watching an inferior actress try unsuccessfully to cover her dejection. Gurl is obsessed with the power of a photo and this one in November could not have been more pointed.

Kate would look better with an extra 5 or 10 pounds

Totally agree R195. These women love being bone-thin.

I just realized, that photo of Meghan in the black one-shouldered gown at the fashion awards, cradling her bump for all it’s worth - Reminded me of a Best Actress clutching her Oscar right after the win.

Too soon R197!

The gender neutral story started getting thrown around during the vegan paint story.

R172 The Cotswold's house is David Cameron's friend's. Yes, it's on the Great Tew estate, part of Soho Farm, but the merching has nothing to do with their "keep" so to speak, which makes it so bizarre. The whole Soho chain is shady as fuck, though, so they've possibly got a lot of background on the Grifter, and therefore she will keep them sweet . A friend of mine swears blind that she lives there mostly alone, by the way.

"A friend of mine swears blind that she lives there mostly alone, by the way."

See, when I hear stuff like this I ought to disregard it as bullshit. But I don't because honestly, I believe their marriage is as phony as her fucking baby.

I think that too R201 !

R178 They haven't been given Adelaide Cottage. And the previous poster mentioned they were given York Cottage , too. No, no, no. That was all MeAgain pushing for what she wanted in the press, like the Sandringham invite to Dorito ( with the sly digs that Kate's parents had never ever been invited for Christmas, so naturally she was the Queen's favourite *yawn* ). The only place they have been given ( to live in, not to keep ) is Frogmore Cottage. Anything else mentioned is MM pushing for what she wants, not what she gets. I believe there was hysteria when she found out she was going to live in the old servant's cottage and not the actual Frogmore House.

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That is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Just classic - and you know it could happen!

R204 Love it!

R200 Makes sense, they never seem to be in sync. And that manic clinging and groping, [html removed]

Some of Alison Jackson's stuff is eerily close to the bone. She has photos of Meagain and Hairy doing all kinds of things you just KNOW Meagain and Hairy really do (the bondage ones are priceless.)

DL isn't letting me post any examples...that's just user error, I'm sure.

R172 The Great Tew Estate is NOT part of Soho Farmouse. Soho Farmhouse is NOT part of the Great Tew Estate.

The man who owns The Great Tew Estate is not the same man who owns the Soho Houses.

They are near each other. Soho Farmhouse is near the village of Great Tew. The Great Tew Estate is near the village of Great Tew, which is where it gets it’s name.

I can well believe she’s at the cottage/barn conversion place on her own, though.

Not to sound like a conspiracy nutcase, but I think there’s every chance this is a marriage of convenience.

There’s something distinctly odd about the whole thing & that is the only explanation that would make sense.

If Markle actually loved Harry and was committed to him and being part of the BRF, she’d play the game properly. She’d listen to advice and take it & make far more effort to ingratiate herself with his family. She’s doing none of this.

She’s set up her own PR, is briefing the press herself (via friends), is spending money like it’s going out of fashion & is trying to impress Americans far more than she is the Brits.

She knows there’s an end date and what in-love newlywed thinks like that?

I think he offered her worldwide fame, two royal kids, a massive clothing allowance, a free home & British citizenship in return for being his wife.

For his part he gets the kids, the respectability of being a married man and a wife who is contractually obliged to look the other way while he continues living the life he did pre-Meghan.

With the right woman, it’s not a bad idea at all. One I’d consider if I was him & all the women I’d actually loved hadn’t wanted the only life I could offer them.

They probably considered it a win-win situation - except she never expected to be detested and he never expected her to be so blatantly greedy and grasping.

So well put, R210. I believe the marriage-of-convenience scenario as well, because it's the only answer that truly explains everything. And in fact, all of it makes perfect sense when you look at it from that angle. Whew! I think perhaps we've figured it out!

Yep, and when Harry realized what he'd actually gotten himself into, and how greedy and grasping she really turned out to be, he had to defend her in front of God and country. And it would also explain why Harry and Wills are now estranged - Harry can't admit how badly he fucked up, ESPECIALLY to William. Man, Harry is in a bad place.

I just can’t understand why Markle wanted the job. It’s an incredibly isolated life/- yet in a fishbowl. Living in a strange country. Harry’s an idiot, so not like he’s much good for companionship.

R213 God knows what Harry promised her during those long orgies in Toronto.

I’m saying all of this when on the DT threads all along and now also ,glad some people think the same now .

R213 You’re thinking like a normal person. A malignant narcissist sees reality through the prism of their own desires. Living in a fishbowl = being worshipped and adored by everyone.

I read an article once by a psychologist who said that most people don’t actually want to be famous. Aside from daydreams about winning Oscars or scoring winning goals, few people actively pursue it.

The only people who do are narcissists & it’s an indication of low self-esteem born of an instable childhood.

He even made the point that if you do not feel any desire to be famous (actual, real desire rather than daydreams) then your parents did a good job of making you feel loved enough by them as a child.

(To be clear...there’s a difference between people who become famous through excelling at what they do, and those who are pursuing fame for fame’s sake. Markle fits the latter category - acting wasn’t getting her there so she tried a blog, being a “humanitarian” and was trying to get some kind of TV show).

So, this is why we normal people cannot fathom wanting the kind of exposure Markle is now getting. For her it’s all she’s ever wanted.

Worth noting, though, that the psychologist said that people like that are never happy because being very famous is a psychologically damaging way to live.

I don't agree with this theory at all. I think MM didn't understand what the BRF was, or what her role would be - similar to Sophie Wessex. She imagined it in terms of wealth, glamour and freedom. She thought she could manipulate the British public's perception of her, not realising that the Brits are a lot more conservative than the Americans and do not want celebrities in the RF. She managed to dazzle Harry who wanted to give the royal finger to his family, out-do his brother in coolness, and find a partner who would make the slog aspects of his royal role more tolerable. Neither anticipated the huge backlash against both of them, and I have little doubt that whatever enchantment each of them saw in each other has dissipated. They are both planning a timely exit.

The strange disconnect they have with the public and each other and themselves, really. The relentless refusal to assimilate. The hubris. The scandalous amounts of money spent on hideous clothing. The meaningless, offensive gestures. The cringeworthy public displays of affection, none of which rings true. I could go on and on but I can't at the moment. It's strictly business with them, and it always has been. I didn't start out feeling like this way by any means, but I feel it strongly now.

Me too R218.

I’d also add to that the obvious fact that they were planning marriage within a very short space of time. First date in the summer and by October she was writing her Princess Manifesto (posted to The Tig a week before the relationship “leaked”). And the interview in which he largely talked about her being a new member of “the team” and “the job”.

Although, if we’re wrong then I think R217 has the only other explanation.

So I assume the baby’s name will be gender neutral?

Jesse. Dylan. Wind. She seems like she'd go with names of things in nature. Dung? That sounds like a porn name.

I am dying for Harry to issue another statement about how the press is persecuting Meghan. You know she is pushing him to do so. This time it will blow up in his face so bad it will singe off what's left of his hair. They'll be all - oh, you think it's US?? And then go after him tenforld, which he certainly deserves, as well as her.

Speaking of which, for all the bashing of the ludicrous shower and all of her other nonsense, why does the press not go after her biggest enabler? One being Harry, two being the BRF which allows this to continue.

Albeit if I were the BRF I wouldn't lift a pinky. They're already banished to the glorified set of servants' quarters in Frogmore Cottage, with no other retreat, not even a bolthole in London somewhere, and no longer the use of Nott Cott. She's not costing them anything, other than unpleasantly highlighting the luxury and privilege in which they live in exchange for making sanctimonious and well-dressed appearances at various worthy organisations. But for the latter, the BRF thinks this is a worthy role for them. Her clothes are all product placement and grifter loot from various labels and products. All she's costing really is staff and they'd pay for that for Harry anyway.

Just let her wait and wait and wait for the pay out that doesn't come.

Just for fun, I went back and read the Vanity Fair cover story of Meghan. It’s even more extraordinary in retrospect.

Interestingly Kensington Palace have now issued a statement saying the gender neutral raising rumours are false. So all the other rumours are true then? As they have not issued statements to deny those. Nor did they stop that programme that aired in the UK last night, about the Markles, with interviews from Scammy that threw shade on the lies that Madam has concocted about her background. In essence, she has created a whole new back story to her life. But we knew that, anyway.

Man, how Meghan must hate Samantha. Imagine, here you are trying to be grand in your new role, and here comes your awful relative to drag you back down. I actually sympathize.

Interesting post, R222. I agree that the BRF excels at playing the long game--logical for a 1000-year institution--and is determined to wait the grifter out. She's not nearly as dangerous as Diana, and they put up with the Princess of Wales' bad behavior for years before the Queen finally ordered her and Charles to divorce.

So now will her stans be disappointed if the gender of the child is acknowledged?

Although even Kate Hudson talks about her daughter and her feminine energy, so much for genderless.

The Snarkle Vanity F Article

Kate Hudson is probably thinking, “Hmmm do I go with the genderless angle or the feminist one? Ugh, it’s so hard.”

Hey...I have the perfect next husand for Meghan.

Go to the Mail Online & check out the main story....poor, lonely £150m Lotto winner who’s been dumped by everyone and never leaves his house.

Fat pig of a man, but needs must.

MeAgain probably threw the genderless upbringing out there to try and force the Queen's hand to give Soho Baby a title.

They were given Frogmore Cottage because it could be accessed from Frogmore Palace through the newly-constructed tunnels. You can see the outline of the tunnels in the ground from Google Maps.

I'm ready for a shift in the plot. The Dook & Dookess of Sussex should be damned grateful the pause in their activities to wait for the baby.

The suspense with me is whether, during the pause, the clouds part, the sky opens and she is struck with an epiphany:

(fade in, single spotlight on the DoS face, begin soliloqoy): My position ( and his!) as Prince Harry's wife is supplemented with being unique: I'm an American, bi-racial, educated 36 years old woman, and soon to be a mother of one of QE II's great-grandchildren.

I elicit curiosity and interest, as it is, with my particular life and person. I don't, therefore, need to, and no longer will, create cheap hoopla as with that stupid, embarrassing, spectacle shakedown of a baby shower in NYC attended by celebrity A -List Show Folk Parvenus Trash, aka "friends".

Now, I'll reverse. Less is more. Competently, quietly, with adherence to protocols and rules I will carry out my duties. Counterintuitively, that will create some mystery and sustain curiosity about me. (spotlight slowly fades from the DoS face. In darkness the DoS, voice sharp to staff member, "No! Tell Gayle and Amal I won't attend their Hamptons fundraiser!...)".

I don't always agree with you, Della, but I must admit you have a certain flair.

Love it, Della!

No, R232 - They were given Frogmore Cottage because there was nothing else available. It also means they only get one house as this counts as both a country house and a London one (as it’s only a 40 min drive away).

Are you trying to suggest they are secretly going to be living in Frogmore House, sneaking through the tunnels in the dead of night? Erm...no.

Oh, you're both sweet, r234 and r235.

Just (re)read that VF article from before their engagement. It was in fact this article that settled it that an engagement was imminent - indeed she was almost certainly already engaged during the interview. Things that struck me:

1. The praise of her parents, and a number of specific instances of praise for her father. The narrative that Evil Daddy Markle has always been a personality disordered monster just doesn't hold up. Whatever went wrong in that relationship happened very soon before the wedding. Was it the incident of him being photographed getting fitted for a suit? Even that doesn't make sense. Who ends a formerly positive relationship with an elderly and unwell parent, on the eve of their wedding, because of a single fuck-up like that? Why had Harry not met Markle Sr. before the wedding (and before the pap set-up incident went down)? Why was Thomas handled so badly (i.e. apparently not at all) by Harry and Meghan?

2. This quote: “We’re in love. I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours." Absolutely no sense of irony from Meghan here, as she literally talks to VANITY FAIR about how private and personal her relationship is.

My guess with M and Daddy is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and both are damaged attention whores. Also, Meghan is clearly if not a diagnose-able narc, blessed with some of the traits. It's all about the story she's woven and the persona she's created for herself to present to the public. Her fat, oafish old dad didn't fit into that. I bet the reason he didn't meet Harry was simply that M was embarrassed of him. She's a Dollar Store Diana and I think Harry is going to come to bitterly regret his terrible choice.

