DL Book Club: The Palace Papers

"If One's Platinum Jubilee Palace Barbie isn't on the list One just might be tempted to say One isn't looking at your bloody list."

“Meghan’s curious failure to prepare for a vocation that was the royal equivalent of taking the veil was a surprise to many of her former colleagues on the USA Network show Suits, where she appeared“as a supporting player for seven years. According to a colleague on the show, Meghan as an actress had always been known for “doing her homework,” exhaustively grilling anyone who could help her for “notes.”

It’s baffling she did not do the same for the most important role of her life. The main reason that Diana’s Mr. Wonderful, the heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, whom she dated after her separation from Charles, didn’t want to marry her is that he knew he couldn’t live with being traduced every day on the front pages of the tabloids.”

SUPPORTING?? SCOBIE, GET ON TWITTER!

Tina Brown must read DL. She managed to compliment AND insult Princess Michael in a single paragraph.

I wonder if there will be any exploration of Prince Michael’s shady business dealings with Putin’s financial backers.

Princess Michael's Russian boytoy got assassinated, so probably not, r4.

R2. Because she always intended to bolt within a couple years.

Lol, one of the Women’s Prize longlist books this year is The Paper Palace, and mistakenly I thought that’s what this thread was about.

"Charles made his disappointments clear in 1992 after the funeral of Diana’s father, Earl Spencer, in a conversation with the late earl’s twenty-eight-year-old son and heir. “He did not seem to appreciate how I felt at my loss,” the young Earl Spencer told his family. “We had just buried my father and he kept telling me how lucky I was to have inherited so young!”

YIKES!

I'm a nutcase. I've bought BOTH the book and the audiobook. So happy I have many other DL nutcases to dive deep into this nonsense!!!

Damn, you bitches are way ahead of me! Thanks for starting this thread, OP.

[quote]A prologue aptly titled “Kryptonite” sets the pitch-perfect tone. “Were you silent or were you [italic]silenced?[/italic]” Oprah asks misty-eyed Meghan who, Ms. Brown notes, is wearing “smoky, tragedy eye makeup” with her hair in “a low bun for confessional gravitas.” A wronged woman, perhaps, but one who also got it wrong, Ms. Brown observes, when she failed to see that celebrities flare and burn out. The monarchy plays the long game.

… from the Wall St Journal review. Delish!

Tina will want to keep her door open for most of the royal family for later insights (or rather insight through their courtiers), so Meghan is superfluous.

“Camilla understood that the achingly archaic requirement of virginity in a royal bride was a deal breaker in her relationship with Charles. It would also prove lethal to his future happiness. Finding an intact woman in her late twenties amongst his contemporaries might have seemed easy from the Queen Mother’s point of view, but in the freewheeling sexual mores of seventies London society, it was about as likely as a sighting of the Loch Ness monster.”

HA!

"“Anne, still smitten with Andrew, was apparently “in pieces” about his wedding and shortly afterward became engaged herself to Captain Mark Phillips, a less virile, intellectually dimmer version of Parker Bowles, gently dissed by Charles as “Fog.” The Prince, fortuitously, could not attend, as he was on his way to Nassau to represent the Queen at a ceremony of imperial downsizing.”

Did Andrew Parker Bowles have the best dick on the entire island?????

Camilla comes across as quite fun

Philip was the favorite member of the family to work for: “very unassuming and knows that it is not always as easy to do something as it is to ask for it be done,” as one household servant put it. ”

“The sorry truth was that Charles, in his material character, just wasn’t the kind of person the Queen admired. “Charles is absolutely desperate for his mother’s approval and knows he’ll never really get it,” a Highgrove regular said. “He’s the wrong sort of person for her—too needy, too vulnerable, too emotional, too complicated, too self-centered, the sort of person she can’t bear. Arts, charitable causes that aren’t wrapped in a rigid sense of duty—it’s all anathema to her.”

Thomas Markle reserves much of his resentment for his son-in-law, "the snottiest man I've ever heard in my life," who called him while he was still in hospital to, according to Markle, chastise him about his failure to listen to Harry's orders on dealing with the media. "And I hung up on him," Markle tells Brown. "I said, 'That's it, no more.' "

That's nice about Philip. I'm surprised actually.

Harry will be exposed in the worst light ever, I think. The angry numbnuts deserves it. Too many people give him the benefit of the doubt b/c of his Mama. Even if Meghan should have known what she was getting into, Harry sure as Hell knew. Or should have! Meghan is over-vilified, and he is under-vilified, imho.

OH MY!!!

“A seductive blond socialite who was a regular in Mustique told me how in 1977, when the Queen and Prince Philip visited Princess Margaret on the island for the first time toward the end of the Silver Jubilee tour of the West Indies, she was on the beach as the cutter from Britannia brought the royal party ashore. She was taking photos of the Queen’s lily-white skin being devoured by mosquitoes—“I told you I didn’t want to come to this bloody island,” the socialite heard her say—when Philip, looking especially handsome in a pale blue shirt with buttons down the back, saw her and winked. Later at Lord Glenconner’s reception at the Cotton House hotel, Philip’s equerry came over and gave her a card with a private number on it. “The Duke says to keep in touch,” he said. “I nearly fainted,” the socialite remembered, “but, unfortunately, I lost the bloody card. He was so gorgeous I will always be pissed that I didn’t take him up on it.”

“Once in a while there was a gossip flare-up about Romsey. The Queen’s response was to invite her to travel in the car with her to church on Sunday, and they were photographed chatting amicably. Her Majesty apparently approved of the Countess’s strength of character, especially the way she had handled the crisis in her marriage in 2010 when Norton Romsey took off after thirty years with an attractive fashion designer in the Bahamas. Without breaking stride, Penny assumed the running of the six-thousand-acre Broadlands estate, and her husband’s ceremonial duties as High Steward of Romsey until he returned to the marital mansion with his tail tucked between his legs. She banished him to a converted stable block, inviting him back into the house only after he developed health problems.”

“The Queen seems to have decided that Romsey was necessary for her husband’s good humor. A figure in the royal circle said in 2015, “She shrugs her shoulders and says, ‘Philip likes to have her around.’ ” She gamely absorbed her into her personal circle, and Romsey was frequently on the guest list at Windsor Castle and sometimes part of the royal lineup on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for Trooping the Colour. “[The Queen] accepted that he took a lot of amusing,” a close figure told Richard Kay in 2015. “I’ve always felt his need for amusement outside his marriage had something to do with him being such an active and demanding consort, while having to take a back seat to his wife. But his loyalty to her is unquestioning.”

“Until he lost his hair, Prince William was probably the biggest heartthrob to be heir to the throne since the pre-obese Henry VIII.”

She’s…not wrong.

Awwwwww.

“There was heartfelt sorrow among Margaret’s staff on her death. She was a decent boss, and they had stayed with her for decades. On official trips, she always ensured her dresser and maid had pleasant rooms and that off-duty sightseeing excursions were arranged for them. Chauffeur David Griffin said she was loyal as long as you stayed within the old-school guidelines of due deference. (She rebuked Princess Diana once for calling him “David” rather than “Griffin.”) He told me:

Princess Margaret was kind to everyone….She treated them properly and she wasn’t petty….She would always give you a present at Christmas, but, strangely, she would never wrap them. If, for example, you wanted an iron, she would call you into her rooms and she would give it to you in a box without wrapping paper. It was just, “Thank you very much. Have a Happy Christmas.”

In other words, "Margaret wasn't a cunt 100% of the time."

Can you even imagine how haughty and imperious Margaret would've been with Meghan?

To add to r15's comment, I've read that Philip consistently was named as the favorite royal to work for among household staffers when the tabloids did such pieces.

He attended his long-time chauffeur's funeral as a genuine mourner. He was capable of feeling connections to people. Having such an empathic and truly righteous mother probably contributed. As well as being untethered during such a tumultuous time. He became a naval hero when he really didn't have to -- he could have become a dissipated Danish/Greek playboy in Paris like his father or sympathized with his sisters who married into Nazi society. But, he chose to defend the UK on a dreary boat and got commendations for his service in defense of a form of Democracy....

Gay stuff!

“For decades, her parties were choreographed by her pricelessly camp steward William Tallon—my pew mate at Lord Lichfield’s memorial—who presided as master of ceremonies in white tie and tails. “Backstairs Billy” joined the Royal Household at the age of fifteen and stayed in service until the Queen Mother’s death. His partner, Reginald Wilcock, was the page of the presence. The grace-and-favor gatehouse where they lived was party central for the Palace’s downstairs gay subculture. Billie’s backstage tyranny was unassailable because he was the Queen Mother’s indispensable right hand.”

[quote]“The sorry truth was that Charles, in his material character, just wasn’t the kind of person the Queen admired. “Charles is absolutely desperate for his mother’s approval and knows he’ll never really get it,” a Highgrove regular said. “He’s the wrong sort of person for her—too needy, too vulnerable, too emotional, too complicated, too self-centered, the sort of person she can’t bear. Arts, charitable causes that aren’t wrapped in a rigid sense of duty—it’s all anathema to her.”

I don't particularly like Charles but you can see that this is 100% true. I feel some pity for him just as a human being.

TQ seems like a 'just get on with it' kind of person. She tolerated Philip's philandering. She's not going to have much patience for plant-talking Charles.

Ok, Camilla DESERVES to be queen.

“Over time, Charles’s self-pitying paranoia about never being appreciated enough was a serious bore to all. He moaned endlessly about being undervalued by his mother, the nation, and the press. He complained his life was unbearable when his office was the wrong temperature. In 2004, he reportedly said, “Nobody knows what utter hell it is to be Prince of Wales.” It was not endearing coming from a multi-millionaire monarch-in-waiting with a brace of stately homes on tap. The aftermath of Labour Party spin doctor Peter Mandelson’s visit to Highgrove in 1997, when he told Charles that British ministers sometimes found him “rather glum and dispirited,” was pure panic. The Prince was so unused to hearing the truth that he asked Camilla afterward in a tortured tone, “Is that true? Is that true?” Camilla crisply replied, “I don’t think any of us can cope with you asking that question over and over again for the next month.”

The book is divided into two sections: the first about the old guard, the second about the younger royals (for those impatient for certain characters to take center stage).

“Harry felt displaced by their bougie family unit, and couldn’t understand his brother’s obsession with his Middleton in-laws, whose Bucklebury world bored Harry to tears.”

I wonder if he sees the appeal of "boring" in-laws now...

While not a complete condemnation, it's not kind to Meghan at all. She's painted as desperate for celebrity fame at all costs and a bitchy boss.

“For the Palace, the kumbaya moment was even more remarkable because of the shit-show that preceded it. After almost two years of getting to know the bride-to-be and witnessing her mesmerizing hold over Harry, the Palace staff was reeling. Compared to the jovial team effort for the wedding of William and Kate, Palace sources report that the preparation for the Sussex union was all drama, all the time. Meghan’s MO was seen as revving up Harry when she sensed any obstruction.”

“ Meghan did not—or could not—perceive the difference between the Queen’s personal aide and a contract stylist at NBC Universal. A blow-up occurred when Kelly willfully—as Meghan and, therefore, Harry saw it—denied the bride-to-be access to the Queen Mary bandeau tiara, on loan from the Queen, that Meghan would be wearing for the wedding. Meghan wanted to try on the tiara now for some styling sessions with her hairdresser, and her fiancé fired off like a missile to make it happen.”

“why didn’t Harry help navigate Palace culture for his future wife? He didn’t want to. Their new complicity required Meghan to fight all the norms he had kicked against for so long. She was now his comrade in arms. An aide described their confrontational stance to me as a mutual “addiction to drama.”

I agree that Meghan's hamfisted distastrous decisions, actions and attitude are bewildering. Why didn't she play the long game? I am sure the explanation is somewhere, but it hasn't come forth from Meghan or her inlaws or any books yet.

R34 It boils down to the fact she's not very bright and she married a not very bright man.

Meghan is also a narcissistic and she seems to have been badly spoiled as a child. She's rather a stereotype actually. A self deluded, self involved actress of the Millennial generation who doesn't get that the rest of the world doesn't run like a Hollywood film set.

I really do believe that her being mixed race wasn't really that major of a concern for the Royal Family...in fact, I think most of them embraced the idea of "new blood" in the family to liven things up.

But, I bet the "American" and "actress" parts of her identity were more of a concern. American because they're unlikely to understand the British culture and ridiculous class structure they still have and actress because...well, most actresses/actors are bat shit crazy.

R10 Two threads on the book were started a week ago. Where were you?

R34 Because she wasn't in it for anything but the cheapest surface of the concept of royalty. I.e., glamour, wealth and centre-stage.

The concept of being a link in a chain of history, the longer lasting and deeper glamour of that and subsuming the self to an ient traditions and purposes, was completely beyond her shallow grasp.

Even the Queen plays "second fiddle" to those.

It's what Kate understood from the beginning.

It's what Anne, Edward, Charles, and William get.

It can't be deem to be about YOU individually.

For Meghan, this was impossible. It could never be about anything BUT her.

Repeat rinse repeat: Kate wanted to be royal; Meghan wanted to be famous.

There is a fine but very telling libe between the two.

You put together Meghan's utter disinterest in the core rede of the religion, with a mentally ill husband filled with rage that he also ties to not being First, and nothing that ensued should have come as a shock.

Nothing has changed in the natures of either Harry or Meghan.

Hence the necessity for the famiky to keep the two well away from the Palace - including its balcony.

^*a fine but telling line (not libe)

R30 Historian Max Hastings, who worked on staff as an advisor, wrote a piece for Airmail called An Open Letter To Harry and Meghan that quoted the conversation with Charles about how no one understands how awful it is to be him . . .

I suspect Brown lifted that bit from Hastings' piece.

Hastings wrote it just after Megxit. Everything he said in it has proved on the money.