R165 - Apparently, it is 18 May, which is again a problem for William as it's the FA Cup Final, just as it was with the Sussex wedding last year. I doubt Harry and William are especiallly close to the two Kent cousins; if they appear, it will be more in the way of representing the Queen. Or Charles will show to keep the side up, as he's the generation of the bride's father.

Ordinarily, of course, this would be exactly the sort of "minor" royal wedding that Harry and his wife would attend, but it's likely that the Kents can't stand Meghan and didn't even invite the two, and Meghan will be on maternity leave. After all, it is a private family wedding, and the Kents aren't obligated to invite every member of the BRF.

So, I don't think this is going to see many senior royals in the pews. Taking bets here: senior royals, at most, Charles, William, and Kate. Possibly Sophie and Edward from the second tier. And the Gloucesters will be there.

R238 Yep. Yep. Yep. Well said.

Thing that sticks in my memory about that interview was...”I don’t want to be defined by my relationship”. Is she really so arrogant that she didn’t understand that the journalist wouldn’t even be there speaking to her were it not for her relationship - and she most certainly wouldn”t have been on the cover?!

God, she annoys me.

R210 - Excellent post and sums it all up very persusasively. It may be that the BRF is being so strangely "hands-off" about this because they understand the situation exactly this way, and are simply waiting it out.

I liked this bit most: "If Markle actually loved Harry and was committed to him and being part of the BRF, she’d play the game properly. She’d listen to advice and take it & make far more effort to ingratiate herself with his family. She’s doing none of this.

She’s set up her own PR, is briefing the press herself (via friends), is spending money like it’s going out of fashion & is trying to impress Americans far more than she is the Brits."

As I said upthread, Meghan and Harry for all their grandstanding (that would be mostly her grandstanding) have never looked at each other the way Harry and Chelsy did.

It's the Charles, Diana, Camilla tragedy being played out in the next generation, because Charles never looked at Diana the way he looked at Chelsy.

If indeed Meghan was afraid to introduce Harry to her father, I almost can’t blame her. Snaring Harry was a highly delicate operation, one false step and he would have gotten away. It must’ve been very stressful for her, especially at a distance. While distance could work in her favor, I bet she was always worrying about groupies, or his wandering attention span. I do admire her audacious skill in the way she won her prize. I would so love to know how it all really went down behind the scenes.

I will say I do want to buy some of her jarred chilis from that restaurant here in LA.

Damn it, "Because Charles never looked at Diana the way he looked at CAMILLA"

R241

One interesting thing about the Palace's contradiction of the "gender-fluid" story is that it virtually calls out VF and Katie Nicholls, VF's royal beat columnist, for printing complete falsehoods. This will dismay the fraus on Celebitchy, who excitedly insisted that if a publication like VF printed the story about how impressed the Queen was with MM's "energy" that she was going to write Meghan a personal letter of appreciation - it must be TRUE! A couple of posters pointed out mildly that the Queen didn't leak her personal correspondence plans to VF, only to be met with, "Oh, come oh, the Palace leaks to VF all the time!"

So now that they know that the Big Lie Technique is being liberally, if uselessly, to counteract Meghan's increasingly lousy PR, including by Nicholls and VF, they will be disappointed, as they fervently believe that after barely a year of marriage and a demonstrated contempt for the institution, Meghan deserves a personal note and the familly orders already . . .

It's all very interesting psychologically.

R242 - I agree completely with your post. Megha ditched Dad the moment she began dating royalty, and it WAS a delicate operation and MM gets full marks for her savvy and tenacity. I think how it plays out for her over the long-term is fairly clear: even in the event of a divorce, she comes out ahead. Harry, on the other hand, comes out damaged - his only advantage is that he's finally free of trying to satisfy her bottomless pit of narcissism.

🎶 ”I came from the People.....they need to adore me....so Christian Dior me.... ” 🎶

All this manipulating PR and merching seem exhausting yet completely unfulfilling. Doesn’t she ever miss having a real job, a real life?

She seems stuck in a high profile version of junior high. How do people live like this? It would be like trying to live on a 100% junk food diet.

R231 - I don't think Meghan threatening the Queen works. It didn't work with Tiara Gate and it didn't work getting Meghan a luxurious home base in London and a grand country home in Norfolk or the Cotstolds. The infant is due in probably six weeks or less. If the baby were getting an HRH, we'd probably know by now. The gender-fluid b.s. was probably made up by a press who heard about the plans for the "gender-neutral" colours planned for the nursery and blew it up into something else. For the most part, press now print whatever they think will get clicks and the BRF is at liberty to contradict once in awhile.

For the record, greys and dark grays are, like, the IN trend in interior decoration now. That's typical Meghan, who has zero imagination and whose entire aesthetic is guided by whatever shows up in Soho Farmhouse or House Beautiful and Home and Garden.

But gender-neutral toys and colours for clothing and nursery is a lot less click-baiting than gender-fluid, which suggests a denial of the validity of gender, which the Palace found less benign - hence the denial. I doubt Harry is interested in a feminised son, either, come to it.

R248 - Meghan's been living on junk-food persona pastiched together for maximum effect probably since she's 18 or so. Only now she's doing it at a considerably higher rate of pay. She doesn't care. Her appetite for depth and privacy is, I suspect, minimal at best.

Even better, R226, is if the BRF just naturally assume, in a bland, disingenuous way, that any going away $$ for Hazza's bride should come from Hazza. "Well darling, you're over thirty and now have full access to the principle of your trust. Why don't we just transfer 5 million of it to Her Meghaness. The remainder will compound back to its current amount by the time you are fifty, easily. And by then your papa should be deceased and he'll leave you something."

Harry, you can be sure, would throw seven fits, demanding that papa pay for his bride's going away money (I doubt he'd demand it of granny). But there is really no reason why it shouldn't be Hazza's money. Imelda Markles can be granted one of the five apartments in Frog Cott for her personal use, and she can use the 5 million as she likes - run through it like a drunken sailor til there's nothing left, or invest it conservatively to have a small income.

Harry is clearly an unmarriagable problem child who 10-1 is blaming everyone else for every soup he's landed himself into. It's far better for these two to be shackled together, increasingly restricted, with it being made known that Harry can always get himself out with his own moolah if it means that much to him. If he were unwed, he would not remarry the perfect lovely duchess his stans dream about. No such woman would touch Harry with a ten foot pole. He'd only still be acting like a wayward, spoiled teen-ager even though he'd be a mid to late-thirties divorced father. So may as well keep the Hazbean show going.

No the tunnels allow the Queen to visit her favorite grandson in privacy. She actually advises the couple on a lot of things. The tunnels just make it easier for Her Highness to avoid the paparazzi who follow Meghan around.

Is Meghan really disliked by the public though?

I understand we on DL don’t like her but I don’t know if it translates into real life. I would have thought the BRF would have done something about her by now if she was

The Queen isn't Her Highness. She is Her Royal Majesty. Your post is either the height or irony or the height ignorant fantasy.

Uh, not while she is up the duff, R253. Imagine how that would look. And they would be called racist to boot.

Is there a link to watch the Samantha interview on UK tv last night?

R252 That’s rubbish. And anyway, Windsor is a private estate. No one could “follow her around there”. HM does not live at Frogmore House.

R251 Frogmore Cottage has been converted from flats back into a house. Harry & Meghan won’t be living in a flat.

R253 - I haven't seen recent polls following the Baby Shower Blowout. Judging by the comments BTL on stories in the DM and Telegraph, they are overwhelmingly negative, with a sprikling of defensive posts.

More broadly, I doubt most of the UK public gives a tinker's curse about her and Harry one way or the othet. It's the media drumming up interest.

The next interesting thing coming up apart from the birth is actually the publishing of the Duchy of Cornwall's expenses, at which time we'll find out how much Charles has contributed to each son's household income. The amounts will give a good idea of whether the amounts to the Sussex household reflect the touted prices of Meghan's clothes. I assume there will also be increased spending by Charles on both sons due to the "increase" in households - William had a third child last April, and Harry will have one this April, plus it's safe to assume Charles's "supplement" is helping to pay for the nonstructural refurbishing of Frogmore Cottage.

Can't wait to see the report and whether it successfully hides the line items of the Sussexes in collapsed broader lines.

Why is Charles' face so red all the time?

They are doing something about it though. It may not be satisfying for those who truly dislike the Harkles, as neither of the have been driven off royal property, out of the BRF, and outside the borders of the U.K. They're still within the fold, and still given "assignments" as working royals.

However, splitting Harry from William and banishing Harry (and thus his bride) to the "et al." department of the BRF staff offices is a thing. Harry is no longer KP.

Frogmore Cottage is another thing. The fact is they have been given nothing else, as some royal reporters noted with bemusement. Nothing in London. No matter how one tries to spin Frogmore cottage, it is not undergoing a luxury renovation to transform it into a ten bedroom "mansion". It is getting two parking lots - a pretty utilitarian decision, office space, and will remain divided into apartments. Now yes, Harkle stans can claim one apartment is for the loving couple, the other is for a nursery, another is for "servants." I don't think so, but if that's the story, it's a consolation of sorts, I'm sure. But basically Frogmore Cottage and splitting William and Harry is, in terms of how the BRF does things, "doing something about this."

Frugal Princess Anne has recycled many outfits over the years.

It's amazing that Anne can still wear all of her old clothes. She's the only one of the Queen's children who has remained relatively the same size over the years.

"Imelda Markles"

lol, r251.

Harry and Meghan are asked to save the SUSSEX spaniel breed by adopting one.

Surely at least 2 of the apartments will be combined?

The pond will need a fence when Sohobebe is walking, it is just outside the house and it will be a safety hazard.

The Queen Mary Fringe Tiara has been worn by generations of Royal ladies.

R261 - I'd be interested in how you know Frogmore Cottage isn't being converted from five flast into a 10-bedroom place. I'm not suggesting you don't know, but as the 10-BR country house has been the report from the get-go, I'd like to know how you know it isn't. Evidence would certainly add to the mounting consensus that the BRF is marginalising the couple as far as feasible whilst maintaining their "status" in the family, and that the Queen agrees with the approach - or she would have done for them what she did for the Cambridges, in London and in Norfolk.

So - how do you know?

*damn - five FLATS

Her five friends talking to People wasn't enough PR so now Meghan gets another cover.

R268 - I've heard that Frogmore Cottage is being converted from five self-contained flats to a 10 bedroom house as well.

I wonder if Nutmeg will somehow get her new place in pages of Architectural Digest after it's finished??? How is the Soho designer going to get any publicity for it if the house photos aren't splashed over the glossy mags?

I thought that the plans were filed publicly, what did they say? That will be more telling than PR about what was originally a 10 BR house.

I wondered the same about the decorator and photos but I thought private spaces were kept that as a security issue? Remember the rumors she had photographed RF private space?

They clearly have very little control over her.

Frogmore Cottage was built by the Victorians as a complete house for servants to live in. Some years ago, given that modern staff don’t like living communally, it was converted into five flats.

Now, for Meghan and Harry, it’s being converted back. They have the whole house. And the renovations are costing £3.7 million, so they are not just getting a couple of car parks. It’s a full renovation job.

Anyone who thinks they’ve been stuck in a flat is an idiot.

The plans have been filed - but the details have been kept private, for security reasons.

Some American told me that because the building is listed that means it’s public and we have to be able to see the plans. Which is bullshit and only proves that person doesn’t know what listed means.

They’ve got the whole house. I doubt it’s 10 bedrooms - more like 5 or 6.

There were two sets of plans for Frogmore cottage, one set was for flats and office space which was public. The second set was around November and was private. So nobody knows how the cottages are being converted into a house. There was a leak from an insider who said it would be much less than ten bedrooms being quoted.

Thanks, R273.

Interesting that it was always for servants.

That makes sense, R274. 5 flats would not equal 10 bedrooms. The car parks may be off then as well. I can see where the confusion came from.

It is very close to a public path though, no? I thought part of the benefit of putting them there was the security already in place?

R256 Are you in the UK? It's repeated tomorrow, if so. No links to the full programme are available at the time being.

Yes, R276. There are places in Windsor Great Park that are open to the public and you can see a bit of Frogmore Cottage from there. I imaginethey”re doing something about that.

Sorry... but can you not imagine the uproar if all they got was a two bed flat in the same building as staff? When William and Kate have two mansions? Seriously, come on.

The “come on” wasn’t aimed at you R276.

Looking at the outside of the house, it seems like a standard Victorian country home...not an especially grand one.

There’s probably three reception rooms and a kitchen downstairs and maybe 5 bedrooms upstairs....with en suite bathrooms squeezed in too.

It’s a house lots of people would love. But a mansion for royalty it ain’t.

I think that they will have the whole building. I do not think there will be 2 parking lots. They will have to add landscaping or something to shield them from view and I imagine some security as well. Also, the pond will have to be enclosed.

Agree, R279. Beggars Lodge or whatever, it is not. Her grandiosity is about to come bumping to earth.

If there are indeed 2 parking lots, one would probably be more for staff/service parking and the other for personal use. I live in the UK (I'm American) and when I built my house I had to put all this stuff in my planning application and on paper it looked like I was opening a carp park for a mini mart when in reality I just needed enough space to park 2 cars daily, a few more cars for parties, etc and enough room for the Amazon guy to turn his van around without driving on my grass.

The Scottish sun has the story about the cancellation of the Audi Polo challenge at Ascot . The genderfluidity story has rather buried it.

R268 because the plans are public. And Meghan is always lying and hyping her prospects in the media.

R280, the plans show two parking lots. Now the remark that it may actually just be space for cars could be correct, but check it out yourself online.

The plans detailing the renovation work are not available online as they’ve been kept private.

Here’s a house in Suffolk that, to me, looks about the same size as Frogmore Cottage (a bit bigger maybe as it’s been extended).

You can see that it’s a big country house that a professional family would probably end up in....not millionaire princes.

I read ON another one of these threads that the Cambridge’s may be divorcing

Does anyone seriously think that Kate is ever going to leave Willam? Not going to happen— even if Wills has an orgy with the entire extended Middleton family broadcast live on the BBC

R287 - divorce rumors was just gossip. Will and Kate knew each other since college, lived together for awhile, are well-matched and have a solid marriage with a lovely family.

I would be more inclined to believe that divorce will probably be in the future for the Sussex pair than the Cambridges.

R287 I would certainly watch that. The Audi story is in Eden Confidential in the Mail. Can't link at the moment.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I believe that Wm and Kate were permitted, early on, to raise their young family in the privacy of Amner. Why isn't it possible that QE is giving H and M the same courtesy by moving them to Frogmore. At Frogmore, they are close to many other royals, including the Queen who spends a great deal of time at Windsor -- and their BFFs, the Clooneys are also nearby. Who's to say they won't get an apartment in London as some of the older royals die? It has become pretty easy to dislike H and M, but there is no way to know for certain that Frogmore is a banishment.

Major point is, Harry and Meghan won't have London as center of their home/ work universe, it's part of the reality of being (for now) 6th in line. They will slide down further into irrelevance aside from sideshow of Meghan's tackiness, as it is entertaining to watch. But hey, you don't have to be in London to merch and fame whore, you get more exposure online through secondary social media accounts anyways.

The stupidity of some of the posters on these threads is astounding.

R252 The Queen won’t be creeping through tunnels from Frogmore House to Frogmore Cottage to avoid the paparazzi who apparently roam unchallenged on the Windsor Estate. The Queen doesn’t live at Frogmore House. Nobody does.

Then we have R254 authoritatively correcting R252 for calling the Queen “Her Highness” - fair enough, but R254 also gets it wrong and states that she is styled “Her Royal Majesty” which is completely wrong - there is no such title used anywhere with any royal family.

She is styled, quite simply, “Her Majesty”.

“Her Royal Majesty” seems to be a uniquely American style used by people who think that they know a lot about the British royal family but actually know very little and usually get that wrong anyway.

R247 ugh that dress was ugly . She could have worn any dress from a local designer in a vibrant colour but she just had to show up in this bland beige bag that somehow still managed to be too tight .

r290 I wonder whose bright idea it was to dem... ask Audi for more money? This event ran for 16 years with no problems and then all of a sudden we have this request and suddenly Audi pulls out. I wonder what could have changed. Hmm.

I don't think we'll ever know r295. It certainly is a mystery.

R286 - That's because, as must continue to be pointed out here, Harry isn't a millionaire prince except on paper. If he really were, he'd have turned up his nose at Frogmore Cottage, told HM to go fuck herself, and bought himself and his family something more resembling what the Quen gave to, and renovated at her private expense, the Cambridges.

William will absolutely be a multimillionaire in terms of accessible revenues the moment Charles takes the throne and William inherits the Duchy of Cornwall. All Harry can hope for, nay, expects I'm sure, is a second trust fund left him by his father - which won't become his until his father dies in, oh, twenty years.

I'm sure the inequity in real prospects between Harry and William eats at Meghan privately.

That country house is lovely but seems to have more extensive grounds than Frogmore? The tennis courts and lots of grass? Frogmore has a lot of space taken up by that pond and any grass lawns Sohobebe will have to share with the rest of Windsor.

Yep, R298. I was thinking more of the house itself rather than the grounds. As far as I can tell it’s a similar sort of size.

And the listed home has a pool, which Frog Cot also lacks. I am sure they can use one on the Windsor grounds, but not the same. Good find.

She really is destroying his life with a vengance. After Sohobebe pops out or is collected, perhaps he will free to Africa again with Bidwell?

'There has been real shock, because Audi has provided 16 years of loyal service holding the event with the Royal Family,' an insider tells me.

'The sum it was expected to stump up was a huge increase on its previous donation.'

Kensington Palace is keen to deny suggestions that Audi was asked to donate £1 million — and that Meghan inspired the increase.

FLEE to Africa again

I don't know about that, R222. The BRF may want it to play out that way, but MM has shown, with the outrageous £500,000 baby shower, that she can and will cause major chaos if they don't treat her with the care and respect she thinks she deserves. And this chaos, scrutinised and magnified by media like the DM, threatens to pull the whole house of cards down on their royal ears. She's clearly sending a very non-royal message - DON'T FUCK WITH ME OR I'LL MAKE YOU SORRY.

R303 - she may be sending that message but if so, she's altogether overreached herself. They survived Diana after kicking her out, they'll survive Meghan. They've already booted her out of London, and (at least so far) withheld the HRH that would put her kids on a footing with William's, told her to go fuck herself over the tiara, and quite obviously didn't invite them up to Balmoral this summer. They have also done next to nothing to protect her from the marauding UK press.

Meghan Markle's big mistake was thinking they need her more than she needs them.

R303 - P.S. - It's not beyond the reach of imagination that they are holding something in reserve that they have over her, as well. They also sent her a little message on Remembrance Day - the optics were quite clear who mattered on one balcony and who doesn't on the other. Not to mention the last row of the balcony in the Albert Hall, half under a curtain . . . and right behind Prince Andrew.

No - if she thinks that, she's underestimating by far with whom she is dealing.

I wonder if Megantoinette is so foolish as to interpret the little to no reproach she has received from BP as tacit approval of her shenanigans? I'm sure in her head she has HM's full confidence and the firm is ever so grateful to have her breathing a fresh and modern take into a staid, fusty institution. Nevermind that they are probably making note of her every move and waiting for a time when right. I believe it is not just the fact that ME is up the duff at the moment that stays the Firm's hand, but also they are mindful how they will be able to control a dimwit hothead from his worst impulses. Everything said/done against Sparkle is taken personally by Stupid and is a reflection of his inadequacies under a harsh glare he is not prepared to handle. I do think they harbor a grave concern how to manage such a thick-headed simpleton in their household.

The right time is after the SoHo BeBe is born, at which point the Royal Family will begin scrutinizing Meghan's behavior towards Harry and towards her bebe. I do not think she has any idea of how difficult and completely uncontrollable babies are.

The Queen will announce her plan for Harry and Meghan to retire by ruse of an extended family leave as a gift for the parents to bond as a family, such as was arranged for William. Years tick by, and life goes on, but Harry and Meghan no longer will function as representatives of the Monarchy, and they will be encouraged to find professional jobs.

Ok, bring on the baby already. I'm a little bored with the show right now.

R286 A house on a Private estate in Windsor would be worth 3 times what that house in Suffolk is worth.

The £3.7million cost of refurbishing Frogmore Cottage is just the amount that will come from 'Grants in Aid' and excludes any extra security measures and a anything that HM Queen contributes personally, which will probably double the bill. They will never have to pay any bills to maintain the cottage either (which is why Andrew and Edward also live in Windsor Great Park).

I presume that the London home will come later, possibly when The Kents move out of Wren House at Kensington Palace.

HM Queen will almost certainly grant the child an HRH as the child would automatically get one as the Grandchild of the Monarch when Charles becomes King.

This is really a strategy to ensure that Harry never has to spend any of his own money on a home. Quite clever really.

R309 For fuck’s sake. I was not talking about worth, I was talking about SIZE. We were discussing numbers of bedrooms and so on. I wanted to show a country house of (what I think is) a similar size and atyle.

I doubt the baby will get an HRH. Why would they change the rules for the son/daughter of the sixth in line? And I doubt they’ll get a home in London given that Windsor is 40 minutes drive away.

Markle was the Deal or No Deal suitcase girl, which is just one step above Budlight girl. Does this pretentious woman think she was born of royalty?

R309 - If HM is granting the child an HRH she is sure taking her time about it. The announcement was made well before this stage of pregnancy in Kate's case. And technically, Prince Edward's kids are also HRHs due to the grandchild of the Sovereign in the male line definition. But once they get known as Lord and Lady This or Viscount That - they tend to stay that way. If Harry's kids are born Lord Dumbarton and/ore Lady Mountbatten Windsor, that's the way they will continue to be know unless Charles makes a stink, which I suspect he won't. And lastly, if the Queen really has gotten Meghan's number, and she knows Charles will see that Harry's kids get HRHs, why shouldn't she indulge her dislike by withholding it now?

They may get a "base" in London eventually if Meghan pushes Harry to whinge enough. But if William and Kate are still in Apt 1A, you can bet your arse Meghan and Harry aren't getting Apt 1 - the Cambridges do not want Meghan anywhere near their children or living space, and the two apartments are virtually adjacent. Meghan's short-sighted bitchiness has already put paid to that idea. Talk is being floated that the Cambridges are going to get that apartment, too, for "staff and reception areas" when William becomes Prince of Wales.

The Sussexes will get a nice little suite in St. James Palace.

Oh, and they will be essentially renting the house from the Queen. Renters don’t have to pay to maintain the building but they do need to pay their own bills.

No special rules for Harry.

And Edward doesn’t live at Windsor. He lives at Bagshot in Surrey.

Mark my words, there are tunnels.

No, R314 - the propagator of the tunnel-to-Frogmore-Cottage theory was shown to be the clueless idiot that s/he is - was it you, per chance? There was no trolling involved.

The friggin' balcony!!! For God's sake. One balcony held the queen and the queens-to-be. Sophie and Anne weren't on the same balcony either. They all may hate her, but the balcony placement undoubtedly meant nothing.

[quote] They all may hate her, but the balcony placement undoubtedly meant nothing.

One look at Sparkle's face on that other balcony and it appears that it meant something to Sparkle.

". . .In December 2012, before Prince William and Kate Middleton had their first child, Prince George, the Queen used the Letters Patent so she could give all of their children an HRH title."

Prince George was born in July 2013. The Queen issued those Letters Patent virtually as soon as Kate's first trimester was safely past, in December 2012, and the Letterse applied to ALL William's future children.

Harry's first kid is due in a few weeks. Anyone still think the Queen is bestowing an HRH on this seventh in line kid, especially given how his/her mother has put two fingers up to the institution the Queen has worked for decades to shore up?

Bagshot Park is in Windsor Great Park (still on the estate) and is leased to Edward by Crown Estates (who are the Government not HM Queen).

Wren House at Kensington Palace is pretty much a self contained 5 bed, 5 reception room property. Harry could live there without ever seeing William & Kate.

The HRH is a mute point really, the child will be entitled to it in the near future in any case.

Anne was down at the Cenotaph taking part in the ceremony in uniform, that's why she wasn't on the balcony.

The placement on those balconies meant everything, not nothing. Three Queens and one unimportant Duchess. End of.

R319 - Sure, the way Edward's kids are "entitled" to it. Only they don't use and never will, and neither will Harry's kids.

R319- moot point

R319 there is nothing “mute” about it. Moot, on the other hand...

According to Twitter personality "Toronto Paper" Meghan has ties to the sex cult NXIVM. Maybe that is why Prince Andrew didnt like her. She was in a rival sex cult. Maybe they view each other like rival gangs do.

The HRH thing seems to be down to the choices their parents make. Andrews children do, Anne & Edwards don't.