One of which was that everyone behind the scenes knew that once he left the military, Harry was "a train wreck waiting to happen".

One other thing that Hastings said was that the royals hire very good advisors, but never follow their advice, and that this was true of everyone right down to Diana

So the refusal of the Sussexes to take advice as they headed for the off-ramp showed that there was at least one ancient, noble tradition they wholeheartedly embraced.

[quote] he could have become a dissipated Danish/Greek playboy in Paris like his father

Not a drop of Greek blood in the late Prince Philip, only German and Danish.

I do think it's surprising that MM didn't fall in with Palace expectations. A tv series is quite specific and rigid in its demands of employees. She worked in one series for 7 years, and was reported to be meticulous and professional by her colleagues.

[quote] The concept of being a link in a chain of history, the longer lasting and deeper glamour of that and subsuming the self to an ient traditions and purposes, was completely beyond her shallow grasp.

[quote] Even the Queen plays "second fiddle" to those.

Wow. Thank you, r37.

You've written here what I've always known, moreover, I what I hoped Markle knew, but I never was able to capture what you've so succinctly wrote in your words.

The self-grandiosity of both Sussexes to believe that their presence within the BRF is its reason for existing is out-of-this world.

The harbinger of disaster is what I've harped on here before, and now, do so again- Markle, by that NY City "A List" (ugh) celebrity trash, show-folk baby shower, announced that she believed the job of a royal was to BE a celebrity rather than correctly knowing that mingling with them, if one must, at, say a Movie Premier Charity Gala or fundraiser only a part of the job.

As a royal, mere celebrity isn't your peer.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amal Clooney, a more skilled, subtle, but thirsty "humanitarian" celebrity, with actual credentials, now wishes now she had declined that invitation. I guess, for her purposes, she would want to be in the company of the Cambridges and Prince Charles rather than the Sussexes.

And, while don't detect vindictiveness in the Cambridges, nevertheless, perhaps they're are keeping a list of names...

Seriously, Markle would have been better off letting Harry marry some other fool and then agreed to be his Mistress, money upfront of course. Now, that would have shown she has a real understanding of history pageantry and service.

No. Better yet, she should have married a some rich fool and kept Harry as her side-stuff Mister.

Yes r41 but for all that admirable work, she never rose above number 6 on the call sheet. Because that wasn’t her character's role in the show.

There are so, so, so many wonderful details in here that have nothing to do with Meghan; it’s incredibly tiresome how some posters view everything through their obsession with her.

My favorite so far, of the Queen Mother, living on what she felt was a paltry 643K pounds per year - “In her bedroom, two cherubs on her four-poster bed had their angel’s clothes washed and starched every month.”

sorry, 'bout the typos and punctuation in my post at r42.

The Sussexes relevancy, such as it is, is fading fast. And this notion that they have an American fan-base may be correct, but not for long.

They're aging and being old in this society is the same as not existing and they don't have the money to ease that irrelevancy.

If only; if only Markle had grasped the paradox- you subsume your own thirsty desire, play the long game and you then become a true presence. And she had so much to offer as a pretty, bi-racial American.

*sigh* Would have. Could have. Should have.

Yeah, ok, ok, r44. I'm going to read the whole book as soon as I buy it from my local Barnes and Noble which is today.

Della, reading your posts on here, I can tell it will be right up your alley!

Am a couple chapters in. It's VERY good. A riveting read. And lots of unexpected stuff. The portrait of Meghan is lethal. "She wanted to be Angela Jolie." The long portrayl of Camilla's family is both delightful and surprising: she had fabulous sophisticated cosmopolitan upper class parents who let their children live free; a creme de menthe sipping mother who nonetheless played nurse to Thalidomide kids three days a week.

I posted here last year that Markle’s model for the type of stardom she saw for herself was Jolie’s.

Chapter 19 is all background on Meghan and her desperate strive for fame (and dumping people along the way).

“To goose ratings, the Suits promotion team advised the show’s cast to stoke their social media accounts. No one did so more assiduously than Meghan. ”

“One of the most influential voices with the show’s producers was the veteran TV character actor Rick Hoffman. Meghan quickly sensed his clout and made him her advocate with the executive producers. She asked him to lobby them to get her a car and driver, a bold request because a chauffeured car is a much-desired perk allocated to players listed at number one and two. It was a “safety issue,” she argued, because she was working so late and starting so early. Concerned for her well-being, he got it for her.

Meghan was beloved by the show’s producers because she never said no to promotion. “Anytime we asked anything extra to be done, whether it was a fundraiser, whether it was supporting the show, going to a Television Critics Association event, basically glad-handing with any of the sales folks and clients…Meghan always raised her hand and said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it,’ ” I was told by one of the show’s executives. “She never complained. She never asked for an extra penny….Meghan would always say, ‘I’m there.’ ” In return, Meghan was able to make Suits executives powerful sounding boards. She sought advice from producers about how to increase her part “without looking like it’s a land grab…and expand her role from just a young paralegal to eventually get to the place where she could be part of a true ensemble.”

“Meghan was always talking about Goop,” one of the Suits team told me.”

“Suits, as Meghan saw it, was handicapped by USA Network’s mainstream-vanilla positioning in the cable firmament. While the show was popular (during the second season it became the most-watched cable show in the United States among viewers in the 18–49 age bracket), it wasn’t even picked up in Canada for the first two years she was there. If Suits had been aired on HBO, it might have commanded more cultural cachet. If it had aired on NBC like Friends, she could have been the next Jennifer Aniston. She constantly badgered the show’s public relations team and independent PR agents to get her on big-time talk shows, but all she could land were small-fry digital entertainment bookings. “Our business is full of people like Meghan,” one publicist who encountered her at this time told me. “In it to win it, absolutely focused on fame, celebrity, relevance. You can pick them out in a lineup.” But most of her invitations came from Toronto gigs like a Jimmy Choo shoe store opening at a mall or as the celebrity presence at an Equinox health club gala.”

My favorite things are the Camilla anecdotes.

When Uncle Gary caused headlines before Kate's wedding: “the Middleton clan closed ranks around Uncle Gary, and he not only made the cut for the Westminster Abbey list but was given a prime seat. The Duchess of Cornwall, clearly well-briefed on the possible tripwires, “made a beeline for me,” he recalls. “I’m sorry for the bad press,” Gary told her. “Don’t think twice about it. I get the same myself,” replied Camilla, with complicit (and expert) charm.”

R50, the story about how she hustled for the cause when she was on Suits seems to be at variance with her present paucity of any grasp of doing the same for something much closer to home: her own brand.

My perception of her behaviour since they made the move the Montecito is that she wants the fame/recognition/status/$, up front, but will do none of the work involved to achieve it.

What happened to the drive she had when she hustled for Suits? As I pointed out somewhere else on this site, time is not on her side. There's been a woeful down slide of her image. Popping up at TIG two weeks ago treats the symptom but not the cause.

Things are teetering on the edge of tanking. What's being done about it? Because if things do tank, it's gonna be a lot harder to ever regain the status she had when she married Harry.

She can't be intentionally allowing this to happen, can she?

I think she only ever thought the reason she wasn’t Uber famous was lack of exposure. So marrying Harry was all she thought she needed to do. She didn’t realize the public would not like her, the more they saw of her.

^^ She has a shrill and unlikable personality. Also, a very harsh and unpleasant speaking voice.

When Brown is recounting Kate's decade of waiting (and she does admit Kate was doing just that) and Camilla's 30 fucking years as Royal Side Piece, she emphasises more than once that each of them were raised in tight knit loving families that were their rocks when things got bad with the press and the public.

[quote]I posted here last year that Markle’s model for the type of stardom she saw for herself was Jolie’s.

Apologies luv. We didn't know you were DL's Reuters.

Apology accepted,r56.

“Reuters”, hell.

I must be psychotic, er, excuse me, I mean psychic.

Incomplete poll.

Phil in retirement: “Still obsessed with technology, Philip often extolled the joys of his Kindle until, disgusted by all the direct marketing of books that he didn’t want to read, he threw it in the bathtub.”

Australia, things start to go wrong: “So, Meghan must have been thrilled with it all…right? No. She apparently hated every second of it. She found the itinerary of engagements “pointless,” a former Palace employee told me. “She didn’t understand why things were set up in that way. Instead of being excited when thousands of people showed up at the opera house, it was very much like, ‘What’s the purpose? I don’t understand this,’ ”—the “this” being the representational role of the British monarchy and its traditional agenda, rather than the focus on causes she wanted to spotlight. Such engagements are old school, yes, but create classic royal ties that bind.”

“The way Meghan read the crowd response was the direct opposite of the way Prince Philip understood it when he accompanied the Queen on their first Commonwealth tour of Australia in 1954. As he told Gyles Brandreth, “More than a million people came out and cheered the Queen, a million! It wasn’t about her. They came because she was the Queen. If you start thinking it’s about you, you’re lost.” But it was head-turning for Meghan to experience the full-throttle motorcade-purring, outrider-vrooming, crowd-roaring adulation of a popular young royal on a tour planned to the last “teacup by the Palace machine. Megmania, as it was called in the Australian press, was markedly more enthusiastic than the reception for William and Kate on their own Aussie tour in 2014. Meghan seemed to interpret the success as a call for Brand Sussex to be elevated in the Palace hierarchy.

Her aggrieved mood mirrored Harry’s. He fulminated over the customary presence of the royal press pack, even though the copy they filed was overwhelmingly complimentary. The Times correspondent Valentine Low remembers him being “pretty grumpy.” During “a long and incredibly boring welcome ceremony in Fiji…Harry was just glowering. He was cross with the media, and he spent the entire welcome ceremony diverting his gaze to one side just to stare daggers at the press pack.” When the Palace team encouraged him to go to the back of the plane and chat up the traveling press, Harry un-endearingly told them, “Thanks for coming, not that anyone invited you.” Did he forget that it was a taxpayer-funded trip?

Back home, Meghan felt snubbed that there was no particular display of Palace appreciation. A former aide acknowledged to me that it’s often a “massive anticlimax when you get back from a royal tour….You’re just back into your normal life. The Queen would send the principals a note after a trip but you don’t come back to a ticker-tape welcome.”

“Meghan appeared to draw a different conclusion from her first tour: that the monarchy likely needed her more than she needed them. She had starred in the equivalent of a blockbuster movie and wanted her leading-lady status to be reflected in lights.”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

[quote] “Still obsessed with technology, Philip often extolled the joys of his Kindle until, disgusted by all the direct marketing of books that he didn’t want to read, he threw it in the bathtub.”

I made the same mistake as Phil, in trying to be thrifty by paying $50 less for the ad version. But honestly the insane books they advertised on the Kindle screen as a result were hilarious.

“Harry’s own determination to hide from his pursuers was explicable given past invasions, but his suspicious nature was compounded by Meghan’s inflated sense of celebrity and persecution. It was the opposite of the Kate-William dynamic, said a friend of both. When William got riled up, Kate calmed him down. When Kate was rattled by the press, William talked her through it. The Sussexes fueled each other’s distrust of everybody else, and Harry’s wife was as temperamentally combative as he was.”

“The mentally fragile Harry had the worry of seeing his wife now flailing herself. Their secrecy verged on the paranoid. The couple treated the impending birth of their baby like a state secret, denying the press the routine Palace announcements about where he would be born, or which doctor they’d be assisted by. They also tossed overboard the royal custom of releasing the names of the godparents, later easily identified as Harry’s cherished nanny Tiggy Pettifer (née Legge-Bourke), his mentor Mark Dyer, and his childhood friend Charlie van Straubenzee. When Meghan attended Wimbledon in 2019 with two college friends to watch Serena Williams play, her protection officers annoyed nearby spectators by asking them not to take her picture—even though the Duchess was in a public place. It didn’t help Meghan’s prima donna rap that Kate had watched the tennis from the same VIP section just two days earlier, serenely unfazed by the cell phone cameras trained on her from every side.”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

[quote]Camilla crisply replied, “I don’t think any of us can cope with you asking that question over and over again for the next month.”

If she talks like that to him I'm confused why he's so besotted with her. Maybe she's a substitute Mummy figure, only this one takes an active interest in his moaning.

If it's true Harry did hate it so much he was always planning to leave, it sounds like on some basic instinct level he played her before she played him.

Meghan did all that work for Suits because she saw it as benefitting HER. She didn't want to do any work for the BRF because she couldn't see what was in it for her. She could work her butt off but was never going to raise up in rank from where she was, so why bother?

R57, it's a rare honour to be both. We admire you for it.

“ No one will be surprised to learn that the Duke of York remains firmly entrenched in the basket of deplorables. The former Labour foreign secretary Jacqui Smith said on LBC radio in 2019 that at a 2007 state banquet at Buckingham Palace for the Saudi king, she and her husband were left “slack-jawed” by the “awful jokes” Andrew made “involving camels.”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

“Perhaps it was an index of Harry’s panic that, after seven years of therapy himself, he seemed paralyzed about turning to the same Palace advisers who had supported him in the past. What about the crack MI6 advisers who could find experts at purging the demons of patients striving to reconcile assumed roles with private lives? Harry had campaigned with courage to ease the stigma surrounding mental health problems, even co-founding Heads Together, whose mission statement is to ensure that “people feel able to support their friends and families through difficult times and that stigma no longer prevents people getting the help they need.” If he was now too afraid of the pile-on that would follow an admission of Meghan’s ordeals, should he not own the fact that it was he—rather than the Palace or members of his family—who had failed to get his wife help in her hour of need?”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

“after ten days of glowing coverage, including a Telegraph front-page Indiana Jones shot touting his earnest op-ed inside the paper about South African conservation, a contribution unlikely to have made it into print—or been given splashy front-page treatment—without a royal byline. Would William be envious of such prime media real estate was the question that crossed my mind when I saw it, presciently as it turned out, because Harry’s comment to Bradby—“We are certainly on different paths at the moment”—detonated headlines about an open breach between the brothers. Meghan took the opportunity to spill forth about her new-mum vulnerability, her bruising struggles to cope with the British stiff upper lip (and life), and her exhortations to Harry about the need to “thrive” rather than simply “survive.” Asked by Bradby how she was coping, her response—which convulsed the internet—was, “Thanks for asking because not many people have asked if I’m okay.” Not many people ask the women in the Nyanga township if they are okay either, was the media consensus. “I never thought that this would be easy, but I thought [press coverage] would be fair,” she told Bradby, unleashing yet more backlash about one of the world’s most privileged women complaining about her own press coverage after ten days of witnessing the intense poverty and challenges of parts of South Africa.”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

HAHAHAHAHAH

“While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex went off to implode in a rented $13 million waterfront mansion on Vancouver Island, Prince Andrew, in November 2019, decided to strap on a suicide vest and sit down for an ask-me-anything hour-long interview with Emily Maitlis, one of the BBC’s most probing broadcasters.

Why Andrew imagined he could emerge unscathed from a fifty-minute, free-ranging interview about the sexual allegations against him on a hard-hitting news show was a classic example of Dunning-Kruger delusion. ”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

“It’s always an unwise idea to give an ultimatum to Queen Elizabeth II. I am told that, far from yielding the floor to her advisers, this was a process in which her sovereign self, not her granny persona, was very much in control. Nothing about the Sussexes’ headstrong behavior to date suggested any “part-time” arrangement could have worked then or now. There would be no stepping “back” for them. There was only stepping down.”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

Well, I've dived into the book and what I am finding is that whilst good, it isn't quite as good as The Diana Chronicles.

There's a blunted edge to the "bite", almost as Brown is trying too hard. TDC flowed like horseradish mixed with strychnine on a slow drip.

One interesting bit, though, is that Charles was always seeking his mother's approval and never got it; because the story always was, it was his father's approval that Charles couldn't obtain. IF it is true that neither parent mirrored Charles back to him strongly enough in a positive way, it would explain a great deal about his persona. And, of course, about why Camilla was so successful with him and Diana wasn't. Because Diana was also seeking mirroring. Two people in a relationship seeking the same thing in each other that neither got from parents is another recipe for disaster.

To make the equation work, the needier person has to attach the person with enough left over to give, so to speak. I believe that's why the marriage between the Queen's parents worked out so well: he was diffident, anxious, awkward, who longed for affection and a happy home. She came from a happy home, was filled with, as one suitor put it, "radiant vitality", supremely self-confident, and anything but awkward. She had what he needed and it didn't cost her anything to share it.

But two Ultra-Needys . . . that's the kind of mixed marriage that NEVER works.

In a way it makes sense. After all, the Queen's favourite men were Philip, a "man's man" if ever there was one, and her bragging, charming, raunchy second son. It throws an interesting light on the Queen's psyche - this is, after all, the woman who took to sex like the proverbial duck, about whom her new husband complained because he couldn't keep her out of his bed.

One can feel for Charles if that is the case. No wonder he adored Camilla.

[quote]I must be psychotic, er, excuse me, I mean psychic.

No. Just self-congratulatory to a psychotic extreme.

R68 I think Brown tries to be "fair" to everyone except Andrew, and even he gets a few tiny crumbs. Everyone gets called out on their bullshit, especially the Sussexes, but she tries to include opposing POVs.

" [R50], the story about how she hustled for the cause when she was on Suits seems to be at variance with her present paucity of any grasp of doing the same for something much closer to home: her own brand. What happened to the drive she had when she hustled for Suits?"

She's a princess and duchess now, one who apparently still hopes that she and Harry will eventually get the half-in-half-out deal that will keep them on the A-list of fame! As long as she's committed to keeping up the show of being a princess, she can't let herself be seen to scramble too hard, or do public things that are beneath the dignity of a royal duchess, such as shoe store openings. She's probably still scrambling like hell out of our sight, bothering every charity in the world for gigs and petitioning every board of directors there is to give Harry a token position that pays... if anyone in the world is being a "swan", that is, looking serene and smooth on the surface and paddling madly where it can't be seen, it's Meg!

Harry is, of course, doing shit nothing, and expecting to be handed millions for it.

Jacqui Smith who claimed expenses for her husband's porn was shocked by Andrew? Must've been bad.

The chapter about Andrew, "The Duke of Hazard", is venomously delicious

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The Duke of Hazard! 😂 Dear Goodness, Tina may be a horrific bitch, a bad mother (as a DL poster outright said about his classmate, Tina's Brown U. daughter) and imperiously mean, overreaching and over-understanding her role in New York society. But, fuck gurl, Tina's low class chav when she needs to be!

I wouldn't be surprised if Harry makes Rachel dress up and talk like Diana before fucking her because it's the only way he can make his Mercedes crash inside of her cold concrete tunnel.

Good thread, (mostly) devoid of nicknames and other nonsense. I'll refrain from commenting at length until I get the book. I imagine the Royal Family are relieved at what seems like fair enough treatment; it's Harry's book that no doubt has them more worried. Wonder about the mood in Montecito, though, it can't be pleasant for those two to be dissected by as sharp a knife as Tina, not when you can't dismiss it as a racist hatchet job.

R76 Funny, I always imagined Meghan thinking of Diana when she's with Harry.

Meghan was a breed of people he had never encountered before. Quote from book by Tina Brown.

Clever, clever girl that Tina. Spearing Meghan in such a way that she cannot really be called Racisssst. Good writing. Is subtle giving shade a regular part of a writing course in the UK? Although I question how capable either Harry or Meghan are to comprehend what has been written. Will their staff give them the Cliff notes version?

R78 She laid back and thought of Diana?

Any exerpts about Meg's alleged background as a "yacht girl"?

I have nothing good to say about Meghan Markle but that yacht stuff is internet bullshit. If it was true, somebody would have sold proof by now.

R83, that's probable. Do you think it's possible it was wiped from the web before the wedding? And that possibly it's being held over her head in case she steps too far out of line? I have no idea, but the craziness surrounding her and husband knows hardly any bounds.

Is it really bullshit?

^^Based on the drivel in R85, obviously, it is bullshit.

Tina Brown is not going to write about Yacht Girl rumors unless she has verifiable proof from reliable sources.

She's an old pro (Tina) and she's not getting sued over anything if she can help it.

I bought the book last night (at FULL retail price and I'm still fuming about that...I NEVER pay full retail for a book!)

It's good though not as good as the Diana Chronicles. The writing isn't as strong. I think it's obvious that her late hubby Harry Evans was an important part of her writing/editing process. He is missed here.

That said, it's a VERY entertaining book. Brown has a talent for being very balanced on how she treats everyone....well, except for Andrew. There's not much you can do with a fool like him.

Brown is also very good at the sly digs. She's a DLer at heart.

Really, the person who comes off worst in the book (other than gross Andrew): the Queen. Her wishy washiness when it comes to her family has caused a lot of these problems. And, there's lots of little moments in the book where Brown points out that the Queen is frequently a bit of a catty bitch when she wants to be.

I agree, R83. I've been here getting called a Klan Granny since 2020 and the yachting rumours are total bullshit. Never a single ounce of proof. (and no, that screenshot, which we have no actual proof is a screenshot, of some random asking her to join him on a yacht doesn't even come close).

I've found myself slowly but surely becoming more and more critical of the Queen, R89, over the past few years. Her ostriching and refusal to face certain realities when it comes to the character of certain members of her family has done real damage to the institution she heads. I'm not sure I buy that she was maneuvered into anything at Philip's memorial, either. Andrew's appearance with her on his arm could be interpreted as a fuck you of sorts. If Meghan and Harry show up on the balcony it could be seen the same way - two fingers up to the people - and non-favoured family members.

One of the best scenes in the book is the Queen going over the yearly family dole deciding how much each member gets:

"Oh, Lady Z worked very hard this year, let's give her this. But, Lady X didn't do shit, so she's getting a wage reduction!"

[Quote]And, there's lots of little moments in the book where Brown points out that the Queen is frequently a bit of a catty bitch when she wants to be.

This would make sense. I recall reading years ago that after meeting Princess Grace for the first time HM remarked about her "She 's quite nice, isn't she.....for an American? ".

There was a line recently (I think in either The Telegraph or The Times) - it was an article about the royals and it may have been about this book but it was something like "and the way the Queen divvies up the money every year is remarkably personal." Something about non-senior family members sort of nervously hanging on waiting to hear what they'll be given etc. - was that from the book? Again, kind of intriguing and sort of not cool.

To add to R83 and R89: these threads would be more fun if the people who talk about "yachting" and "merching" and who use all the stupid nicknames disappeared.

There's a lot of evidence that MM was merching; the numerous badly-fitting clothes and the widely reported scam the she carried out with Jessica Mulroney where they would get free, lent or discounted items, bill Charles for the full retail price, and split the profits.

As for the yachting - it was also reported that Tom Inskip, one of Harry's closest friends, met MM through this kind of arrangement and he assumed Harry had wanted the same. Tom was subsequently banished from future contact.

Reported by whom? And all I know of straight men is that the majority want whores who are underage and/or hot; presumably, if you can afford to be on a yacht, you can afford the best. Even when she had implants, Meghan was never hot.

Oh Tina you DL Fave:

Tina Brown, who wrote The Palace Papers, believes 'nothing is going anywhere' for Meghan Markle, who she said is constantly 'grasping' at the latest popular cause

If Lindsay Lohan can make money yachting, I'm pretty sure MM circa 2016 could.

If the loons are using one random guys tweet was proof Meghan was yachting, it's not very good proof. It was most likely someone putting out feelers to see if they could recruit someone. I have a really pretty female friend who gets random offers on Instagram, from men asking if she wants yacht trips, or "private parties" in Gulf countries. As R98 rightly points out, if Lindsay can get regular offers, Meghan could have to. Those types also want actresses in addition to their "model" types.

Lohan was a much bigger start than MM ever was.

I know, R25! With Margaret's genes, it's entirely possible she would still be alive now if only she'd adopted a cleaner lifestyle. She'd be an absolute battleaxe in her 90s. She'd make mincemeat of Meghan.

I'm also surprised the Queen gets a pass on how she deals with family issues, Andrew in particular.

Just started reading it. Brown is very witty and the book has a lot of new info in it. I was unaware that Charles and Camilla had been flagrantly carrying on through most of her marriage and that Kanga and Camilla were bitter rivals.

Brown totally nails Meghan with Number 6 on the Call Sheet showing how her acting career was going nowhere and she was desperate to copy Angelina Jolie and get famous. She preferred to be a relatively Big Fish in the Little Pond of Toronto than a total nonentity in Hollywood.

Nobody had ever heard of Meghan Markle until she hooked up with Harry. She basically unknown as an actress. I never watched Suits, but she had a very brief scene as a FedEx delivery person in Horrible Bosses 2 and even in a small part with just a couple of lines she was awful.

R102 - I agree. And with the previous comment about a diminishing respect for the Queen as it becomes ever clearer that her failures as a parent became the fault lines along which the monarchy is teetering.

No one, of course, is perfect at parenting and we could doubtless all tell tales of our own dramas.

But, unfortunately, the odd intersections of accident, history, timing, and character all seem to be in play here.

But the most egregious is the ongoing assumption that the BRF can keep silent and keep floating above this.

They might have gotten away with it if the Queen were immortal, or Charles hugely popular, but that isn't the case.

At this point, with Britain in a convulsion of social, political, and economic upheaval, the monarchy that is supposed to represent stability and continuity is, instead, mired in a fog of rumour and doubt through which the media and the endless cabals on SM try to read the family's entrails for clues.

The context of that rumour and doubt admittedly is small compared to people having to choose between eating and heating, but still, reflecting turmoil rather than soothing it, as the Queen's parents did so well during WWII, is an ominous portent.

As I've said elsewhere, in order to retrieve control of the narrative and offer up a portrait of a monarchy in control of its destiny, the monarchy now has to show itself willing to make tough calls and draw clear lines.

With a Sovereign aged 96 and clearly extremely frail, the monarchy can't wait any longer. If the Queen dies without those lines being drawn, Charles will have to begin his reign doing so.

I also wondered if the sudden, odd combo of Kate AND Princess Anne at the same official event was a hint of some kind that Anne is about to be named as the CG of the Royal Marines or something more broadly significant, like a Counsellor of State. By the way, Parliament, just as it can change the succession itself, can also change by legislation who serves as a Counsellor of State.

The bottom line is, there are too many shoes waiting to drop. It's not a good look.

I hate watched Bill Maher last night and to my surprise he actually had good guests - Fran Leibowitz, Ali Velshi and Doug Jones and didn't waste time bitching about COVID and masks. Fran Leibowitz had a go at Meghan Markle saying Harry should have never married her and how awful it would have been if Harry was the older brother. Maher said she has Harry's balls in her purse.

Thank you r106. I am only an intermittent Bill Maher watcher and didn't know Fran Lebowitz was on last night. I will definitely watch to see Fran!

r3 What did she say ?!😁 please

Ali Velshi and Doug Jones were discussing freedom of speech. Maher of course is a Musk fan, always bitching about cancel culture. He's not totally wrong either.

R108 it's probably up on YouTube now.

Well, r3 was probably referring to the following para, r108. It’s long and gives Tina ample room to gavotte. Describing a 2006 memorial for photographer Lord Lichfield, a cousin of HMTQ:

[quote]What a depressing posse they made as they filed out of the chapel! Even the younger generation looked pale and discontented. One longed for the tall, blond glory of Princess Diana to appear in a blaze of paparazzi. Princess Michael of Kent, the Silesian interloper and former interior designer, was the only one in the royal party who added a frisson of glamour. She married the Queen’s cousin HRH Prince Michael of Kent in the late 1970s, and became known as “the Führer” by Princess Diana after The Mirror revealed her father was a member of the SS. Striding down the aisle with her hair left long under an elegant black hat and a big curly smile, she had retained her Valkyrie good looks. Perhaps because her husband’s only achievements have been to grow a beard that increases his resemblance to Tsar Nicholas II and to sink from seventh to fifty-second in the order of succession, she’d made more of an effort to keep her end up.