R275 Frogmore Cottage was not built for servants. It is a Georgian house (ie before the Victorian age) and was built at the request of Queen Charlotte as a retreat for her and her daughters. Later Queen Victoria's mother lived there. It's first use as accommodations for a servant seems to have been when Queen Victoria allowed it to be used by Abdul Karim, who some people regarded as her companion/lover. Victoria would take tea with Abdul Karim and his family at the cottage.

Anmer Hall is a well-appointed home. It is excellently situated on its estate because it was intended to be a stand alone property and was acquired by the BRF after construction. Frogmore Cottage was intended to be a discreet private retreat and was purpose-built as such. FC has a rich royal history and has much stronger royal ties than Anmer.

I don't read much into what the granting of either property says about the queen's approval or disapproval of William, Harry or their wives.

There's no way Meghan won't have her kid use an HRH title if it's there. You know she's dying for her kid to be called Prince or Princess

R324 - "NXIVM is a multi-level marketing company, based in Albany, New York (U.S.), that offers personal and professional development seminars through its "Executive Success Programs". NXIVM has been labeled by several journalists as a pyramid scheme, a sex-trafficking operation, and a sex cult. A report by the Ross Institute described its seminars as "expensive brainwashing."

NXIVM has also been accused by former members of the organisation of being a recruiting platform for a cult operating within it (variously called "DOS" or "The Vow") in which women were branded and forced into sexual slavery.

In early 2018, NXIVM founder Keith Raniere and associate Allison Mack were arrested and indicted on federal charges related to DOS, including sex trafficking. Originally, a March 2019 trial date was scheduled, but the Hon. Nicholas G. Garaufis has decided opening statements are to be heard on April 29. Company operations have been suspended as of May 2018. A report by the Ross Institute described its seminars as "expensive brainwashing."

Harry, I'm really not sure if he would choose an HRH for his kid. But he'll use it if Meghan wants it

Sorry about the double paragraph posts above. Cut and paste function . . .

R326 in the much more recent past Froggy Bottom has been servant quarters. Rather dull, dreary looking servant quarters. As for Victoria parking her mother there, you know that Victoria hated her mother, right?

Here is a secret photograph of Andrew of The Epstein Cult, and Meghan of NXIVM meeting for the for a rumble on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother called Clarence House "a dreary little place" (even though it's probably worth £100million currently) and wanted to live at Malborough House where Queen Mary lived.

The Queen almost had to evict her from Buckingham Palace.

R326 - I'm sure Frogmore Cottage is a place most of us would be thrilled to have the use of after nearly 4 million quid of taxpayer monies renovated it.

But the fact is, you can judge something about the Queen's opinions by what she didn't give the Sussexes: a home base in London, PLUS a country estate. That's the real difference. Anmer Hall IS a ten-bedroom country estate that actually IS in the country - Windsor is just a suburb, a pretty one but a boring market town basically. The Cambridges absolutely got more and better digs: the grand apartment in Kensington Palace AND the stately country estate.

Harry and Meghan have been fobbed off with an undistunsuished residence that is outside of London but not in creme de la creme Costwolds or Lake District countryside.

I doubt Meghan Markle when she hooked Harry was picturing being pushed out to a boring suburb instead of being at the Centre of the Universe in London WITH a grand country retreat.

No. I really doubt it. She figured she'd be living like Kate Middleton with similar economic prospects.

If Meghan had been savvier and played her cards better, and the Queen really really adored her . . . she'd have done better by the Sussexes.

R333 - I'm surprised to hear it, as the Queen Mum generally had a good eye for quality in everthing, and Clarence House is reputed to be one of the most elegant and beautiful private homes in London. If anything is dreary, it's Buck House.

Damn it all to hell: *undistinguished residence

You have to admit Marlborough House is more impressive than Clarence House.

R332 - There is no reason to insult a landmark and classical musical as well as the hot and lissom George Chakiris on the left there with such a comparison.

The key to understanding the gift of Frogmore House is in the ley lines.

R315, I really do think R314 was being mischievous with those tunnel comments.

If my memory serves me, the whole thing started as a joke in one of the original Dangling Tendrils threads. Unfortunately, a couple of visitors who either weren't familiar with the tone of DataLounge, or whose cheese was starting to slide off of the proverbial cracker (or both!), misinterpreted the tunnel jokes as legitimate rumor, and posted earnestly about them for a while. Life imitating art, you might say. But the tunnel comments on our current thread all appear to be very much in jest.

R337 - They're both Grade I listed structures. Personally, I prefer CH. Marlborough House, for all its grandeur, looks "heavy" by comparison.

Just taste . . .

It might just have been because all Dowager Queen's since William IV widow Queen Adelaide had live there, maybe Queen Elizabeth,The Queen Mother regarded Clarence House as a downgrade.

R339 - That ley line doesn't seem to have done much in Swindon, which it goes right through, where 3,500 Honda workers recently found out that they will be made redundant by 2021. I can't say much for Luton, either.

For those wondering: ley lines are underground lines of magical power that allegedly cross England, many in spots where shrines to the Old Religion had been overbuilt by the churches of the New Religion.

Glastonbury is one of the most famous spots alleged to be built on a powerful ley line.

R309 Do you not have access to Google, you arrogant twat?

Bagshot Park is 11 miles away from Windsor. It is NOT part of Windsor Great Park. It’s part of the Crown Estate but it is in Surrey.

Annoying, Australian old cunt.

The name "Spencer" is gender fluid.

A digression: R339’s map reminds me that New England really was a new England. So many town names were brought to the new world. Towns in New England are either British or Native names.

I figured Google out when Altavista finished R344

Bagshot Park is a royal residence located near Bagshot, a village 11 miles (18 km) south of Windsor and approximately 11 miles (18 km) north west of Guildford (Grid reference: SU 9164). Owned by the Crown Estate, it is the current home of the Earl and Countess of Wessex. Bagshot Park is on Bagshot Heath, a fifty square-mile tract of formerly open land in Surrey and Berkshire. [BOLD] Bagshot Park occupies 21 hectares within the designated area of Windsor Great Park. [/BOLD] It is only a few miles from Sunninghill Park, the former residence of the Duke and Duchess of York. The landscaped grounds are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The Windsor Estate is very large. Maybe you should learn to read,

R346 - Massachusetts - Native

Falmouth - British

R339 - Now, if one or more ley lines INTERSECTED under St Michael's line under Frogmore Cottage, Meghan might have some scope for fucking up the BRF. The intersecting ley lines are said to bestow especial power.

As it is she's probably already got a couple of poppets in her closet, one with long glossy brown locks, the other nearly completely bald with a big nose.

R348, yes. Nantucket, Ogunquit, Connecticut, Wiscasset, Naugatuck, Mashpee, Winnapesaukee, Saugatuck, Naugatuck, etc.

In other royal news, as I lose the battle againt an unusual bout of insomnia, this is particularly interesting from the Sunday TIMES (UK):

"Putin’s spies woo British Establishment through Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society"

A leading courtier to the Queen, a cousin of Prince Charles and other members of the aristocracy dined in the heart of London’s clubland to celebrate the UK launch of an organisation accused of close links to Russian intelligence.

Colonel Christopher Mackenzie-Beevor CBE, the most senior permanent officer of the Queen’s ceremonial bodyguard, spoke at a Cavalry & Guards Club dinner last month to inaugurate a British branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS).

Others attending included the Marquess of Bristol; Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia, who is a cousin of Prince Charles; William Bortrick, owner of Burke’s Peerage; and Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian ambassador,

The international head of the supposedly scholarly society, Sergei Stepashin, is a former Russian spy chief."

Deah deah deah!

Makes Meghan's peccadilloes seem amateurish.

Wow, R345. Interesting. What would Charles think, though?

Folks come on, two dozen of these threads and you still can't get it straight: HazBean's new sprout will NOT be an HRH at birth. The time to bestow that has passed, no Letters Patent issued by QEII at this point it's not gonna be. The bub will be titled Earl Dumbarton if a boy, Lady Mountbatten-Windsor if a girl.

The minute the Queen shuffles off her mortal coil, this same child (and any other Sparkle spawn) automatically is elevated to HRH Prince/Princess of the UK, which stays until the end of their lives. This is because their grandfather will be monarch; should Charles pass before his mother and William become King, they will remain non-HRH as at birth. The key here is being the grandchild of a sitting monarch at some point in life - without that, no HRH.

Now certain things could happen that would alter this chain of events: Charles could issue a statement once King, similar to the one issued by the Queen for Edward and Sophie, stating that HazBean's children will remain "styled" as Earl Dumbarton/Lord/Lady. Reasons to be given for this could range from "I just feel like I"m King and Sparks annoys me" to giving the kids the freedom to be non-royal and have more career opportunities as adults. Or similarly, Haz and Bean could decide to call/style their children as non-royal, should they feel this is better for their life development. The chances of this happening of course are slimmer than a catwalk model but it needs to be stated here as a potential scenario.

Why is she called Bean?

Wasn't Charles the big proponent of slimming down the RF? There were even rumors that he wanted to take away the Yorks' titles at one point. So, it would make sense not to make Harry's kids HRH.

Think about it this way. The Queen has 8 grandkids. Only four (50%) of them are styled as a prince or princess. 100 % of Charles' grandkids are HRHs right now.

R354, she's called "Bean" because in one of her pretentious social media posts, she adapted a persona of "daddy's little princess" and was singing his virtues as a father, announcing that his nicknames for her were "bean" and "buckaroo". The post was bullshit, portraying them as a perfect family; it was just a chance for her to act "cute".

I think her dad paid her too many compliments and build up her confidence too much. Hence her constant need to seek approval as an adult from outside the family. It's actually the opposite of what some armchair psychologists are spewing out. It's the child who had too much undeserved or constant praise growing up that turns her into adult who incessantly seeks attention and adoration from others.

R331 Is it too difficult for you to read a post in context? Nobody was disputing the recent use of Frogmore Cottage as servants quarters. The comment at R326 was in response to the misinformation at R273 and R275 that claimed it was built for servants.

Victoria would not have put her mother in sub-par accommodations. She may have wanted her mother quietly tucked away or have her treated to a private luxurious retreat. The point wasn't whether Victoria liked or hated her mother. The point was that it was intended as a royal residence and used as such for many years.

Victoria clearly valued Karim and she housed him there so it's unlikely she considered it a shit hole.

Anmer and Frogmore are both great properties with rich histories. Hating Meghan doesn't suddenly make Frogmore a dump and Windsor a backwater or a boring market town.

[quote]Happy Father's Day, daddy. I'm still your buckaroo, and to this day your hugs are still the very best in the whole wide world.

[quote]Thanks for my work ethic, my love of Busby Berkeley films & club sandwiches, for teaching me the importance of handwritten thank you notes, and for giving me that signature Markle nose. I love you xo -Bean

R356

I bet she doesnt feel like his lil Buckaroo now....

I wouldn't thank him for that nose- it's one of her worst features.

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Maybe because E is my SL, but to me, MM’s effusive praise of her dad sounds just as phony as her “you broke my heart into thousand pieces” letter to him. Who communicates with their parents like that? She comes across as one of those people who, no matter what is happening, are always checking their reflection in a mirror out of a corner of their eye. It’s an inherent quality of an actor, I suppose, but is it annoying when you have to deal with such people on a day-to-day basis. Or is it just me and she sounds normal to native English speakers?

R359 I’ve always experienced people being pretty honest about their parents on social media. If anything, harder on them for sympathy points. Maybe my experience is unique though. Maybe the same type of person who makes such a big spectacle of their “deep love” and “so blessed relationship” online with their spouse (when anyone who knows them offline knows the marriage is shit) would also put on a big show with a shit parent.

She’s such an asshole and always will be. It is fun to have her around to laugh at though.

Thank god for Markles debacles! Megainst is the best thing to watch in pop culture today!

Is there likely to be a big fuss when HazBean's baby is born? I can't recall much if anything when Edward's or the Philips' children arrived. The Cambridge kids were quite another story.

[quote]Or is it just me and she sounds normal to native English speakers?

It isn't you. It's all very borderline; presenting whatever she thinks will appeal to a particular audience at a particular moment:

I'm vegan/watch me gut a fish

Adopt, don't shop/I just bought a purebred retriever for hunting

I'm a feminist/I'm in bed with Word Vision International

I'll always be your little buckaroo/sorry, you'd ruin my wedding pictures

And on and on she goes...

Expect to see her go through a few more personas before all is said and done.

R367

Yes, the birth and baby will be splashed all over the world.