Their financial woes are mentioned further on. Plenty of sly detail all round. The Queen is “rather attached to the affable seventy-eight-year-old Prince Michael,” and for that reason has helped them out with rent for their 5B/4-reception-room apartment in Kensington Palace, on her own dime. But the Kents’ activities in milking the royal brand don't compare to the “sordid depredations of Prince Andrew.”

“The Duke of York was a coroneted sleaze machine.”

Princess Beatrice's daughter Sienna has been christened. Personally, I think she should have gone with the Italian Elisabetta as a middle name rather than yet another Elizabeth.

On twitter some outlet is claiming Megaloon's pregnant again (or their surrogate is). Looks like she's got her excuse not to go to the UK for the Queen's Jubilee.

r110 Thanks very much!

She and Harry said they would only have two children for the sake of the environment, R112.

OOh Hubby Mozzi looks like he's having married remorse in that shot.

R112, that piece of data fits the narrative that needs to be played out now due to the timeline of its objective.

I can’t understand why P. Beatrice can’t find a nice concealer/highlighter for her eyes.

[Quote][R112], that piece of data fits the narrative that needs to be played out now due to the timeline of its objective.

The narrative would also helpfully explain Meghan's ever-fattening and expanding face. From once having had regular botox to parylyze and shrink her masseter jaw muscles that helped give her a sculpted, high cheek bone look. Now, her face fat matches the back fat.

Although he is short, Edo is a very beautiful man.

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Tina only has old sources from the Palace, and this book comes off as no more than a collection of re-tread clippings of old news stories, very much in the Kitty Kelley style.

She may think she's furthering the cause of the Royals, but instead, this very, very long People article of a book is justification for getting rid of the monarchy once and for all.

[quote]Tina only has old sources from the Palace

Aren't they the best? They have historic memory and can point to newer, juicer sources, which apparently happened.

R120, maybe Edo's jealous of the hot Prince Carl Philip and his very attractive wife.

In what universe is Carl Philip’s wife “very attractive”?

Is it just me, or does Edo's face scream "I'm gay!"

[Quote]In what universe is Carl Philip’s wife “very attractive”?

The straight one,where she was a porn star.

Wait, what?! Grade-A bachelor Prince Carl Philip's wife is an ex-porn actress?! I thought she was "just" a nude glamour model?

R115, if you mean the thumbnail at R111, that photo was taken before their wedding.

r121 Your post doesn't make much sense. You knock the book as a retread but done in a Kitty Kelley style then go on to imply Brown is "furthering the cause of the Royals" which itself implies the book is PRO-Royal when it's not that at all.

Well into the book now, I agree that whilst hardly a total reweave of old stories and unproven rumours, there are enough of same to make the book feel more rushed. In places even sloppy. This wasn't the case with The Diana Chronicles.

And she needs a fact checker. In the chapter on the Queen Mother, she repeatd the old canard about the trust funds left Harry and William including the bit about leaving a larger share to Harry.

This is AFTER a representative of Harry's estate came our and publicly put the story to rest, stating that Harry had received nothing from the Queen Mother and the story was false.

That's just sloppy.

What's damning in the book is not so benign as a PEOPLE Magazine article: the portrait of Charles, especially, as a ruthless, luxury obsessed, selfish man living in absurd grandeur as he travels.

The other damning portrait is of the Queen's total inability to cope with emotional conflict.

I have to say my admiration for Camilla has increased tremendously. Meghan is a rank amateur next to Camilla, and if there is one person she should have listened to and made an ally of, it was Camillia, who e evidently tried.

It's obvious that both William and Harry had the parents from hell, both afflicted with varied levels of narcissism. Why one escaped seems increasingly like just dumb luck.

The portraits of most of the family, but especially Charles, confirm my view that if the family want to save the monarchy, the Cambridges are its only hope. His own narcissism will put paid to Charles stepping aside. The monarchy's only hope is Charles dying an unlocked for early death.

^*unlooked (not unlocked) for

Fucking autocorrect.

From the I-can't-believe-it's-not-fictionly named Sophia Money-Coutts, writing for Sunday in The Telegraph: Rolling news: HRH’s lavatorial habits still a mystery

"Having recently written about Putin’s £950 loo brush, I don’t want to come across as someone who’s obsessed with lavatorial matters. That said, in Tina Brown’s new book, The Palace Papers, she reveals that Prince Charles insists on travelling everywhere with his own supply of “Kleenex Velvet” loo roll. The only trouble is, having done extensive research into this (you’re welcome), there isn’t any such thing.

There’s Kleenex Quilted or Kleenex Comfort, and there’s another brand entirely called Velvet that makes Velvet Comfort, Velvet Classic Quilted and even Velvet Triple Soft. But I can’t find any trace of Kleenex Velvet. Unless Brown means that Prince Charles likes Kleenex Balsam on his bottom, but those are technically tissues and we can’t honestly be expected to believe that the future king is carting about boxes of tissues for his ablutions, can we? Urgent clarification is needed."

R126 is exaggerating. She was a bikini model and reality TV participant. She has a weird face but her body is the straight man ideal. I’ve grown to like her, she’s matured after getting married and fulfills her role well.

Kitty Kelly always triple sourced everything and despite all the salacious things she reported, she has never ever been sued. No one would dare.

What r134 said. Kelley gets an unfair bad rap.

And you just know that when Kelly's Nancy Reagan bio hit the bookstore shelf, the DC punditocracy that piously looked down their noses at her, sent the help to purchase it, even if it meant they had to read it by flashlight under their bedcovers.

No one would dare challenge her in court, I meant to say. She certainly had her enemies.

Meg's Pearl productions has been "Markled" by Netflix.

^ production

I'm about a third of the way through. Compulsively readable. So far the royal who comes off best is Prince Philip. Brown is scathing about the Queen Mother and Prince Charles and Camilla comes in for a lynching. When she writes about what happened with Prince Edward and Sophie's attempts to be half-in/half-out the monarchy, it's obvious Harry and Meghan were totally deluded thinking they could pull off what Edward couldn't. And they obviously used his playbook of thinking they could convert royal fame into making a fortune on documentaries.

R137 Chelsea Clinton on Twitter was talking about a documentary series she's doing about pre-eminent women. Sounds like Netflix decided Chelsea has more credibility than little Miss Markle.

Edward at least produced one or two creditable documentaries in the course of his failed commercial venture.

R139 I don't see how you thought Camilla came off badly. Agree with your other observations though.

R142 Camilla's scheming against Kanga, using Charles to try to make her husband jealous. Her blatant disregard for Diana's feelings.

What does Brown say about the Queen Mother?

[quote] So far the royal who comes off best is Prince Philip.

I loved the comment by one of his staff that Philip was the best boss in the family because he knew it was much easier to ask for something to be done than it was to do it. If only 99% of bosses understood that.

R144 she's trashing her. The Queen Mum was extravagant beyond belief and Charles inherited her OTT desire for luxury. The Queen, in contrast, and Prince Philip were tight-fisted and horrified at all the money she and her little acolyte Charles were wasting. The Queen really, really doesn't like Charles.

About the Netflix deal falling through, there was some insider involved in the production of Meghan's animated series who already leaked on Tumblr a couple of months ago that it was a disaster: Meghan wanted the heroine to be her, look like her, have her voice but with drawings that plagiarized Disney. Meghan wanted to be a Disney Princess basically. She was impossible to work with. Had no idea what she was doing but was still bullying everybody to get her own way. She was already on the outs with David Furnish back then. It seems like what the Palace staff complained about with Meghan was also experienced by the Netflix staff. To quote Samuel Goldwyn: "people thought she knew fuck nothing but she showed them she knew fuck all".

YAAAAY I got a gift card for my birthday and I finally used it to buy this book. I will begin tonight!!!

Harry sucking up to the Queen instead of to his father is a big mistake. The Queen won't give him a dime but guilty, extravagant Charles would. Harry's a moron.

[quote] Meghan wanted to be a Disney Princess basically.

This sentence sums up Meghan's entire life since 2016

"Harry sucking up to the Queen instead of to his father is a big mistake."

Like I said, Harry's biggest source of future income is Charles's will. He'd be a fool to fail to suck up to Charles, and to make sure he spends enough time with Archie and Lillie to get attached, before the parents use withholding them as bargaining chips.

But then, Harry IS a fool, and Meg is hardly smarter.

What is interesting is that they really did think that they were backing TQ into a corner first be pre-releasing their Sussex Royal website with the half in/half out and then again with the Oprah interview. I do understand getting caught up in the heat of the moment but Harry of all people should have known the consequences (losing his titles and honorary military ranks).

Another interesting tidbit is that TQ's advisors are very much aware of the right people around her. Apparently if she is on her own, she is more a pushover with her kids and grandkids and knows this about herself. Whenever she has to make decisions about that effect the Crown, she always has gatekeepers with her. Apparently M&H tried to circumvent the system to get the half in/half out scheme. When they arrived, the people around her cancelled the meeting.

Reading this book, I truly cannot believe the failure of judgment that was the Queen folding to Charles and Andrew’s demands and firing Christopher Geidt.

One of the most enjoyable parts of this read is the catty comments Tina slings at random side characters like Emilie Van Cutsem. This whole sector of society is filled with phonies and snakes.

One thing that's coming through in Brown's book is that it was damn lucky William met Kate and the Middletons. They grounded him in reality, something the royal family is ill-equipped to deal with.

Ol' Carol Middleton and Mike sure were successful parents. One daughter will be Queen of England, and wife and mother to a king, and Pippa married BIG Wealth and has become a member of the Nobility. Serious nobility. Her husband's family goes back hundreds of years. And the son did alright too. At least they've kept his ass out of the tabloids.

The Scottish nobility? LOL.

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Kate will never be “Queen of England”.

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r158 "Queen of England" is an American expression.

True r160, and honestly we're going to say it forever. It won't change. The whole Great Britain and United Kingdom thing is all well and good, but Queen of England is her "American title" (and eventually King of England for Charles) until the end of this whole thing.

Just like Americans calling Diana, Princess of Wales "Princess Diana." It is what we've always called her, even though it wasn't her official title.

Damn r159, the worst punishment I can imagine for Meghan Markle, or really all annoying celebrities, is to be fated to spend the rest of their life around obnoxious twats like Melanie Blake, and that whole godawful industry of branding and bullshit.

R163.

Pippa’s father-in-law is still under suspicion

Of being Pippa's father-in-law r165? Well that is not be countenanced, indeed.

I thought it was the father-in-law's brother who was in trouble? And wasn't Pippa engaged to a Percy? I thought they had more wealth and nobility than God.

Wow, didn't know there were still Percys. They do go way, way back. Wars of the Roses? Or earlier? Not sure.

Earlier. And yeah, Pippa was supposed to marry one. I forgot they broke up and she married this guy instead. What a Dummy.

Scroll down for information Apparently she was "very close" to Percy and his sisters, but married Matthews. Makes me wonder if Percy is Gay?

r146 that's interesting. Could you link to the original source?

I was watching Ten Percent on Prime and thinking what a terrible job.

Here. Scroll down. I think the Percy guy might be Gay. He and Pippa were "very close."

She was never engaged to him. George Percy will be next Duke of Northumberland. Present Duke worth 419M pounds.

He's not bad looking for a Toff.

R174 that must be his father. George looks much younger.

It is. I forgot to link:

Here's an article about Pippa's wedding and if you scroll down about the Percys.

The racist at r35 is accusing a black woman of being "not very bright" as if anyone in the royal family is Stephen Hawking

r35 is correct about Meghan. It has nothing to do with her race.

[quote]The book is out now and a digital version is floating online if you know where to look

Oh Christ you sound like an idiot.

It's on z library. They have it on Mobi and ePub files, but you can always convert them to other files by using this website. you do have to register to use z library, but it's safe.

“American title”? I thought that you lot fought a war to end the use of titles?

Yeah, well, we say a lot of things, r182, and you'd pissed us off with that whole tea tax thing. We can still love our Queen of England, like we loved our Princess Diana.

R161 “the whole Great Britain and United Kingdom thing is all well and good, but”.

Much better to just dumb it down to “England” rather than to learn something about another country - way too complicated!

It's a colloquial shorthand r184. Like your lot calls the US "America" when that is not the actual, proper name of the country.

Oh, don't be dreary r184. I'm sure you'll all survive without the U.S. getting it all correct. Now that whole Court of Saint James thing? What's that nonsense about?

[quote]The racist at [R35] is accusing a black woman of being "not very bright" as if anyone in the royal family is Stephen Hawking

R179, she is as much white as she is black...she plays the black card when she imagines it will be useful. And, yes, she's proven on many occasions that she's thick as fog.

Thank you, R181.

JFGI R186

In a nutshell:

The Queen: Really only cares about horses, the corgis, doing her duty and...that's about it. Not keen on drama or any kind of emotion. Really a cold fish. Bit of a bitch when she wants to be. Fond of and relies on Anne and Edward. Dotes on her darling Andrew. Doesn't really care for Charles.

Philip: An old school chap who managed to forge out a life that made him happy working on the charities he cared about, racing his little horse cart, and having a bird or two on the side. Anne is his favorite; the boys are all disappointing. Doesn't really care for Charles. Tried to modernise the monarchy as much as he could. Butted heads with Queen Mum. Constantly made unfortunate remarks which is the nice way to say he was a racist old coot.

Queen Mum: The original two faced mum....the sweetly lovable old marshmallow she presented to the world and behind the scenes, a very conservative old drunk who liked to spend money and cause problems for Lillibet and Phil.