Harry is St. Diana's son as well as a son to the future King of England ( if not already in moat respects). It will be a BIG deal.

*most

R368

Wow! So true.

If he makes another paternity joke, he may indeed end up in the moat.

Before I get jumped in the showers, let me change that to 'personae'

She lies and expect every one to believe her lies . But most of the people here on this board have worked their entire lives and had kids also . They don’t believe all this bullshit MM is spewing . Maybe younger people believe her and that is what she is hoping for . In the beginning i thought give her the benefit of the doubt but she blew that away with her 70000 quid engagement dress . She is in for the money and the glamour . She came in the RF with one intention and that is make money out of it and to be a global star . Why you think she was eying William at church this Christmas past . He is the one with the money and she knows it .

One thing TLo have pointed out is how frequently Kate and William are coordinated in their clothing. Not matchy-matchy but eg, if she's wearing blue, he'll have a tie with blue in it. They also wear the same degree of formality or informality. It's supposed to signal that they are a team.

This doesn't happen with Harry and MM, notably in their official engagement photo.

Actually, sometimes HazBean do coordinate...like when he has a hole in his shoe and hers are muddy and scuffed. And their respective bald patches coordinate very well.

This is apropos of nothing, but I just happened to catch the famous "Will adjusting his scarf while ignoring chicken legs." To those people who claim that he's just playing with his scarf, not ignoring her...? Well. That looked like a cold shoulder to me. As in freezing somebody out. Pretending they do not exist. I think it's safe to say that William thoroughly loathes the Grifter and wishes to GOD she'd never been born. My, my. I bet he's fun to be around when he's pissed.

Sorry, I neglected to add:

the famous "Will adjusting his scarf while ignoring chicken legs" VIDEO on YouTube.

Harry is becoming very bald . Another year with Megs and he will be completely bald .

There's nothing sexy about Harry anymore. He looks like he's been smacked upside the head with a truck stop skillet. Like there should be little birds and stars flying around his head.

Ah Scarf Gate R378 . She wanted to talk to him so that her PR could say how cosy she is with William . And how everybody loves her soooo much . 😂

[R363] No, it's not just you. The language and 'voice' Meghan used for her social media was really cringey - not to mention very common to that milieu of Instagram Basics Trying To Build A Brand. It's funny how little she's deviated from the persona, actually, even now. That visit to Laduree in NYC during the babyshower shambles, and the mentioning of it everywhere? What Basic Vacay would be complete without it? It's a niche brand of basic, middlebrow and 'tasteful' rather than the lower rent trashy-basic. I find it even more embarrassing than the latter, tbh. Trashy-basic knows what it is. Laduree/Instagram/omg the crumb on this bread!-basic desperately wants to be high class and, in desperately wanting it, isn't it. Seen in this light, the 'empowering' (lol) messages on the bananas and the general woke posturing are entirely predictable.

I definitely want more info on the Audi story - the fact that Audi is referring all press enquiries straight to KP is a statement in itself (this has nothing to do with us, ask that ginger fuckup about it). I wonder if it was Meghan behind this? Even if not directly, the dimwit is clearly interested in impressing her (I dislike these two immensely but I don't think he has yet fallen out of his infatuation with her) and may ahve made an unreasonable request in an effort to look more activisty to himself/his wife.

Re: the scarf tape. I try to remain agnostic on a lot of these stories (as much as I hope the upper echelons of the RF recognize the grifter famewhore in their midst, they give little away and anything read into it is by nature doubtful) but I'll be damned if that wasn't a true cold-as-ice British-style snub right there. He totally blanked her. Could it have been an accident? Sure. I doubt it was, though. He knew the cameras were on them, he knew everyone was looking for any sign of tension. Imo this gives credence to the theory that it's William who has the biggest problem with MM, and that the main feud is between the brothers, not the wives. It makes sense - MM is one of those people who either sucks you in completely to the point that you think she's this amazing, beautiful, humble woman or who immediately comes across as who she is. William was never banging her, so he saw her for who she is.

Also wanted to say I agree with whoever it was who said the RF kind of has their hands tied right now what with MM being pregnant and Harry almost certainly being volatile and extremely defensive when it comes to her. The RF doesn't strike me as one that has a lot of direct talks with each other, so i bet there's a lot of hand-wringing going on about how exactly to handle MM and her genuinely shocking level of doesn't-give-a-fuck-ness when it comes to knowing her place.

This dumb broad truly thought she was marrying into a Hollywood lifestyle, didn't she? Just with extra aristocrat points? smh

[quote] But most of the people here on this board have worked their entire lives and had kids also .

Most of the people on this gay message board don't have kids. It's just you pedantic, sour fraus who took it over. It might do you well to stop projecting your own life and beliefs onto others.

Harry really, really did an unthinkingly large mistake. Meghan's extravagance might take the whole House down, something even ultra-beloved Diana couldn't manage to do (while intentionally attempting to do).

Although I have little doubt that MM seethes with jealousy of Kate, MM's arrival has done Kate nothing but good and I am sure she knows it. No more mention of Duchess Doolittle - now it's regal queen-in-waiting Kate. She gets to flaunt her better hair, better figure, taller stature, better clothes, better jewels, better family, better home(s), gorgeous kids and non-ginger future king husband. If the younger generation of royals is like a department within a corporation, William is the manager. And he would see MM as a non-performing new employee who is apparently untrainable and whose behaviour discredits the entire firm.

Oh and you are a young gay person ? Yes i’m a woman and i’m on DL for 15 years now . So i think I have something to say even If you don’t like it . Maybe just maybe we have more experience than you ?

R340, I thank you. very much. I have never commented on those supposed tunnels, since they seemed so very unlikely. I'm happy to put that rumor to rest.

I think Diana was a homosexual male in a past life. She was OTT theatrical.

R383 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Can't resist

I so wish for the baby to be born the day after Prince Philip‘s death.

And for Kate to announce pregnancy no 4 during the christening.

"The RF doesn't strike me as one that has a lot of direct talks with each other, "

Do you remember the "Queen takes MM under her wing" appearance they did together and one of her Maj's courtiers told KP the Queen will be wearing a [color] hat? and it was a coded message for MM to 1) wear a hat and 2) not clash. Well, she didn't clash but she also didn't wear a hat. I wouldn't expect MM to read that code but one of her staff should have.

I hope the baby is born the day Trump is impeached - you know she ultimately wants American press coverage more than UK.

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I effing LOVE QEII. And that's a badass hat, too, at r396.

r393. As much as I adore HM, when the DoS appeared without a hat, I wish HM would have plainly said to the DoS, "put a hat on" which would mean, translated from Royalese, "Don't fuck with me."

I believe the DoS would have caught the drift.

EXACTLY, R398. This may be why Queenie has a reputation for being "non-confrontational". Can you imagine if Ann had been involved? The Duchess of Sux would have put her blasted hat on THEN.

And if the DoS didn't have a hat with her to put on, nevertheless, the point would have been made and that would have been the last time the DoS tried that shit.

Still, in my eyes, QE II can do no wrong...

R382 - spot on, your entire post.

R392 - And what a deliciously vicious bit of malice that would be after Sparkle's maternity coat stunt at Yuge's wedding.

However, I doubt it - William does NOT want a fourth child. In fact, I don't think he wanted a third, but Kate made it clear she wanted three just as in her own family.

R397 - Calling for unity and calm isn't the same thing as choosing a side. If he'd come out and said, "BREXIT will be the best thing to happen to us since the storm that sunk the Armada!" or "With any luck, the new IG will make sure BREXIT never happens," THAT would have been wading into politics.

They have to be seen to be impartial, not to care nothing for what happens in the streets.

Doubt most of the people on a gay gossip board have kids, R374. Are you lost?

Meanwhile, back at the DM's "royal beat" - it appears that at nearly 8 months pregnant, Meghan and Harry actually did take a sub rosa trip to L.A. for a brief visit with Doria (no receipts no photos so believe what you will).

Meghan and Harry have "listened" to friends and will (surprise!) hire a traditional nanny BUT of course are being to be "hands-on" parents.

The grey men are already out to ensure that Meghan's "star" doesn't rise to high - this comes from "novelist" Anna Pasternak, who tried and failed to make money off the Hewitt/Diana affair in a book ridiculed in print so big it could be seen from outer space, and who has about as much inside info to the workings of the inner circles of the BRF as Rin Tin Tin).

The Queen Mum ensured the exile of Edward and Wallis and that the royal family snubbed the Windsor wedding (this is news so old I'm surprised the DM even bothered with it.

And merrily we roll along . . .

R399 - Left alone in a small room with Anne, Meghan would have emerged with a broken nose, a split lip, missing several teeth and several handfuls of hair weave, and two fully closed eyes.

Anne can't stand posturing, and Meghan is nothing if not a Posturer Par Excellence.

Anne doesn’t.t like Meghan . I look forward that now dimwit and his lesbian ho have to share a PR with Anne and the others and have to move to James Palace . I love to be a fly on the wall .

R396 - What's ugly about the hat? It's like dozens of others in her dressing room. Very nice colour, too. Ffs, she's almost 93.

She does, however, look noticeably tired this morning - her skin usually still looks so luminous and pearly. Perhaps it's the tinted windows.

She's probably holding on by her fingernails to make sure the Sussex baby isn't born an HRH.

R403 the post didn't say William picked a referendum side. Nor did it comment on the merits of the points he made. It simply noted that he'd made a comment.

A statement from a senior royal that has even the hint of an opinion about anything as divisively political as Brexit is rare and noteworthy. A call for unity is implicitly critical of some groups contributing to the current tone of the political debate. That is definitely wading into a political debate.

We are trying to build a family-friendly forum where we can tear apart the conniving, grifting bitch who married into the Premier Family of our time. If we don't defend Her Royal Highness, who will?

R395 - The DM has left out the bit about the Queen Mum, then still Duchess of York, arriving at Fort Belvedere to dine with Edward and overhearing Wallis making fun of her, imitating her voice and manner, to a drawing room full of guests.

Like Meghan today, Wallis overplayed her hand, thought that she was in an invulnerable position, did not understand Britain or its psychological landscape, and made enemies of people she should have cultivated as allies.

The then Duchess of York may have dressed and looked and with her sweet musical voice seemed like a gently reared cream-puff, but she had a backbone of steel and an implacable respect for the institutions of monarchy. Wallis Simpson earned the Duchess's scorned and paid a price for doing so down the line.

Inspired by this thread, I’ve started reading a biography of the Duchess of Windsor. Somehow I’d forgotten that she was divorced not once but twice. That must’ve been beyond scandalous back then. It’s kind of questionable even today.

R408. Not sure what the queen's age has to do with whether one likes her hat. Hat style is a personal preference. The one at R396 is not one I like. For those that like it, enjoy.

R409 - I think that's a stretch. He may have skirted the edges, but calling for calm is hardly "wading" into it.

His father's spider memos to MPs, however, is another kettle of fish. I haven't yet forgiven our former AG, Dominic Grieve, from doing his damndest to protect Charles from accountablility for crossing a line that Charles has understood probably from the age of 12.

Della, thinking of HM saying “put a hat on” - I was amused by a clip during I think the trooping of the colors when they were all on the balcony. Will was squatting down to talk to Little George and the Queen peevishly said, “Stand up, William!” I rather agreed with her, it was not befitting a future king. You can bet he stood right up.

R413 - Fair enough.

R408

“Unity and calm” is probably all that Will really wants for his country and his life. Good luck with that!

R412 - Let us know if the bio includes the alleged time she spent in a Shanghai brothel picking up some of the sexual tricks that allowed the allegedly only minimally endowed Prince of Wales to, er, get on with it. Apparently, the UK government at the time had quite a dossier on her.

R417 - Considering that he can't even find unity in his blood family due to his brother's choice of a wife, your point is well taken.

As above, so below and all that.

R412, my grandfather was absolutely scandalised by the fact that Wallis Simpson had been divorced twice. I remember him teaching my sister and me about the abdication and how awful it was that the King had betrayed his subjects to marry a woman who clearly had no morals. He was an old-fashioned Tory and had a lot of respect for the monarchy as an institution, but he thought Charles and Camilla were disgraceful because they'd had an affair outside of marriage. I don't think he would have accepted them as King and Queen if he were still alive. I can just imagine what he would have made of Meghan!

According to the Express, the bookmakers have betting on 4:1 for the Sussexes having a girl and naming her Diana.