Charles: an old fusspot constantly whinging on and on about how unfair life is. Loves the luxury life. Drives pretty much everyone to distraction. Not well liked by anyone in the family though his sons do/did really seem to care for him. And, so does Camilla.

Camilla: Yes, she had an affair with a married man. But, she actually turned out to be very very good for Charles. Level headed, earthy, fun to be around. Not keen on the Royal life but she gets the job done. No, I don't think she comes across as a "villain" at all in the Palace Papers. She's not perfect; she schemed and scrambled to get where she is but that's how you play the game.

Anne: Hard worker. That's about all Brown has to say about her.

Andrew: Is an absolute fucktwit of a human being. Pompous. Thinks he's very intelligent when he's not. Treats people like shit. Fucks 17 year old girls.

Fergie: A boob. Still somewhat likable. Still surprisingly loyal to the Royal Firm despite being treated like shit.

Sophie and Edward: bland and hardworking. Edward is probably gay. (Brown does hint around about it a bit).

Prince and Princess Michael of Kent: Boobs and shady. Brown has a lot of fun throwing shade on the Teutonic Princess.

Margaret: A mess. And, a tragedy. But, was a surprisingly good mother. Weirdly, the Queen wasn't with her when she died...in fact, it sounds like she deliberately stayed away to avoid having to deal with any emotion over her supposedly beloved sister dying.

[quote]Much better to just dumb it down to “England” rather than to learn something about another country - way too complicated!

What other country are you talking about? The United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Apparently the mother of Pippa's aristo ex poisoned the well re Pippa. She didn't care for the the furore over Pippa's ass after Kate's wedding, and said that Pippa was not marriage material. She then had a very hot aristo bf who was a banker in Switzerland, but that ended. She wound up marrying Matthews, whom she had discarded years earlier - he is a lot older than her, and not at all hot.

Completely missing the point, and the sarcasm, R191.

From The Telegraph review of the Duke of Kent's autobiography:

The Duke is far too discreet to say this, but it’s hard not to read his memoir as an implicit reproach to Prince Harry, who has his own book coming out later this year. The Duke’s example of a royal life dedicated to self-effacing service stands in stark contrast to Harry’s career as a celebrity prince.

And there's the nutshell. If he'd only just walked away quietly and with dignity.

R179 Because, we all know, mo one with a drop of black DNA could possibly be stupid. Let alone o e who's at best only half-black.

She cocked up the royal gig; she never got beyond 6th on the call sheet of a silly cable show; she antagonised the people who finally put her on the global celebrity map, then threw her toys out of the pram and flounced out when she realised she'd taken on a role she couldn't master and then tried to blame everyone else for it; she perjured herself in court papers, got found out and had to apologise; and it's clear she cocked up the Netflix and Spotify gigs; she'd go back to Frogmore Cottage in a heartbeat now that she realises how badly she miscalculated her innate appeal and what a great gig being a working royal was, but she goaded her dimwitted husband, who being 100% white is twice as stupid as she is, burned so many bridges between themselves and the purse and favour keepers, the entire family except for that dolt Eugenie AND the UK populace . . . That they can't

Meghan even encouraged her little attendants at the wedding to bully Pss Pss Charlotte. One of the little bastards gave Charlotte a shove as they were proceeding down the aisle. You know, the only daughter of the future King Regnant and Queen Consort? (As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.)

I dunno. If it walks like not very bright, and quacks like not very bright . . .

[quote] She then had a very hot aristo bf who was a banker in Switzerland, but that ended. She wound up marrying Matthews, whom she had discarded years earlier - he is a lot older than her, and not at all hot.

"She's on the rebound", I thought, when Pippa Middleton's engagement to her current wealthy husband was announced and gossiped about here.

Especially after seeing a pic of the ex-boyfriend banker- very tall and hot- and how he wouldn't commit, and, to add just the right dollop of sentimental melodrama, her current husband "waited" for her.

Oh well, a broken heart heals, and money, even, if it can't buy happiness, can, in the words of Rhett Butler, "...buy some of the most remarkable substitutes."

I don't know why people don't much care for James Matthews. I think he's lovely; he's just my type: tall, slender, quirky-cute face. I'd marry him in a heartbeat.

Agree, r197.

If my post seemed critical of him, I'm remiss. My point was more about Pippa and her state of mind and heart about the ex when she married Matthews.

Oh no, don't worry, Delia. I generally agree with your argument, it's just the comments from some people, that Pippa somehow downgraded with Matthews, that I was referencing. I think he seems like an intelligent, well-read guy (always more interesting!) who's sweet-natured, low on drama and successful. If anything, he's an upgrade. I'd take him over Harry any day. He's even a better catch than William, who seems great, but he comes with Royal baggage.

Della* not Delia! I wrote about Delia Smith recently; my phone must've thought I hadn't stopped and "corrected" it!

R199 - That's because Pippa dated a couple of higher-ranking men in terms of aristocratic hierarchy - Loudon was one (it was his mother who said more in sorrow than in anger that Pippa and the circus that went with her "just wasn't wife material"), and, of course, the really big fish that got away, George Percy, heir to the Northumberland ducal title, complete with Alnwick castle and a pedigree going back to 155os. Can you imagine a mother who had placed one daughter as the future Princess of Wales and Queen Consort, and the other as Her Grace The Duchess of Northumberland?!

Pippa was over thirty, Matthews had been waiting for her for a long time, she'd exhausted more glamourous possibilities, it was time to drop the pretence of careers, marry well, have a couple of kids, and settle into the life of wealth, privilege, and fantastic family and social connections.

She did well, no doubt about it, but it's fairly plain that Matthews was who she turned to in the end. She's lucky he was so besotted with her that he was willing to wait.

Billionaire nod dengred. So lonk ez real billionaire.

And more to come, this time from Valentine Low, the estimable TIMES reporter that Meghan tried to intimidate over the bullying report he leaked.

R195

[quote] One of the little bastards gave Charlotte a shove as they were proceeding down the aisle.

Really??

I missed this. Was it caught by the cameras?

I knew Meghan Markle was common, basic trash when the engagement photo was released. That ridiculous dress that looked like something out of the 80s was a) totally inappropriate for an engagement photo, b) totally inappropriate for daytime and c) ridiculously overpriced. That was the first time I thought "this one is going to be a handful of drama."

Lowe's book is coming out September 29, same month as Harry's. Should be fun.

Same here, R205. The dress cost over £50,000, much more than the median yearly household income in the UK. It is possible it was a loan, but what sort of message does it send to Britons?.

r194 the Telegraph gave the Duke of Kent's memoir four stars out of five - high praise for a book by a 2nd tier royal. Any chance someone can link to an un-paywalled version of your review link?

The Duke of Kent’s surprising memoir is an implicit reproach to Prince Harry

4/5 The Queen’s self-effacing first cousin becomes the first royal to publish a memoir about her reign – months before Harry's version is due

When the Duke of Kent was christened in 1935, hundreds of people flocked to watch the baby coming out of his parents’ house in Belgrave Square. He was the son of the glamorous royal couple Prince George Duke of Kent (a younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI) and Princess Marina, a granddaughter of the King of Greece. As an infant, his pram was pushed by a liveried footman and followed by a detective wearing a bowler hat.

The Duke of Kent has devoted his life to serving the Queen. He is her first cousin, a Knight of the Garter, the senior freemason, and stands 12th in the order of precedence. He has witnessed all the major events of the Queen’s reign, and he has never stepped out of line. Yet the Duke of Kent, now 86, can walk down Kensington High Street and nobody will recognise him.

His decision to publish a memoir comes as a surprise. Very few royals have written autobiographies in the present reign, and those who have – Princess Mary Louise, Princess Alice Countess of Athlone and Princess Alice Duchess of Gloucester – were mainly concerned with previous reigns. No royal has published a memoir of the Queen’s reign.

Advertisement The Duke is far too discreet to say this, but it’s hard not to read his memoir as an implicit reproach to Prince Harry, who has his own book coming out later this year. The Duke’s example of a royal life dedicated to self-effacing service stands in stark contrast to Harry’s career as a celebrity prince.

This book began as a lockdown project – a series of Zoom conversations between the Duke and his co-author, the royal expert Hugo Vickers. The book consists of extracts from interviews with the Duke and his family which Vickers has edited and pulled together with a commentary. It’s a good way of writing a memoir, and the book is a pleasure to read.

HRH The Duke of Kent, then Prince Edward, between the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and Princess Margaret, at Frogmore House in Windsor, 1930s 'I always felt I wanted to support her. That’s by far the most important thing in life': HRH The Duke of Kent, then Prince Edward, between the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, and Princess Margaret, at Frogmore House in Windsor, 1930s CREDIT: Private Collection of HRH The Duke of Kent The Duke of Kent is “thoroughly royal” on both sides of his family. His mother, Princess Marina, was a first cousin of Prince Philip. He has so many cousins that he admits to getting “hopelessly confused” whether they are Greek or Russian or Serbian. The Duke grew up at Coppins, his parents’ home near Windsor, but his idyllic childhood was shadowed by the war and the death of his father Prince George in an air crash in 1942.

The Duke was six when his father was killed, and he has few memories of him. “The sad thing is,” he says, “I can only remember isolated moments – he was away so much because of the war.” Prince George was a fascinating figure, a cultivated playboy prince who had a string of unsuitable affairs. The contrast between father and son could hardly be greater.

Princess Marina was left to bring up her three children on her own. “It was difficult for my mother,” says the Duke. “She really didn’t have many friends in England.” She was close to her relations and especially her two sisters, one of whom was married to a German count and lived in Germany during the war, while her other sister, Olga, the wife of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, was in exile in South Africa. “We were too young to be aware,” recalls the Duke, “but what these people must have gone through, divided families and so on. It must have been terribly difficult.” Later, the three sisters came to be known as the Fabergé aunts. They would collapse into fits of helpless laughter at slapstick jokes, and they were gifted mimics. Marina was effortlessly chic, and other royals seemed chunky and homespun by contrast with her.

'We were too young to be aware what these people would have gone through': Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, arm-in-arm with his sister Princess Alexandra and his mother Marina, Duchess of Kent and Princess of Greece, in the garden of their family home, Coppins, in the village of Ivers, Buckinghamshire, 1956 CREDIT: Hulton Deutsch Coppins was “the cosiest house possible” according to the Duke’s brother, Prince Michael, but after the war money was tight. Marina didn’t receive a war widow’s pension. The Duke suggests that Tommy Lascelles, the King’s private secretary, “maybe felt it would look bad for a member of the Royal Family”. To pay the bills, Princess Marina “had to sell a lot of my father’s collection at Christie’s in 1947”. Eventually the princess was given a provision on the civil list.

The Duke was sent to prep school at Ludgrove. He recalls being “very much bullied. I had no father, which didn’t help, and I was no good at cricket or football, which were the two principal things that mattered there.” After three years at Eton, where his studies were cut short by health problems, he enrolled at Le Rosey in Switzerland, becoming a proficient skier.

The army was the obvious career choice for a royal duke, and he was sent to Sandhurst. The author Alan Mallinson, who later chaired the selection boards for entry, looked up the Duke’s notes at the Royal Military Academy, and found that in the psychometric tests (assessing innate intelligence rather than educational attainment) the Duke scored exceptionally highly, in spite of his self-effacing manner.

He has always had a liking for cars – his daughter Lady Helen Taylor says it is “just his greatest joy, peering under the bonnet of a car, inhaling the fumes”. He was the leading deb’s delight of his day, known as Fast Eddie and famed for his driving – he survived three dreadful car crashes.

n 1961 he married Katharine Worsley, the daughter of a Yorkshire baronet. He stayed in the army for a time, occasionally undertaking functions for the Queen. The monarch never attends independence ceremonies, and as the winds of change blew through the British empire, it was the Duke who flew out to countries such as Uganda and The Gambia to watch the lowering of the union flag. He recalls his 1962 visit to Uganda: “When I look back on YouTube, everyone seems so excited with a bright future ahead of them. It was tragic what happened.”

The Duke did well at Staff College, and he was “one of our outstanding young officers”. But he was frustrated in Northern Ireland, where he was pulled out for fear that he might either be captured or forced to order his squadron to fire on a British citizen.

He retired from the army in 1975, and he was faced with the problem that “the Royal Family don’t do proper jobs”. He found unpaid work with the British Overseas Trade Board and collected a portfolio of charities and organisations – he has 110 patronages. He has been President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for 50 years. For a time in the 1970s, the lack of available members of the royal family meant that the Duke and his mother and sister Princess Alexandra were needed to undertake royal duties, but when Prince Charles and Princess Anne grew up, there was less work for the Kents.

Reading this book I was reminded of George V, the Duke’s grandfather, another royal who was dedicated to doing his duty. The Duke has led a blameless life. There are no scandals in this book, or outside it. But this memoir is a timely reminder of the need for service. As Vickers says, “the best members of the family are those who support the Queen and don’t compete with her”. The Duke agrees. “I always felt I wanted to support her,” says he. “That’s by far the most important thing in life.”

A Royal Life by HRH The Duke of Kent and Hugo Vickers is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £25. To order your copy for £19.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books

Jane Ridley’s latest book is George V: Never a Dull Moment (Chatto & Windus)

I'm reading it now. Man, the horsey nobility sure get around! Especially, it seems, Camilla's first husband.

[quote]As Vickers says, “the best members of the family are those who support the Queen and don’t compete with her”. The Duke agrees. “I always felt I wanted to support her,” says he. “That’s by far the most important thing in life.”

This is probably still true, but cultural backdrop has changed so much in less than 100 years. I doubt a person like Meghan Markle (and there are a lot of people like Meghan Markle) could even conceive of a life lived according to such alien principles, let alone choose to live in accordance with them. She seems to be someone who simply doesn't understand why anyone would ever do anything if it's not going to lead to a direct personal benefit.