Betting on gender is rather silly as it can only be one of 2, but if it is a girl, I rather agree with the punters that by all odds, they will name it Diana.

This, of course, will make it more difficult for the Queen not to come to the christening, as it will look not only as she is snubbing the Sussexes, but the memory of Harry's mother. I can't imagine the Queen will be particularly anxious to be photographed standing behind the sofa with Amal Clooney, Jessica Mulroney, and Victoria Beckham and whatever POC Meghan and Harry pull in, probably Serena Williams. That is, the Queen probably respects Williams as having earned her fame and fortune, but the famewhores Clooney, Mulroney, and Beckham - not.

So, are we closing the Name the Baby Game now?

r415, we must be psychotic, er , I mean psychic! Me too. I was thinking of that brief moment and PW did stand up pronto.

R418 Man, what sort of “tricks” could those have been?

R423 - I regret to admit that I lack the imagination even to guess. I'm not sure it's the truth, but it has been alleged in varied bios of the couple. I think it likely the British government did have a dossier on her that was less than flattering, given the ominous clouds gathering over Europe by the mid-1930s, Edward's demonstrated carelessness and obvious ambivalence toward his future role, and his long history of liaisons with married women, she spend time in Shanghai, and more than one person in the Prince of Wales' circle candidly acknowledged later that he had a very small dick, but whether that all confirms the bordello story, remains a historical secret.

Ha ha, look at her Majesty staring at her grandson with the look of utter disgust, thinking, “What a pussy!”

R425 - What a shame HM couldn't muster a similar attitude toward Harry's choice of a wife. It appears that she's good at being reproving in small matters like this, but fails utterly at heading something that is actually damaging to the family and institution.

Meaning no disrespect, Ma'am, but - what more merits your intervention: William bending now for a moment to talk to his toddler son on the balcony of Buck House, or Harry bringing into the family a narcissistic 36 year old divorced LaCa famewhore who clearly wouldn't have looked at him if he hadn't been your grandson?

Va va vooom

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MagicalForest, Estes Park, United States, 14 hours ago

Is it true that Harry will be breast feeding?

She reminds me of Pippa in r427

Not a great portrait

Pippa mixed with Janine Garofalo

No member of the Royal family, and likewise no senior member of staff to the Royal family, was agreeable to the marriage between Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg Gotha and Philp Schleswig-Holstein Sonderburg-Glucksburg all those many years ago. So disagreeable were they all, in fact, that Princess Elizabeth threatened to remove herself from the line of succession through whatever means available to her if they did not acquiesce to her demand. She argued that as her entire life was mapped out before her, the very least of privilege could be afforded her by marrying whom she desired. Therefore, it may have not been such a monumental struggle for her to understand Harry's desire to marry his intended. That will be all.

Haha all that talk of her oh no no nanny and a special birth at home and other stuff . Its all lies so we would believe she is soooo special . This is gonna be a rude awakening for her . Banned to Toad Hall with her little toads haha . No chique London home you can brag about to your friends .

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Whatever the name they choose for their child, she won't be a pretty child. The most dominant features on Meghan are her strong jawline (pre-Botox) and slightly crossed left eye, and for Harry it's his Windsor close-set eyes. They both have unattractive bulbous noses that look worse as they age. At least William chose someone with features that overrode the worst of Windsor/ Spencer genes. Kate has a lovely, straight nose and her eyes are decidedly not close-set or crossed.

Thank you for that wise assessment, R435. Incidentally, I must say that you've never looked finer in your most recent FB selfie! You're just beautiful, I tell you!

Everyone should type "uglypeople.com in their browser. You'll be astonished to find what comes up.

Again, R435, YOU ARE STUNNING!

R436 Yawn, yes we never comment on people's looks here on DL. Least of all your former crush who left you for Meghan. No I don't know about uglypeople.com, funny that you know so much about it. Good for you luv, you lot have to stick together I guess.

I don’t know r437, no one censors themselves on DL but I find it batty to speculate about the looks of someone who hasn’t been born yet.

William and Kate nonsense is just bitter Harkle stans stirring shit. Their answer to everything is Kate, Kate, Kate. Instead of Smeggy turning out to be a club they could beat Kate with, Smeg has just enhanced Kate's reputation and status.

Oh I don't know R438 , I think that you can tell, or perhaps just speculate, or damn plain gossip , when a biological couple are going to have beautiful babies together. This pregnancy is so weird, though, because it could very well be a cross of biological genes ( yes, squinty eyes close together)...or something completely out of the blue. Someone else's genes.

Would you find it batty if it was speculation about the looks of the child-to-be of a universally disliked celeb? There are so many people online doing the "u jelly" and the "ur life must be so empty to be online saying mean things about this person" and the "wow who hurt u/ur so unhappy" thing and I kind of want to cut and paste their responses to discussions about Lindsay Lohan or any of the Whoredashians. Nobody gets their panties in a wad about meaningless internet criticism of those strangers. So why do you care about meaningless internet criticism of this other stranger?

Also fuck it maybe I am poor and hideous and miserable. Not sure that would invalidate my belief that MM is an emotionally unstable Instagram Basic with a need for attention so black hole-esque and it has its own event horizon.

That said, I think the kid will probably be good looking because I think MM is good looking (admittedly helped by cosmetic procedures) and Harry was good looking up until a couple of years ago. Hopefully for the baby's sake it's a girl.

Harry would call his kid King if he could. Harry being a man of the people is bullshit. His granny didn't have to persuade him to accept the title of Duke.

The Queen when she was just Princess Elizabeth of York.

Princess Anne as a young woman.

I like Anne's outfit here.

Anne was,lovely when she was young !

Anne was a fox

Was she a party girl in her youth?

Anne was very lovely! To me she had, at that time, a kind of Streisand-in-Owl-and-the-Pussycat look.

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What do we think of the polka dots and tiara combo?

Very Cruela de Vil

R432 - I'd like some proof that Elizabeth threatened to remove herself from the succession if permission wasn't given for her to marry Philip. Even Chips Channon, the fabled diarist of the era, nailed Philip as the future Prince Consort.

His bloodline was impeccable and so was his war record. Their concerns mostly meant the Queen (later the Queen Mother) about the influence of his Uncle Louis - Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who wanted the match so his family could finish regaining the prestige it had lost in WWI. Princess Elizabeth's father, King George VI, liked him, and wrote to her that he liked Philip, he "thought about things in the right way".

Given that she'd been in love with him since she was thirteen, and that viable Princes close to her own rank were few and far between, Philip was in fact a logical choice.

The Queen as she later was seeing what happened to her sister, Mararet, and Group Captain Peter Townsed would have been far more of an influence, not to mention the later debacles of Margaret's, Charles's, Andrew's, and Anne's marriages.

My guess is she realised it was a crapshoot no matter what, and thank God Harry was only sixth in line.

R440 - Predicting looks of unborn children on how their parents "look" is dodgy because those parents also carry the genes of ancestors who look very different from them. On Harry's side, the baby could emerge resembling not only Harry, but the Queen, Prince Charles, Queen Victoria, the late Queen Mother, or Princess Margaret or some amalgam of all of them. On Meghan's side, it could emerge looking like her, her father, her mother . . . or any of the grandparents and relatives we haven't seen.

Harry and Meghan got their looks from an amalgam of chromosomes from both their ancestors, and their child will do as well. Look at William's kids - one is the spit of his mother, one looks like a blend of William and Kate, and the other looks like both grandmothers.

You can make some broad projections: curly/frizzy hair, close-set eyes, a biggish nose, more likely shorter than taller . . . but that's about it, and even those could be entirely wrong.

Agreed R441 but Harry was not good-looking. The best thing about him was he had decent bone structure and of course height. But the features are dire. Tiny, beady, close-set eyes, a pointed elfin nose and thin, tight lips. Between his hair and her hair, the kid is going to end up with hair nobody can tame.

Of course, the child could look like neither one and that would then be fun. Like Michael Jackson's kids.

Here is the typical Queen's menu I mentioned above. A gin cocktail with lunch, a dry martini with dinner. And all washed down after dessert with a glass of champagne.

I am really curious about this child to come - looks, disposition, name. It’s all so unpredictable!

R362, Thomas Markle was certainly punching above his weight! Doria was very pretty as a young woman.

R362 You can really see from this picture what a blend of both parents Meghan is. Her mom has that kind of undeniably fetching, winsome expression that Meghan sometimes exhibits.

I don't believe the secret trips to visit Doria, just pr to make her look like a loving, non-attention seeking (lol) daughter.

Photos of Meghan's rented house in Toronto when she was filming "Suits" and dating Harry. Click for dogs and interiors.

Harry and Meghan went to a musical last night.

Meghan's home looked fresh and cute. We can certainly see why Harry was attracted to what he saw as her breezy, modern, unstuffy lifestyle.

Speculation about the baby is silly.

Look at DL's most famous case: Bruce and Demi. A handsome couple who created a pack of beasts.

I personally know a couple who recently had a baby: The husband is fat but kinda cute, the wife is basically Shrek. Their son, about a year and a half old, is adorable. When I see pictures of him and his mother, it's like something out of Grimm's.

Oh the vicious laffs I am having over your post, R464

R464, is it the Clooneys?

R464, I misread your post, but I think the boy child looks like something out of Grimm's.

Something very Damien-esque in the grimace of that Clooney boy.

Re Sparkle's Toronto house - wasn't there some comments on a past thread about photos focusing on a particular very neat area while the balance of the place was heaped with stuff all over - very messy.

So many threads ago.

How would anyone know that the rest of the house was messy?

Photographers focus their camera on one area, but their eyes can still see the areas not photographed.

The mess was supposedly outside the shot based on R469. How would someone who has never been inside the house know that "the balance of the place was heaped with stuff all over - very messy"?

If Harry were [italic]impressed[/italic] with MEghan's unremarkable, no element of imagination, limited level of aspirational design falling into the tediously tragic category in her Toronto home, it would only underscore his well-earned label of being "thick as two short planks."

Middle class families in Toronto get a cleaner to come in once a week or every other week. It's not that expensive. Even if she is naturally messy, it costs so little to get a cleaner that I can't imagine that she can't afford it (or couldn't get it added to the lease/ her contract etc)

Is the messy house rumour also connected to a "Meghan is also a hoarder who refuses to pay for a cleaner?"

I doubt Harry cares about decor, but given the extreme formality he grew up with, he might have been drawn to the relaxed “California casual” vibe.

How much money have the producers of Suits made because of Meghan? I hope they got a nice wedding gift.

I think the queen will give the upcoming kid an HRH. Maybe she's just waiting to make sure that the kid is giving a regal-enough sounding name first. HRH Madyssen would sound ridiculous.

It must be hard to have one kid in your family getting special treatment. I remember being a kid, and my cousin's telling me that our grandma loved her best. She showed me the extra gifts my grandma had given her. In reality, she lived nearer my grandparents and they babysat her a lot, so they probably bought her some extra toys to shut her up, but at the time, it made me jealous. I can't imagine how I'd feel if my grandma gave my brother or cousin a mansion but gave me a dumpy shack in comparison.

I remember someone posting this and claiming it was her filthy house.

Sometimes desperation overtakes logic.

R477 - You don't understand - if the Queen were going to give this child an HRH she would have issued the Letters Patent already - they are a matter of public record, not something she can do and keep on the down low till the kid is born. She issued those Letters for William's kids, who have, as the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, some entitlement to it, as soon as Kate's first trimester was past - and it applied to all William's future children, not just the first one.

The Sussex kid has NO entitlement to it, in fact is precluded from it, Harry is sixth in line to the throne, and lastly, it is very likely that the Queen and the PTB have no particular faith in this marriage lasting, which would make the children even more problematic as HRHs. That's why they withheld the HRH from Wallis Simpson: with two previous divorces behind her, they didn't want her using that HRH for the rest of her life after a divorce.

If she were going to make the kid an HRH, the Letters would have been issued long ere now, not 4-6 weeks before the baby is due.

and if the Queen were going to make it an HRH, she would have done it by now.

R477 - They aren't getting a dumpy shack. They're getting a Georgian home on the Frogmore estate that is being renovated at a cost of 3.7 million quid - about $5 million. Meghan hired the Soho Farmhouse designer - do you think she comes cheap?

If that isn't enough for Meghan and Harry, who are paying next to nothing for this place, because they want what William and Kate have, then they deserve to be unhappy.