I've said this before and it's worth mentioning again. A lot of people overlook the fact that The Queen is a religious leader as much as she is a monarch. She is head of the Church, and she is anointed in a cathedral. So Service, Duty, etc. are foundational to her existence.

This is just my opinion, but I think the Queen has pretty much checked out and is just hanging on to make it through the Platinum Jubilee. She's not really "there" anymore. And of course she's become very frail since Philip died, much more so than she was before.

Again, just my opinion.

Thank you r209-r211 for posting that.

The pap pics Meghan ordered at the polo event show Markus Anderson was by her side. Is he gay as well as being a pimp? Or did she fuck him?

R217 - I believe Markus is wholly homo. Not that she wouldn't have tried it on, anyway, if she thought flattering him that way would help him help her.

She probably hits on every guy available.

She's a whore, darling!

She does love to flash her fanny to rich and/or powerful guys.

r220 She's such a feminist!

Maybe Meg can land a billionaire with a back-fat fetish. Elon?

Well, I finished the book, and found it disappointing compared to The Diana Chronicles. It didn't have quite the bite, it had factual errors in it (Apartment 1 in Kensington Palace was never offered to the Sussexes - they didn't "refuse it", they couldn't have it, and then there was the bullshit yet again about the Queen Mother's nonexistent trust funds left to the Wales boys), and it cut Meghan, especially, far too much slack.

The best chapters were the ones that really didn't concern the Sussexes, but the history of Epstein and Maxwell that led up to Andrew getting into their web. It was quite dark, especially the bit about [SPOILER] the ten year old Ghislaine showing her frilly room at ten years old to someone, including a little dresser on which were an oddly shaped brush and some other ominous looking instruments, and Ghislaine saying proudly, "These are the things Daddy beats me with, but he always lets me pick which one."

It doesn't let her off the hook for what she did to cement her relationship with Epstein, but it does explain it somewhat. That entire section was far more disturbing than Charles' extravagance and the general stupidity shown by most of the BRF except William and Kate, who both came off extremely well, and as the clear hope for the monarchy.

It just wasn't as much . . . FUN as The Diana Chronicles.

^*I would also say that in some moments I felt ashamed to be male. I really think we're wired for predation.

Almost finished with it. Prince Charles comes off the worst. Harry's pretty awful as well. Brown was at least "understanding" about Markle. Markle's only points of reference were desperately trying to be a Hollywood celebrity and she had zero understanding of class or royalty. Racism had nothing to do with her issues. Snobbism, sure. Markle was probably too old when she married Harry and too set in her Hollywood mindset (and not helped by hiring Sunshine Sachs who like Meghan had zero understanding of royalty, Brits or even Europeans). Strictly California. And Meghan made no effort to understand the role she was supposed to play. Like Brown writes, Meghan could have at least prepared for the biggest role she'd ever have but she couldn't be bothered. I sense that Meghan is lazy as shit - as is Harry - which explains their problems.

See, R223, for me, Diana lost he fascination years ago. I think we were saturated with stories and information and rumors and gossip about Diana forever. It was just too much. So the Diana chronicles didn't interest me. But I'm enjoying this one because it's about all of them. A while ago I read a rather flowery book about the Princes at War, which dealt with Bertie and his bothers. it was pretty interesting. But the author wasn't nearly as critical as he should have been.

I just had a look at the cover of the book on the DM. A very unflattering photo of Kate was used; she looks mean and vindictive. MM on the other hand looks fresh, innocent and considerably younger, next to her.

Seems like shade, but the contents of the book show otherwise.

Can someone point me to a download of the book? Z Library doesn't seem to exist any longer.

R227 Z-Library is very much alive and thrives. And the books is very much available for d/l. If you're using a VPN and/or ad block, turn them off before accessing the site.

Another thanx to R209 - R211, especially the heads-up about the Duke's book, which I've begun reading.

The Duke of Kent has truly dedicated his life to the service of his sovereign, his first cousin. He was so very frail at the late Prince Philip's memorial, barely hobbling into the church. As frail as he is, when asked why he didn't retire from public duties, he responded "I'll retire when my cousin (QEII) does".

Finished it (but I only read the second part). It does feel familiar to the point that I could swear some parts of the book were lifted verbatim from the Royal threads here on DL (e.g. about Geidt and the role his departure played in the recent events that rocked the RF). There are no revelations in the book, but it is hard to put it down once you start reading. It puts into perspective all the Royal gossip that is floating around without the conspiracy spins that permeate the forums. What stood out to me, it’s how much they (the RF and RF-adjacent) complain. Most of all, probably, Charles, then Harry, William, Andrew, all the wives and girlfriends - Meghan, Camilla, Sophie, Chelsy, Cressida. The only ones who don’t complain, it seems, are TQ and the Middletons.

The most tragic figure in the book, for me, is hands down Thomas Markle Sr. Tina Brown portrays him as very vulnerable, very human, very hardworking, utterly crushed by the media, the Palace, and the sharper than serpent’s tooth thankless child. It’s refreshing that his former coworkers have such nice things to say about him. It’s sad that his decline and ultimate crush and burn seem predestined and that all his children seem to have inherited the character traits that led him to it. When Brown writes about bad judgement and “when he’s in a hole, he keeps digging” she could as well be writing about Meghan.

How did the Palace crush him? That's interesting.

From what I have read and heard from my UK friends, no one complains and schemes more, or is more despised than Andrew. Hands down. Charles is a complainer and he is needy, but he benefits from people's disgust with Andrew. He had his brief moment when he was in his 20's and 30's, but Andrew is a filthy pig with a very unattractive personality.

Great interview with Tina Brown on Lorraine today.

I love how those who hate the monarchy are trying to skew this poll. Yes 1 in 4 are favour of abolishing the monarchy (a number that has remained relatively stagnate since the 80s) but conversely 3 in 4 want to keep it or are indifferent. Yes younger people are less likely to support it but that is nothing new really. My parents are baby boomers, they grew up hating the monarchy and now they think it's "part of our identity." The truth is that after the Oprah shitstorm and the Andrew scandal the real shock is the numbers to abolish the monarchy aren't higher.

The BRF scandal hinted at this week has just exploded onto the internet. My uk tabloid source was right yet again. Kate attending the illegal vigil for the murdered uk woman. Met police records claim Meghan attended. It's an historical legal document. It was only discovered after a legal information request. Met police claim they were working on what was reported in media. Twitter then produced over 40 articles in uk that have Cressida Dick stating Kate attended because she was working. So met police did know it was Kate attending. So Kate's name was replaced with Meghans. The protest was deemed illegal. It's blowing up online.

R235... huh???

"online"= r 235's diseased mind.

r235? Markle was in California last March. Kate went to the memorial and not the eveing vigil anyway.

Oh R235 you sad twat - there’s always something “blowing up online” in your unhinged rants, no matter from which sock puppet you are posting.

You need to use a thesaurus to mix up your personalities’ writing styles, otherwise I could spot your posts from a satellite.

And try and avoid late night (it’s after 11 in the UK, right?) drunk postings.

R235 is the Megaloon who is always announcing the DL will be closed down if we say anything mean about La Markle.

I hadn't realized the extent to which Paul Burrell was a lying thief. Yikes. And the Queen intervened because she didn't want a messy trial whereas the Spencer clan wanted blood.

Who comes off worst in The Palace Papers? 1) Prince Andrew 2) Fergie 3) Prince Charles 4) Harry 5) Meghan 6) Queen Mum

And that's just the royal family. Prince Charles' toadying aides-de-camp and Burrell get eviscerated. And of course Emilie van Cutsem - that bitch.

Who comes off well? In no particular order Chelsy Davy, Tom Markle, Cressida Bonas. She's critical of the Queen, William and Kate though she also recognizes their considerable strengths. Prince Philip comes off best.

But her vitriol aimed at Rebecca Brooks, the Murdoch press (News of the Screws, The Sun) who hacked Diana, William, Harry and Chelsy's phones is deadly.

The Daily Mail actually comes off as just bitchy. The Murdoch press is vicious.

R240 their sheer lunacy is yet another good reason for me to say mean things about Fat Markle.

I swear, the most unlikeable thing about Fat Markle are her deranged fancunts.

I will be forever grateful to the deadly-duo. Their stupidity, antics &really bad photos gave me so many laughs during lockdown. It was wonderful. Like Lucy level of laughter. Could not believe 2 people could be soooo Dumb Good times!

Tom Markle was an almost tragic figure in the book. Brown got numerous quotes about what a wonderful friend and colleague he was from people he'd worked with on Married with Children and General Hospital - all of them infuriated by the way Meghan treated him. He'd spoiled her rotten. “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

R235 - Hi, Pet, dear. What number sock puppet is this of yours, now?

Kate made a quite public appearance at that vigil with many other women who also bravely did so. Or is it your opinion that the police were absolutely right and the woman murdered and raped by a police officer should have passed without any public anger?

No one tried to hide it. Some women were arrested but hardly everyone there, and Kate, to her credit made SURE she was photographed there.

Man you really are a sad sack scraping the bottom of the barrel if you're grabbing for this.

Repeat: no one tried to hide it; Kate went to be sure people DID know she was there, because she was once a single woman often out alone at night in London; and the ordinance against the vigil was condemned by the public.

So, any other tricks you want to try to deflect attention from Meghan's latest debacle?

Go back under your rock, dear.

R235 - Oh, and that "scandal" has far from "exploded onto the Internet", dear.

The only Internet taking note of it are you sick Kate hating Meghaloons.

The Megaloons have to be going crazy trying to change the subject from Netflix.

R238 - Oh, yeah, that photo and that event . . . that is just going to FINISH OFF KATE IN THE PUBLIC MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT a scandale! An infamia! A gran scena!!!!

You know, I don't know what we'd do without the Klan Granny Troll to give us hope that there ARE other forms of nonhumanoid life in the Universe . . .

I do hope the Klan Granny Troll is getting paid by Sunshine Sucks. If she isn't, she needs to be committed to an insane asylum.

R249 - Oh, I don't know - clearly she has a terrific imagination and a gift for incredible scenarios . . . she could try writing fiction . . .

Oh, wait . . . .!

R238 - Oh, don't spoil her fun. The fact that Kate was photographed there, that Meghan was in California, that Kate made a fucking public statement, and that the fucking lunatic who put that up has no proof whatsoever of her assertions . . .

These lunatics cook up stories without any attention to what Pooh-Bah called "artistic verisimilitude".

Kate is photographed there. Kate makes a public statement about why. Articles appear with the story and Kate's photograph and her statement about why she attended the memorial . . . but the Megaloon story is that somehow Meghan's name was inserted and, well, nobody remembered the photographs, the articles, Kate's statement . . .

Must have been Gindelwald's work.

I hope Pa Markle reads the book. It will be upsetting but he can see the nice things his former co workers said about him.

This is the shit that's driving the Megaloons crazy. This is the future Queen, elegant, poised, gorgeous, whilst Meghan gets the boot from Netflix, Spotify leaks that it had to "edit' Meghan's podcast, and Harry hides behind his polo pony for the last huge event of his grandmother's reign except for her funeral.

Was Harry spreading his cheeks in hopes of a Mr. Hands type situation?

I’ve always felt very sorry for Mr Markle. He worked hard, cared for his kids as best he could, seemingly had a good relationship with Meghan and did a lot for her. And just when he has reached the stage of life when he can pat himself on the back and enjoy an unremarkable retirement, his daughter meets a man and a bomb goes off under his life. Suddenly his name is known across the globe, his life is dissected in the media and he is expected to walk his daughter down the aisle under the gaze of hundreds of millions across the globe, to marry the grandson of the Queen of England.

He might not have handled the situation well, but he never seems to have tried to hurt anyone. He deserved a bit of compassion, but Harry and Meghan wrote him off. He deserved better.

Meghan and Harry should have gone to Mexico to see him and help him out. But Meghan didn't want him at her wedding: he's fat and unattractive. She couldn't bear to be associated with him. And Harry was downright hateful to him.

Plus, Tom would have outed her as a liar.

Didn't Papa Markle have some unkind words about Harry?

R258 he said Harry had called him and was extremely nasty, aggressive and insulting. But he was taking his cues from the Little Woman who revealed her disdain for her father in the notes she wrote Jason Knauf.

How to spot a KGT post, from any of its sock puppets:

Extensive use of the following:

“Exploded onto the internet”

“My UK tabloid source”

“Blowing up online”

“Internet wide”

“Gaining traction”

“You will be blown away”

“Met police high level investigation”

“Twitter shitstorm”

“Snowballing on Twitter”

Not to mention references to Yankee Wally, Christopher Bouzy and The Daily Heil.

And always posted late night UK time, aka as the KGT’s cocktail hour.

And, R259, when Harry called him and was a nasty POS, Mr. Markle was in the hospital.

Nice to see Thomas Markle getting positive comments here and in the book. MM's treatment of her father was, from the beginning, one of the things that made me find her detestable.

Lady C always mentions how badly Mr. Markle was treated. She claims BP wanted to send people to help him with the press (as they did with Doria), but Meghan REFUSED their offer and left her father to deal on his own as the press descended on Thomas Markle.

R249, which one?

Klan Granny Troll isn't a Brit. It's an obese middle-aged black woman in Detroit.

Well, that’s not racist at all, r263. 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Tina Brown interviewed Tom Markle directly as well as all his associates. I wouldn't say tragic figure, but from all accounts he sent her to a very nice private high school (which is $$$ in LA) and put her through Northwestern. Doria was described as a free spirit, always dancing and singing. Tina says they were married in a church "that is one step away from Scientology" or something like that.

I think Tina is fair with Meghan. It's not that exciting because she is not that exciting. Tina Browns research kind of throws cold water on Meghan. She is a scheming, desperate to marry and be famous at 36 (at the time) in the right place at the right time LA climber. Her age, Americanness, unwillingness, ego and lack of time spent in the UK made it impossible for her to fulfill the role she wanted to hit the ground running. Harry is very damaged, was extremely desperate to get married after Cressida Bonas dumped him, the stars aligned, and boom. They really aren't very interesting or clever, especially in black and white print. The Sussexes are only fun with they pull stunts and antics. They are the ultimate stunt queens.