Harry can resent the hereditary birth order character of this institution if he chooses to - but he might also remember that it gave him every iota of status and wealth he has. He has earned not a penny of it, and Meghan Markle wouldn't have given him her phone number, let alone sucked his dick, if he hadn't HRH in front of his name and Windsor after it.

Sorry about that repeated last line - poor proofeading before posting.

R480

This blogger is taking no prisoners with their post on the Banatarian and her stans.

This 3-4 million quid amount reportedly being allocated on renos for FrogCott is from what source exactly?

The Daily Mail also said York Cottage and Adelaide Cottage were being given to the Sussexes. Obviously DM will just spitball to see what sticks; and even a broken clock can be right twice a day. Did this multi-million amount release come from a reliable source, or is it just further pr via HazBean to boast their munificent importance?

Shots for every time a non-British person throws quid into a sentence.

Deflect though you may R484, can you answer the damn question?

Don't take that tone with me young lady.

Since I didn't make any claims about the cost of the renovations to Frogmore Cottage, I fail to see why I must provide receipts about the source of those numbers R485. Take that up with R480

So that would be a fart smelling long-winded "no" from R484. Next!

So far it appears that the Eden's story hasn't gone any further than the DM in the day since it was published. Isn't this a little unusual? I can't wait for the story to get more traction and more details are delivered. It really is awfully suspicious that the Audi cancellation coincides with its royal patron's new marital status. I can just picture Harry inappropriately inviting her to meetings and conference calls with Audi officials because she has "experience" with contract negotiations. If her dominance during interviews and engagements is any indicator, she likely behaved the same in these private discussions.

@R7 - You can never be too rich or too thin -

R482 - Mate, you're seriously behind. The Palace confirmed that Frogmore Cottage was the new Sussex homebase, confirmed the general range of the renovation cost, and the "source" is the Sovereign Grant and the Grant in Aid, which is, viz. to wit: taxpayer money. Justa as the four million quid renovation of KP was done on the backs of taxpayers, with the rationale that KP was a historic building and had needed the structural repairs for a long time.

"The Queen's income is from several streams, including the Sovereign Grant, which is the portion of the Queen's money that is provided by the taxpayers and is to be used for her official duties. Overall, the official Sovereign Grant for April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018 was a whopping £76.1 million"

The Queen paid for the renovations to Anmer Hall, the Cambridge country estate, because she owns it personally. But Frogmore is part of the "Crown Estates" - so she can get away with allocating funds from the SG for its renovation. Frogmore is also part of the Crown Esates, that is land and estates owned neither solely by the Crown nor by the governments. Most of any revenues they generate are returned to the Exchequer. About 15% though goes into the SG.

In other words: the Queen and Harry and Meghan are not laying out a farthing for the stuctural renovations, although the Sussexes are alleged to be footing the bill for the furnishings and design. As Harry's income wouldn't remotely cover it, Charles is probably footing the bill.

And since his income is drawn from the Duchy of Cornwall, i.e., land management, in some way the taxpayers are funding that, too.

They'll be moving in within a month. Where have you been?

R484 R487 sounds triggered as fuck.

R484 - Can we use "quim" for "cunt"?

Did they buy a house in California or not?

Seems fair game R492 since R491 has now added farthing to the collection of slang terms on the thread.

I see your quim and raise you a priapus (pun intended)

Oh, and what about those of us who are, as I am, and am fond of reminding DL, a hybrid? Do we have your permission to alternate between "bucks" and "quid"? Between "codswallop" and "bullshit"? "Chav" and "redneck"?

Do let us know - it's always such a relief to have a prefect about to set the terms of proper discourse in the House.

R492

R494 - I'll see your priapus and raise you a bellend. I'm also laughing too hard to be offended. Cheers.

The bellend is the best part.

Well played.

Farthing of course is an antiquated term but youthful sneering must give way to age in this. Some things are hard to part with.

R497 - Gawd bless ye, Ma'am.

When I first her the term "bellend" I thought it was a reference to someone who is of diminished intelligence as in the end of the bell curve, a few standard deviations below the mean/average.

R500 - Welcome to England's green and pleasant land.

And isn't just a perfect description of Our Harry?

Oh dearing myself. That should "heard the term" at R500.

It's such a great term with a great sound, R501. I love British slang, even though I may not get it right the first time.

Some on tumblr are of the opinion that @StrongWrite (Write Life PR) on Twitter is MM. Because that private social media account she shut down because of "haters" clearly wasn't the only one. And there was a crab blind way before we learnt of the private account. Having read 4tweets, if it isn't her that person has her pretentious phraseology down to a tee. Hysterical.

Has anyone else seen the ad in The SUN for what they allege IS Meghan Markle's miracle skin creme, Luxe Derm?

"We were able to do a little snooping and found out what this mystery line was all about. The company is called Luxe Derm and it is a cutting-edge Wrinkle Reducer and Anti-Aging Serum. Her product line is becoming so popular, even top beauty experts such as Bethany Mota and Michelle Phan are singing Luxe Derm’s praises.

"Something was just telling me this is the right thing to do for my country and fellow Americans." Meghan said in a recent interview. She continued, "There are lots of skin products out there that didn’t work for me… So, I got some of the world’s leading skin experts together to create Luxe Derm and this one actually works. I truly feel like the Family might be holding me back from realizing my true potential. But this path feels right."

Never mind the fake pregnancy the likey divorce the merching the baby shower . . .

These quotes are clearly fake and the claims for the creme ludicrous (Meghan does look quite a bit more than a day over 25).

Er, am I missing something here or should the BRF be tracking down the perps and suing their arses off?

My Scottish mother used the word "besom" to describe a brat or bitch. "She's a little besom, that one."

R505 - The south of the Tweed version is "a right madam".

R506 funny, now that I think of it, she did use “madam” in that way, too. She would also occasionally call someone who annoyed her a “cow.” As an American kid, I did notice that nobody else’s mother used those words.

I do not dispute that there are substantial renovation monies going toward Frogmore Cottage but would someone kindly link this said confirmation by "The Palace" elucidating the so-called 3.7 million sum a certain individual likes to squawk about? A nameless assertion on the internet is hardly convincing evidence.

This is from wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt. But it sounds right:

Under his letters patent, only the oldest son of the oldest living son of the Prince of Wales was also entitled to the style but not younger sons or daughters of the oldest living son of the Prince of Wales. Queen Elizabeth II changed this in 2012 prior to the birth of Prince George of Cambridge so that all the children of the oldest living son of the Prince of Wales would bear the style. This returned it to the format Queen Victoria had instituted in 1898. There is no mention of younger living sons of a Prince of Wales, however, in 2018, Prince Harry was married to Meghan Markle and they were awarded Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Her title is styled as, HRH The Duchess of Sussex. If Harry were to have children while his grandmother still lives, they would simply be styled as the sons and daughters of a Duke and would not be entitled to the style Royal Highness. Once their grandfather Charles, Prince of Wales ascended to the throne, they would then, as male-line grandchildren of a sovereign, acquire the style His/Her Royal Highness.

In the United Kingdom, letters patent dated 21 August 1996 stated that the wife of a member of the royal family loses the right to the style of HRH in the event of their divorce.[5] It was for this reason that when the Prince and Princess of Wales divorced, she ceased to be Royal Highness, and was styled Diana, Princess of Wales.

Similarly, HRH The Duchess of York was restyled Sarah, Duchess of York after her divorce from HRH The Duke of York.

In December 2012, Queen Elizabeth II issued a Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm declaring "all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of royal highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour".[6] This had the effect of extending the style equally to the female-line.

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Take a look at this....

Please tell me what "diddy" means - Kate cooing over a baby, 'He's so diddy.' Cute, cuddly, bonny? New to me.

What does "diddy" mean? Kate called a random baby that.

Sorry for double post.

Not returning calls, Meg?

According to Word Reference, R513/514, it's a cutesy British way to say "small." Can anyone else confirm that?

Does that mean P. Diddy is...small?

It makes Puff Diddy sound like a command, then.

Diddy means little. Ken Dodd had the Diddy men of knotty ash for example. They even sang a song about it. I think it's a Liverpool word but I could be wrong.

I was watching some stuff about Princess Margaret and they showed the time she was introduced to the Beatles. She was over the top flirty with them (and she looked beautiful), and they were completely disinterested. Lennon blatantly ignores her, which must have been considered outrageous behaviour at that time.

I can't bear to think you might miss out of Ken Dodd and his diddy men so here he is.

*on, of course.

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R516, perhaps it’s just that I see things through this filter, but it seems obvious that MM ghosted her former coworkers. They seemed to put a pleasant face on it and make jokes about it. They probably had her figured out wel before she met Harry, and no one really expects to have play dates with Sohobebe.

A lot of rotten behavior is treated that way, R525. Victims just put on a pleasant face and joke about it. Every asshole I know has loyal friends - I don't understand that at all. People don't call each other out on the behavior that really needs to be addressed. The BRF seems like a shining example of this.

I don't know why the poster upthread calls the £3 million+ cost to renovate Frogmore Cottage "nameless". It's not a "nameless" assertion it's based on the reports that emerged as soon as the confirmation of venue was, and includes enhanced security systems, landscaping that will give the house more privace, two parking lots, five small flats broken through to turn the place into a little "mansion" - it was already published in media that the Sussexes had put in a £50,000 "eco boiler". There is proabably roofing work to remove asbestos, fencing, re-plumbing, re-electricity setups.

You think you get that for, oh, £150,000? Look it up.

The Sovereign Grant folk only stated tersely that a "full accounting" would appear in due course in the SG published report for the year.

Kate's and William's apartments in KP were "renovated" (structurally) at an original estimate of £4 million, but naturally, it went way over, asbestos in the roof being a confirmed part of the renovations. I regret to state that instead of rioting outside at the cost for two already overprivileged young people, no one batted an eye.

Is The OBSERVER good enough for you?

"Kensington Palace announced that Prince Harry and Markle would be moving to Frogmore Cottage (located on the grounds of Windsor) last November, though the palace didn’t confirm any details as to when the couple would be making the abode their permanent residence. The home needs serious work completed before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex can unpack, as it is currently divided into five units that house royal staff, and is apparently in rather dingy condition.

But now we know that work is underway to convert the property back into a fancy 10-bedroom home, as according to documents seen by Daily Mail, plans have been approved to bring the place into regal shape so that Prince Harry and Markle can be completely moved in by the spring, before they welcome their first child.

Meghan is keeping in constant contact with the planning team. Chris Jackson/Getty Images

They’ll be removing one chimney, though there are strict and specific restrictions for protecting and preserving the historic nature of the home—for example, the roof must be repaired using the original materials, and the existing doors and frames must be kept unless an explicit agreement is made. Security concerns were also an issue, so procedures are being elevated before the Sussexes arrival.

They also look to have taken a cue from plastic-hating eco-queen Princess Eugenie, as the couple is reportedly installing a £50,000 (around $64,000) energy unit for heat, hot water and electricity.

Farewell, royal Cambridge neighbors. Stephen Pond/Getty Images

The home is a big upgrade from their current two-bedroom Kensington Palace residence, Nottingham Cottage, though their prior London home does have a few attributes Frogmore Cottage is lacking—it’s next door to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s palatial apartment in KP. But the Duke and Duchess of Sussex haven’t been particularly fond of spending too much time in their rather small Kensington accommodations—they’ve been mostly staying at their sprawling country estate in the Cotswolds, welcoming visitors like George and Amal Clooney, Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas, Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian."

That sprawling house on the TEW Estate in the Cotswolds was a rental as someone said in previous threads . They didn’t own it like you suggest R 527 .

Sprawling country estate? Again, more fucking pretension and snobbery. This phony, disgusting bitch (and she's behind it) is due for a big, big reality check. I can't wait.

R528 - That was a claim made by the article in The Observer that I posted, not my claim. There are quotation marks around it, and a title above it showing where it was from.

I knew it was a rental and in fact, once it became clear that Frogmore Cottage was all that was on offer, and they weren't going to get a grand Londson base AND a grand country home, just a suburban home base, they have allegedly terminated the lease, as it became stupid to have a home at Windsor and one in the Cotwolds, instead of one in London and one in the Cotswolds. Also, they couldn't allegedly support the cost of furnishing their new home and keeping up the least on the Cotswolds place.

The quotation marks were there for a reason.