Doria is in some kind of cult.

Tina Brown doesn’t say anything new about the Markle father-daughter saga, but there are some juicy snippets: “A planeload of entertainment industry friends came down for four days of partying on the white beach. Both her parents were present—a guest noted how “chill and gracious” Doria was and that Tom Markle bought two seats on the plane for comfort.”

“He prefers not to admit that Meghan was likely too embarrassed by how he came off to introduce him to her royal boyfriend in person. (“Embarrassment is a choice that an individual makes. It’s not the fault of the other person,” Wendy Riche, Tom’s former boss as executive producer of General Hospital, opined to me.) It did not help Tom’s mood that his ex-wife received a visit at her house in L.A. from two reps from the British consulate bearing the official engagement announcement by the Palace, but that he, her father, was treated like a second-class citizen.” “A humiliating torrent of images of Tom hauling beer cans and shopping for flatulence medication appeared in the tabloids, depicting him as some shambolic hobo rather than how he saw himself, a once-successful former lighting director enjoying his beachfront retirement. “All of us who worked on General Hospital were horrified about how Tommy was portrayed,” one of the production team told me.

A desire for a less disheveled public image made Tom fall afoul of the dastardly sting perpetrated by Jeff Rayner, the silver-tongued co-founder of a low-life celebrity photo and gossip agency in Los Angeles.”

“His daughter Samantha, with her unerring combination of bad faith and bad judgment, thought it was a great idea, particularly as Rayner offered her a cut on the syndication money. (They ultimately netted around £100,000.) ”

“Though Americans are more inclined than the British to exclude difficult or embarrassing relatives, wiser heads would have recommended that Meghan grit her teeth and invite Samantha and Tom, with PR clamps firmly in place. “We all have black sheep in our families, don’t we?” Lady Glenconner said to me. “But you know you have to somehow round them up and get them on side and bring them all in and stick them somewhere.” One can imagine in the same situation with recalcitrant relations Carole Middleton flying the whole feuding clan over first-class, billeting them in the Boring Goring, and entertaining them with VIP sightseeing tours of London until the big day. ”

[quote] “His daughter Samantha, with her unerring combination of bad faith and bad judgment"

Well that's one thing the sisters have in common!

Brown is good when she deals with the stories that are well known, worse with something more obscure. For example, the depiction of the alleged Rose affair is completely disappointing. Honestly, if you haven’t read about it beforehand elsewhere, you might thing that it was Kate who had a fling with Rose that turned sour. The row over the bridesmaids dresses is not much better (she basically says, who cares who made whom cry? They both cried that day, it’s not rocket science).

She disregards completely the golden rule of writing, making it all tell, not show. There are potentially interesting insights that go nowhere. For example, she says that Kate had always been jealous of Pippa, because Pippa was smarter, more interesting and more popular with boys. You think, oh, that’s a fresh take on their relationship, finally some cracks in the monolith that is the Middleton women. But then there is nothing to support that, not even a single anecdote from their teenage years.

I disagree that inviting Samantha to the wedding would've helped. She's not Kate's uncle Gary, who seems like a bumbling oaf, but not malicious. Samantha is pure venom.

Whilst reading R265 's post, I was struck by the mention of the $$$ it cost pa Markle for his daughter's private school. It seems LA is cash drain central. I watched as much of the Depp/Heard trial as I could stomach. But one thing that surprised me is the penthouse Depp owned at the time of his marriage th AH. It cost something like 2mil.

It drives home the price of real estate in LA. It's beyond belief. And I live in Seattle. My 450sq ft condo is worth half a million (I paid 93K for it).

Depp's LA penthouse was certainly agreeable, but I can't see that it looks any different from housing of equal space valued at far less. But I'm not a real estate agent.

r271 the LA cost of living is NUTS.

I skim read it in a bookstore and it seemed like just a rehash of tabloid stories everybody already knows. Where is the inside information? It seemed very vague.

R265, you did not mention the very expensive primary school that Thomas Markle paid for for Meghan.

She attended Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse.

Here is a link to their current yearly tuition.

Markle received (paid for by her father) very expensive education from primary, high school, and university.

R274 but what did it cost 35 years ago?

It's not called "primary school" in America

Is there much about the marriage to Trevor?

Meghan being horrible to her father is a generational thing. The middle-class millenials were all spoiled and smothered as children, by parents who told them that nothing mattered but their happiness, and now that they're grown up... they're taking their parents at their word about the "Nothing matters but my happiness" crap. They feel free to treat their parents like crap or to cut them off for years or for life over tiny issues, in the name of protecting their own "mental health".

It's all part of a disturbing trend, that I see in young middle-class people and in Harry, what I call "The Weaponization of Mental Health". These people who all claim "anxiety and depression", a.k.a. unhappiness, believe they're entitled to treat other people like shit in order to "get well", and that's definitely part of what Harry is doing to Charles and his other relatives, with his claim of PTSD and "mental illness". He's using it to attack them, and this is actually common.

I’ve already finished the book. It wasn’t Charles.

Tina noted that when MM was getting married to Trevor, she advised her friends “no social media” at the wedding. Her friends laughed as she had only been on Suits for a few months. It seems is if MM was chasing celebrity.

I'm no BRF fan, I just like the gossip of it all. The story of trashy Pa Markle paying for an expensive K-bachelor's degree education for his daughter provides a dramatic touch: the excellent education gave her the tools for her spectacular climb, from whence she no longer needed or was able to abide him.

Her own friends laugh at this ridiculous creature.

She embarrassed herself at Wimbledon when her security told some guy off for trying to take M's picture. The guy didn't even know who Markle was, he was getting a selfie with Serena in the background.

[quote] from whence she no longer needed or was able to abide him.

She expelled her father the way she expelled everyone else who no longer reinforced her narrative. In her father's case, how would have it looked at her "Look at me! I'm Black!" wedding with her slovenly WHITE father in attendance. Such racist, disrespectful treatment.

It is very touching and sad about Thomas Markle. He should focus his attention on his nephew Tyler Dooley who is a happy guy who grows awesome marijuana. He even named one after his Auntie Meghan called Markle Sparkle, 'guaranteed to blow anyone's crown off.'

I don't have children, but my husband and I have sometimes discussed how we would raise a child. He asked me once if I would ever want to send a child to Eton or similar, since we have the means and would likely push any child hard academically. I said, 'Why, so he could come back and sneer at his middle-class parents and be ashamed of us evermore? Sounds like a plan!'

R271, Meghan's school in Los Feliz in the 90's/Y2K was about $30,000 a year. I also remember Tom Markle saying he paid the whole bill for Northwestern which is not cheap. I do like the comment about Americans being more embarrassed of family. I would be embarrassed of them too. I don't know what I would do in that situation. It was said to disturb Charles and William that she was willing to cut out her entire family, especially since they lost Diana.

I really liked it that the Middletons didn't exclude uncle Gary Goldsmith, even though his behaviour is considerably worse than Thomas Markle's. I read that he helped pay for the Middleton children's private education. I wonder if he is part of their family Christmas, which I imagine is amazing. Soon all three of the children will have homes near Mike and Carole. Lucky Cambridges!

R263 then it must be an obese middle-aged black woman in Detroit who is completely across British grammar, colloquialisms, spelling and society in general. I mean, seriously - how many Americans would know what “the Met” is? Or call the Mail “the Daily Heil”? Or use the term “UK” rather than “England” or “Britain”?

She’s a very convincing obese middle-aged black woman in Detroit, if so.

Still fucking crazy either way!

R286 I liked the bit about Camilla “making a beeline” for Uncle Gary at the wedding breakfast. He apologised for the bad press and her response was ‘“Don’t think twice about it - I get the same myself” replied Camilla, with complicit (and expert) charm’.

I like to think that she had a large G&T in hand at the time.

That must have endeared Kate to Camilla. I loved watching their interaction at the Sussex wedding. They looked like two old friends despite the generational difference.

I doesn’t say “friends”, it says “guest”:

“The only jarring note, one wedding guest remembers, is that in the itinerary Meghan sent out was a note requesting “No social media, please.” “We were all laughing because she had been on Suits for a few months at that point and we were like, is she kidding me?” the guest told me. “She was already like, ‘I’m a really big actress.’ ” Afterward, the bride returned to Toronto and the groom to L.A. The new Mr. and Mrs. Trevor Engelson settled into a married life that would primarily be conducted on Skype.”

I doubt she had many friends at either of her weddings.

R289 They do have lots in common. They both caught big prizes with patience, discretion, and the ability not to mistake short term tactics for wise longer term strategy. Smart Englishwomen who understood the landscape, and both will end up Queen.

And, of course, with her usual gift for making enemies of the wrong people, Meghan Markle's airy contempt for them brought the, now, two most powerful women in the family closer together. A united front against Meghan and Harry behind the scenes, both now with the highest imprimatur of the Queen.

Way to go, Harkles.

Speaking of making enemies of the wrong people, probably the funniest sentence in the book: “The last person anyone at the Palace wants to offend is the woman who sees the monarch four times a day in her pantyhose. ”

The English especially the RF know about having to tolerate less than fun/appropriate relations..see Princess Michael of the Moor Brooch. Anne refers to as Princess Pushy. HM refers to this Harridan as 'Our Val', as in the Valkyries, you know those big ugly bitches with the horns on theirs heads. Yet, as ghastly as she can be is included, not excluded.

Don't know about you folks but The Good Lord knows I've got a few Prince & Princess Push/ Our Val in my family. They are such a hoot at family events! One of the best we always talk about was at my sister's wedding when the drunken husband of Our Val fell through the wedding cake. They stood him up, he was so drunk he fell through it a second time..Good times.

I’m inclined to think that MM was disassociating herself from Pa Markle long before she met Harry. Retired, he couldn’t help her anymore. She and Samantha never got along because Sam was jealous that doting dad would do anything for his little Princess. I haven’t heard that Tina Brown did any digging into MM’s living situation when she was growing up (with Pa? Ma?) but maybe the next one by the British guy will have had access to the background check that the BRF must surely have ordered.

As someone who had a loose-cannon parent, betcha anything what Meghan worried about most with old Tom was what he'd blurt out. Perhaps would have contradicted things she told Harry and the family. Just my guess, and I kind of sympathize. According to Wikipedia, Tom won $750k in the California lottery in 1990 ($1.6 million today), but in 2016 filed for bankruptcy. Meghan hit the jackpot with Harry, has leveraged some opportunities but squandered others. Wacky family.

It's funny how she complained that the BRF wouldn't allow her to continue her acting "career" (a total lie), but what acting has she done since they broke "free?" Does that elephant VO job count? Doesn't seem Hollywood has beaten her door down trying to get her into movies.

I watched a little of that elephant documentary and if I hadn't known who was narrating it, I would've thought "who at Disney is getting fired for hiring this voice over actress?" Her shrill, unpleasant voice was like nails on a chalkboard, and her attempts at "acting" with her voice during the narration were embarrassing. It was awful.

Meghan has a distinct "California" accent that any decent acting teacher would've told her to get rid of with extensive speech and elocution training.

Lady Colin Campbell is a supporter of Thomas Markle.

She often tells a horrid story of the time she was writing her Harry and Meghan book. Some friend of Harry's (or so they said) told her that Harry & Meghan didn't want anything to do with Pa Markle because Thomas had sexually abused her as a child. Can you imagine? He brought her up, sent her to the best schools and she praised him as a great father numerous times and then they send a friend to accuse him of such a terrible crime. WTF? Lady C. was so disgusted with this accusation that she didn't use it in her book. She has friends who knew/know Pa Markle and they have nothing but good things to say about him.

Reading the book, I hadn't realized Harry was with Chelsy for 6 years - longer than he's been with Markle - or how her phone, emails were hacked by the Murdoch gutter press. Chelsy put up with 100X more shit than Meghan ever did. Then moved on without drama or fanfare to get a law degree. She definitely seems like the sort of sane, steady person Harry needed rather than ending up with crazy Meghan.

What does it say about Cressida Bonas? Is it true that she was the one who broke it off because she didn't want that life? She seemed like the perfect inoffensive kind of person for Harry to marry and knows all the stuff that goes with being a member of the aristocracy. But I guess that would mean she also knows the downsides and is too sensible for that.

Cressida obviously gave Brown an interview. Cressida was the perfect aristocratic wife for Harry who understood how royalty works unlike Meghan. However, Harry was acting crazier and crazier and she got fed up with his infantile temper tantrums.

Do we think that Cressie upgraded? With her husband Harry Wentworth-Stanley (son of the Marchioness of Milford Haven and some Lloyds underwriter dude who sounds likely to be wealthy).

The slow withdrawal of interest and support from the Harklepiddles will continue, with attention being given only when they are in the position to do something horrible, as with Queen Elizabeth's jubilee, inevitable death and funeral, the coronation, and other family doings.

They are like rejects from Royal Housewives of Croydon who were considered because "she" is a mocha-coloured American cunt with no talent and an ego as big as her original nose and "he" is a prince or something, with addiction, impulse-control, emotional trauma and general stupidity, plus a rich father. But people just don't see their point. Even Zsa Zsa finally had to slap a cop to get any attention.

The US Polo Association is now touting Harry as the People's Prince because he plays polo! Sunshine Sucks is definitely desperate to change the subject. And how is Harry going to pay to play polo AND pay Sunshine Sucks' bills when all his supposed deals are falling flat?

"And, of course, with her usual gift for making enemies of the wrong people, Meghan Markle's airy contempt for them brought the, now, two most powerful women in the family closer together."