Another poster on one of these threads posited a theory about Frogmore Cottage that makes sense. The BRF knows a divorce is inevitable with this volatile pair and Frogmore will be a good place to stash Meghan. They're not giving the pair anymore properties to reside in so that when the divorce comes Meghan cannot make any claims that they should house her in multiple residences as that is to what she had become accustomed. In Windsor she will be close enough to keep tabs on but far enough away that she will not have any stories to sell the to the tabs about the other royals. They do not want another awkward situation a la Diana at Kensington Palace where Meghan is constantly underfoot. They don't want her in London proper. But they have to have her close enough so that Harry has access to the child.

I believe there's truth in that theory, R531. It makes perfect sense.

R531 - I opined that that's another reason for withholding the HR from the kid. It could be embarrassing in the event of a divorce if you end up with a Mum who's lost her HRH whilst you have one conferred by the Queen. Too many HRHs littering the landscapes who are too far from the direct succession.

The Royal Social Media Community Guide is to be read CAREFULLY and followed FAITHFULLY.

You bitches make sure you post nice things about every Royal member and don't call anyone bad names you hear!

Some people may take it as a badge of honour to get banned from the BRF social media platform.

For the princely sum of approximately $130,000, the marriage contract of Prince Edward, Duke of Aquitaine (and the future Edward III), and Philippa of Hainault might be yours:

[quote]Bonhams quite rightly say "Few more potent relics of English history have been offered for sale". Without it there would have been no Black Prince, nor any of his many siblings, the claims of whose descendants gave rise to the Wars of the Roses in the following century.

A few posts up, Sparkles rented Toronto home, that place came with the Suits ob, furnished and rent free. So it can't really said to be her style. She knows how to wangle a contract, hey?

Job, not ob.

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It's not as important or interesting as renovations to a house for a second-tier royal, but the Guardian sent out this news alert this morning about Prince Charles' ties to Russians.

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Looks like someone through a hissyfit, r534. When are they going to realize they can't make people like them. I guess the BRF has to go along with this so that they can later say they supported MM in every way possible.

Lady Diana Spencer was a great diver and swimmer. Here she demonstrates her natural gift of showing off for the camera.

Princess Eugenie visited her wedding dress exhibit at Windsor Castle.

Another Hello cover: Meghan's Babymoon.

Photos of the "Strathmore Rose Tiara" worn by the late Queen Mum.

The Queen on the cover of Time magazine - at three years old.

Possible godparents for the SohoBébé.

Nutmeg needs to go back to wearing ART.

I really do not want to see a christening picture with the Queen having to stand near the Clooneys.

R516 - If Meghan's co-star is indeed calling, she would be quite foolish, as in scoring a own goal, not to return his calls. Adams is married to Troian Bellisaria, Donald Bellisario's daughter. She is as close as one gets to "Hollywood Royalty" these days. He's the creator and executive producer of the NCIS franchises, JAG and Magnum PI. This is the sort of person she would normally court to create new nodes in her social and professional networks. Belliasario would see straight through it since she's likely had many Meghan's glad hand her or try to befriend her for access to her father.

How come no love for poor Maggie's side?

R527 still pulling "facts" out of her frau ass. Nobody is arguing that renovations are in place; but again, aside from HazBean happy to let the public believe 3.7 million quid is being allocated toward their sprawling upgrade, where is the proof or solid source of that specific amount? --beyond something along the lines of [italic]these alleged redos could cost upwards in the 3 million pound range[/italic] speculation. I am calling you nameless R527 and pointing out that for all your petulant foot stomping, you have submitted nothing but conjecture.

Harry was in Birmingham.

William was in London opening a new learning facility for the foreign service.

If Omid Scobie is supposedly a "royal expert", he should know better than to use Duchess Camilla, Duchess Kate and Duchess Meghan. New engagement on March 11.

New female dog for the Sussex family. On the left it's squatting and in the second post is a video of it going crazy running around Harry and a helicopter. It looks like a English Springer Spaniel or an English Cocker Spaniel but it's hard to tell from a distance.

R554 "I really do not want to see a christening picture with the Queen having to stand near the Clooneys."

I doubt HM is up for it, either. However, if it's necessary to preserve the Happy Families fiction, she'll do it. It's Harry's first child, he's Charles's son. She doesn't have to show up fort he second one. If she doesn't show up for the first one, however, the media will go wild with the, "See, we told you so, the Establishment hates Meghan."

R557 - You persist in refusing to comprehend the use of quotation marks: they indicate quoting someone else's opinion, not mine.

You asked for a source for my opinion. I gave you The Observer. If the only estimate you'll accept is photocopies of the contractors' bills to the Office of the Sovereign Grant, then you're going to be disappointed.

These facts are not at issue: they ARE moving to Frogmore Cottage, it IS being renovated, and the Sovereign Grant is paying for it. You're only dickering about what it costs. Patience, patience . . .as the Palace said, a full accounting will be available through the annual publishing of the SG's report.

Meanwhile, the renovation of the Cambridge apartment in KP DID cost over four million pounds.

The estimate of nearly as much for Frogmore Cottage isn't much of an imaginative stretch.

And by the way, The Observer is not my ass.

Omid Scobie is a bottom feeding poseur. The fraus on CB use that terminology, too. The Duchess of Cambridge is too much effort to type.

For what it's worth, Diana, Princess of Wales, or The Princess of Wales, was called Princess Diana all her life by the media, despite the fact that never at any time in her life, both before and after her divorce, was that her legitimate title.

R557 - I am calling you nameless [R527] and pointing out that for all your petulant foot stomping, you have submitted nothing but conjecture.

Ffs, get over yourself and get your panties unknotted. This is a gossip site, the figure is the range that every single media outlet has mentioned, if it's "conjecture" it's a highly public conjecture, and when the public conjecture was four million pounds for the Cambridge renovation at KP, you know what? It turned out to be right give or take a few hundred thousand more.

What the fuck is your problem, Mr. Spock?

[quote]If she doesn't show up for the first one, however, the media will go wild with the, "See, we told you so, the Establishment hates Meghan."

Perhaps the Queen could be "unwell" on the day of the christening, R562. A sore throat or stomachache would give her an iron-clad excuse not to attend, and no one would be able to say a negative word about it.

R565 - LOL. If she's lucky, Philip will finally be raptured and she can use mourning as an excuse.

Not to derail the thread, but if you could choose to have actors read the Royal Family Gossip comments aloud to you- who would you choose? I might have Nathan Lane...

Only the late Alan Rickman could possibly do justice to our resident poet at R61:

[quote][T]he Duchess of Sussex finds beauty in the most humble of affairs — a speared baby octopus eaten whilst still wriggling on a Dalmatian Coast beach; a filthy pat of briny French butter adorning a coarse crust of bread offered by a diseased peasant child; most shockingly, even an arriviste-thrown baby shower decorated with tat gotten wholesale though one's monger-class, scandal-plagued, coal-stained family.

Yes, r565, a slight cold or some unnamed illness would do. MM could have her mouthpieces go after HM, but they would be ripped to shreds for criticizing a 93-yr-old woman who has served her country for decades.

R568 Your choice of both narrator and piece is impeccable! Salutes....

My God, some of Diana's clothes were hideous.

r561 that's an old picture and it was decided it wasn't her.

[quote] Wasn't Charles the big proponent of slimming down the RF? There were even rumors that he wanted to take away the Yorks' titles at one point. So, it would make sense not to make Harry's kids HRH.

I imagine he wants to slim it down to his own family. He probably wants the BRF to consist of himself, Camilla, the Cambridges and the Sussexes.

Remember the story about her beagle breaking his legs shortly upon arrival in the UK? I don't think we've heard of or seen photos of him since then, have we? The self-professed "dog-lover" also left her not-senior second dog in Canada with the excuse of his age making it too difficult for him to travel. Of course that second dog was a big old mixed breed mutt, not an adorable little purebred spaniel. Like Daddy Markle, he didn't fit into Meghan's new posh life.

What property was Prince Andrew given upon his marriage to Fergie? Second son of the monarch isn't the same as second son to the monarch's son, but it might give some idea as to where Frogmore Cott stands. It does seem odd to me that H and M won't be maintaining a home in London. Rememebr when Madonna moved to the British countryside and suddenly became a posh English lady? I reckon Megs might be going through the same right now. She's already picking up a bit of that fake-o English accent that Madonna did, too.

R573 - For now, yes. But even Charles has to be aware that as soon as Cambridge kids grow up and become, increasingly, the focus of media attention, never mind adults who marry and breed, the Sussexes will increasingly recede in status and media importance. The hot new media couple who keep making headlines and the middle-aged couple who are no longer worth headlines are two different things - and that's assuming the Sussex marriage lasts, which Charles has to know is far from a certainty. The divorced Prince William doing engagements on his own will be even less interesting than William the Shadow of Meghan.

Charles probably also knows that as soon as his brief reign is over, and William is on the throne, the Sussexes turn into Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, as William has a long memory and won't forget the insults to his wife and family or Meghan's role in created animosity between him and his brother, or her disrespect to the institution that William will then head.

R575 - The Yorks were given Sunninghill Park:

"Sunninghill Park was a country house and estate of about 665 acres (2.7 km2; 1.0 sq mi) directly north of Cheapside, in the civil parishes of Sunninghill and Ascot and Winkfield, adjoining Windsor Great Park in the English county of Berkshire.

The early 19th century house burned down in 1947 and a replacement was built in the grounds during the final years of the 1980s to be the official residence of the Duke of York from 1990 until 2004; it was sold in 2007. The house fell into disrepair and was demolished in 2016."

Damn it all, I meant " . . . the divorced Prince Harry is even less interesting doing events on his own than Harry the Shadow of Meghan."

(Not William)

R576

Looks like Sparkle's Women's day panel is behind closed doors. What a surprise.

[quote]The audience will be made up of “students, opinion formers and young leaders”, according to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust.

"Opinion formers?" This just means "people with a lot of followers on social media," correct? The goal is probably to get the event trending on Twitter.

A "feminist" event that is closed to everyday women is so exquisitely on-brand for Meghan.

Kate is so much prettier than Meghan.

R580 - Prettier, better figure, less controversial, savvier about the monarchy and how Britain thinks, more in tune with the kind of affect you need if you're going to offset what a scam the monarchy is and how much more you and your little family get out of it than the rest of the country.

The Little Sussex will be christened in a Church of England ceremony. I'm assuming that it's preferred for the godparents also be CofE.

I can't see the BRF ok'ing celebrities.

Kate has a kind affect.

Here is Part 26 to post on when this one reaches the magic 600. It has a fun poll.

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Have we ever seen any interaction between Harry and his nephews and niece? Or even the Philips and Tindall kids?

R582 - Absolutely will be CoE. I think the godparent stuff has loosened up in recent decades but don't quote me on that.

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I'd have Jennifer Anniston gain fifty pounds and put on her best English accent. That's who I imagine produces most of these comments.

She really does, R583. And it appears to be sincere. All of her relationships with family and friends, going back decades, are wholesome; there's never been a hint of scandal or disfunction around her. Granted, she has lived a charmed life, but she surely deserves some credit for her character and discipline, and for demonstrating gratitude, rather than entitlement, in the face of her extraordinary fortune.

I will say it again: William chose wisely.

R588 please see R545.

R571 Some of the hideousness came from the 80s era and Diana being a Sloan Ranger. She really only started to wear good clothes and look fashionable near the end of her life (the sequin sheath dresses, the Peter Lindbergh photos, the close-cut hair style).

If you tour Kensington Palace, you can see Diana's wedding dress. It is next to tiny knights' armor and it makes her look like an Amazon. Although there is one spooky gigantic knight's armor on horseback. He was a giant. The rest of the English knights were puny due to poor food.

R582 Prince William has a Greek Orthodox Godfather and in King Constantine II of Greece, and a famous one in Laurens Van Der Post.

Williams children have the Van Cutsem's as Godparents and they are certainly Roman Catholic.

There doesn't seem to have been a requirement for Godparents to be Church of England, for a long time.

The only requirement from what I remember from being Godfather to my Brothers children is that you promise to raise the child in the faith, not that you are - I'm Atheist and so is most of my family.

The Queen giving her best demonstration of an "evil eye".

I love the mint green outfit. The Queen wore a lot of those blossom shower cap hats but I don't care for that style.

I remember when Diana caused a sensation when she wore her hair like this. I didn't like it too much.

Anne's children Peter and Zara Phillips as children. Each of them have two daughters.

Andrew and Fergie arriving at Buckingham Palace after their wedding. William runs into Andrew's arms for a kiss.

The Queen's "second family" - Andrew and Edward.

The many titles of man who abdicated the throne.

May the lord bless my sweet handsome prince.