I can't say that sucking up to Charles was a *bad* strategic move, he's been give them buckets of money already and his will is the biggest single chunk of change either of them have ever had a shot at. Bug Meg does seem to be one of those women who don't like other women... and she was dealing with a matriarchy.

R306 any sucking up to Charles they did was short lived. The only person they haven't directly insulted is The Queen, and she won't be in charge much longer. Flawed strategy, party of two.

Cressida was encircled by a discreet but entertaining extended aristocratic family. Her ever-vivacious mother, Lady Mary-Gaye, was the matriarch of a Mitfordesque tribe, most of whom were already known to Harry. There were four more gorgeous-looking half siblings with triple-barreled names from Mary-Gaye’s four marriages. As a guest at Sandringham for shooting weekends, Cressida blended easily with Harry’s friends. She passed the Africa test on a successful vacation together in the Okavango Delta. Cressie, as she is known, was amused and forgiving at first when Harry came to stay with her family in the country after the Las Vegas incident with “his tail between his legs, looking like a puppy who had peed on the carpet,” as another guest put it. But as their relationship progressed, she found his frat-boy antics beneath him: “Cressida is the kindest, most loving little thing. But she’s bossy,” a family friend told me. “And I remember her saying to him, ‘I just want you to stop being so laddish.’ Because he was always one of the boys with their stupid jokes. And Cressida’s far too intelligent for that. “She said, ‘I just want the whole world to be as proud of you as I am.’ ” Harry’s habitual mood, however, was increasingly truculent. When he wasn’t venting about William, he was pouring out resentments about Charles. ”

R393 Upgrade? I would call that an upgrade of an upgrade - a stratospheric leap from a nasty mess on the stove to clotted cream, strawberry jam, and homemade scones.

Can you imagine how that balding, ferret-faced, nasty, sulky, beady-eyed pain in the arse looks to her now next to that hot hunk she snagged?!

“More challenging for all was Harry’s ever-boiling paranoia about the press. Cressida understood the historical reasons why he hated journalists but believed that he should, like William, come to terms with his royal fame. If the couple emerged from Kensington Palace and Harry saw five press people waiting, he would get white-knuckled. As a close friend said:

Cressie was a normal twenty-five-year-old who wanted to go out to dinner and touch knees under the table. Harry would walk four paces ahead of her, instead of holding her hand. When they went to the theater, he left at the interval to get out without a hassle. She was either being dragged through the streets being yelled at or ignored while he threw a hissy fit.

It was not as if he showered her in jewelry, either. Harry upheld the Windsor tradition of being tight with a buck. Invited as a couple to Guy Pelly’s Tennessee wedding to the Holiday Inn heiress Lizzy Wilson, Harry casually told Cressida, “My office has got my ticket, you get yours,” which Lady Curzon’s daughter reportedly found not only cheap but disrespectful, especially when she learned he would be off for half the weekend at Pelly’s bachelor booze-up. While Cressida kept reading about herself as the glamorous aristocratic girl in a romantic love affair with a prince, the bizarre reality of date nights was glumly eating takeout and watching Netflix at Nottingham Cottage, Harry’s tiny and none-too-tidy two-bedroom grace-and-favor bachelor pad on the grounds of Kensington Palace. “Nott Cott,” as the house is known in the family, was once inhabited by the Queen’s governess Crawfie, until the Queen Mother booted her out. The ceilings are so low that when William lived there with Kate, he had to stoop to avoid hitting his head.”

“A family friend told me she knew the relationship wouldn’t last when there was a blow-up on Valentine’s Day. En route to the restaurant, they were driving down Kensington High Street when Harry got word that there was a photographer lying in wait. He slammed on the brakes, did a spin turn in the middle of the street, and gunned it back to Nott Cott for a Valentine’s night of pizza. It was like Sean Penn in the old Madonna days. At Christmas, more unnecessary drama. The couple was staying in the country with Cressida’s half sister Isabella and others in the family, and decided to go for New Year’s Day lunch to a small local pub in Kidlington, outside Oxford. There were very few guests and they secured a table at the back. A person privy to the incident said:

Suddenly as they were leaving, this quite elderly, sweet-looking gentleman came out and said, “Oh, sir, so sorry, I know it’s Christmastime, but could I just take a photograph to give to my wife who isn’t well?” And so Cressida opened her mouth and said, “Oh, of course.” “And Harry said, “Get out of my way” and went bright red in the face and stormed off in a huff.

Cringe de la cringe. Their friends expected an engagement announcement at any time, but incidents such as this gave Cressida serious qualms about sharing her life with Harry. It was daunting enough to join the Royal Family with all the restrictions that were sure to hurt her career. Images of Kate and William conquering crowds in New Zealand with the eight-month-old Prince George in tow reportedly spooked Cressida. She found it unimaginable to drag a future baby of her own off on a hectic royal tour, especially with Harry’s explosive temperament. Without his army mates to cut him down to size, his sense of entitlement was out of control. His outbursts were ever more frequent and childlike. He took up boxing because, as he later said, he was always “on the verge of punching somebody.”

[quote]A blow-up occurred when Kelly willfully—as Meghan and, therefore, Harry saw it—denied the bride-to-be access to the Queen Mary bandeau tiara, on loan from the Queen, that Meghan would be wearing for the wedding. Meghan wanted to try on the tiara now for some styling sessions with her hairdresser,

Ironically her hair looked like shit for her wedding, stray pieces falling out and messy.

“Ultimately, the intense focus on Harry’s problems to the exclusion of her own was too much for Cressida. To Harry’s chagrin, she moved on, later rekindling a romance with another aristocratic Harry, the “towering blonde god,” as Tatler called him, Harry Wentworth-Stanley, son of the Marchioness of Milford Haven. She married him in 2020, adding to the store of family multi-hyphenates. “When [Prince Harry and Cressida] broke up,” a friend of theirs told me, “he wrote her a sweet letter saying I admire you, I wish you well and above all thank you for helping me to address my demons and seek help.” “He became very bleak in his outlook,” a Palace source told me. “He was convinced he was going to be single for the rest of his life.”

It's become obvious now that Harry was always mentally ill. And stupid. And the Royal family pulled off a gigantic public relations miracle by making him look good for so long.

R307 - He did insult the Queen: he implied that she had been a bad parent passing down "genetic pain" to Charles, that Charles then passed down to him.

And by that Name No Names idiot racism charge, the Harkles tried to taint the entire family, which amounts to insulting the Queen.

And, lastly, the Oprah interview in and of itself was an insult to the Queen, because they knew perfectly well Philip was dying, and they spewed their venom out, anyway, knowing she would be the one who would have to take time away from her dying husband to respond to them.

And, they monetised and politicised the title that she gave them, something that they had agreed not to do.

They have insulted her ten ways from Sunday.

R315 I said directly.

RE: Meghan and Africa.

“William knew Harry all too well and feared he was heading for trouble. Every time his brother fell in love, it was an eruption of Vesuvius. “You do realize this is the fourth girl you’ve taken to Botswana,” he couldn’t help remarking after Harry’s starry-eyed account of the trip. ”

Excerpt From: Tina Brown. “The Palace Papers.” Apple Books.

I realize Charles is higher up than Harry but if virginity in a bride is important how did he manage to marry a divorced woman?

They're stupid because Harry is trying to get people to believe he's the Queen's darling. If anybody in the family made a borderline racist comment to him, it was obviously Prince Philip. He was notorious for that. But Harry had to put out a statement saying it wasn't him because he was dying and it would have made Harry look like a shit.

It seems like all those contracts they signed with Netflix, etc. must have included claims they would get the Queen to participate. So they're anxious to look like the Queen still loves them. But if they're counting on the Queen to make them rich and leave them a lot of money, penny-pinching Liz ain't gonna do it. They shouldn't have insulted spendthrift Charles. They truly are stupid.

R318 if Markle hadn't been biracial, there's no way the Queen would have agreed to let him marry an aging, American divorcee starlet. It was only the biracial element that got her through the door. So claiming they're racists is truly ironic.

R318 um...it was 40 years later and society moved on. Do you really think any women in Harry's orbit were virgins?

Plus the last virgin bride turned out to be a disaster.

OMG, being married to or even dating Harry sounds awful. Cressie is well out of that.

"I realize Charles is higher up than Harry but if virginity in a bride is important how did he manage to marry a divorced woman?"

They officially gave up on virgin brides in the 1980s, after Diana was becoming a problem and Andrew wanted to marry a girl who'd lived with two different men before him. I suppose that even the stuffiest old Gray Men realized that demanding that "Randy Andy" marry a virgin was ridiculous.

R319 - Actually, Charles is only a "spendthrift" on himself. He's notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to others, something that infuriated Diana, who was greatly disappointed in the dreams of largesse she harboured when she dreamed of marrying him.

You can tell the difference in feeling Charles had for the two women in the way he presented their engagement rings: for Diana, he had a tray of rings sent up, either from Garrard's or Collingwood, cannot remember which, and let her choose her own. "Quite sensibly," as Lady C put it in her original and very good book on Diana, "she chose the biggest.".

For Camilla, he asked the Queen to review the jewellery the Queen Mother had left, and he picked out the large emerald-cut diamond ring that he then presented to Camilla on bended knee. And we know how Charles felt about his Gran.

Diana chose to turn a blind eye to every red flag that Charles waved in front of her face. Then, she pretended to be shocked, SHOCKED! when he behaved as if he really wasn't madly in love with her.

It must be an interesting mix how Harry hates the press and loses his s__t if he thinks their anywhere nearby and he sounds almost paranoid about it. Then you have MM who loves pap photos, exposure, etc. I wonder what those conversations are like. Notice most times she's been papped in recent years, Harry's been out of town.

Per Tina's book, Camilla's ring cost more than Diana's.

Harry must be FURIOUS.

It may have cost more but it's boring. Diana certainly had style.

Camilla's ring may have been more valuable than Diana's, but Charles presumably bought Diana's ring and inherited Camilla's! And here's Camilla's rings, which I hadn't looked up before. Huge ice-cube of a diamond engagement ring, tastefully plain gold wedding band.

Diamonds are going out of fashion among the educated young, both because of the horrible diamond industry, and the fact that they can't afford them.

Charles showers money on Camilla, buying her fabulous new jewels. He bought up all the old Alice Keppel jewels he could find. Charles obviously feels guilty as far as Harry is concerned and he could have mined that for millions if he had kept his idiot mouth shut.

[quote]From what I have read and heard from my UK friends, no one complains and schemes more, or is more despised than Andrew. Hands down. Charles is a complainer and he is needy, but he benefits from people's disgust with Andrew.

He's insufferable. Listen/read about his tampon tape with Camilla. All he cares about is himself. She mentions it's her son's birthday the next day. And despite the fact that Charles is his godfather, he doesn't even ask about the kid. Couldn't care less. All Camilla does for the entire phone call is tell him how fabulous he is. That's what their entire relationship must be like. No wonder she still has her own house. She must need to get away from him a lot.

The link also mentions camilla having an affair with the Earl of Sherbourne. She was always a slut.

“Slut”, R329? Are you posting from 1947?

SS now trying to get "the people's prince" to happen.

What a joke.

Didn't Meggy Sharp also insult the Queen with her "we can all be of service" soon after Megxit and more recently at the Invictus Games another "service" shot?

Meg is like the Katherine Heigl of the BRF. She thought she was so special and justified in complaining about her good fortune and treating people badly. Soon Meg will be doing kitty litter commercials.

No thank you.

Meghan will end up doing infomercials for some beauty products she'll claim to have invented.

[quote]The US Polo Association is now touting Harry as the People's Prince because he plays polo!

Prince of the polo people? Are he and the association planning polo getaways for underprivileged kids or training and horse ownership opportunities for gifted riders from low income neighborhoods? I wish he or SS could explain how participation in the sport of the 1% makes him the "People's Prince."

I'll guarantee you Harry will justify his participation as a networking opportunity for Archewell. He will approach the most well-to-do on the circuit and clumsily perform his sales schtick for charity and his cavalcade of causes. People will awkwardly humor the prince a la Robert Iger and will throw a few bones to be polite.

R426 To each his own. Diana's choice of ring was a clunky generic cocktail ring. Camilla's that Charles picked was the the elegant ring of a sophisticated woman.

Geocities has about the credibility of an amoeba. Only a moron would cite it as a source.

And we won5mention the slutty Diana breaking up other women's marriages and stalking Oliver Hoare.

I'd say the woman who was willing to fuck that sleazy creep Dodi Fayedbso she could spend the summer in style is the real slut.

Camilla wouldn't have shared a taxi with Dodi Fayed

Harry fends off the upcoming dawning that they aren't going to let him back on that balcony by having his PR reference Diana - again.

Only, in the nation whose people he is Prince of, his poll ratings are only slightly better than the PM's, Harry's wife, and Prince Andrew.

And he ain't fer sure Prince of American people, who either don't care or prefer his brother and sister-in-law.

It's really pathetic.

Polo, the sport of kings and rich men.

Oh, yeah.

R312, but that was deliberate. I remember looking up the hairdresser’s Instagram around that time and ALL the women featured in it had that messy bun with a few artful wispy strands. Fine if you getting married in a field at sunrise with a bouquet of wildflowers but not in a minimalist couturier gown in front of the queen.

That whole Angela Kelly thing to me is just indicative of their lack of consideration. For one, Kelly has a job that needs her to be around the Queen, so she is not normally in Buckingham palace. Those tiaras are kept in seperate parts. She would have to travel to BP , assemble the thing, then when they had finished take it apart for storage and clean off all the hair lacquer and gunk. There was no need when a few pipe cleaners and a bit of card could have stood in. It was a flex and she failed yet has never got over it.

One story I read said that Harry and Meghan showed up unannounced at Buckingham Palace not long before the wedding and demanded that Kelly turn over the tiara Meghan was to wear. (Her Majesty's personal collection is kept in vaults in the basement of BP.) Kelly said no because she was afraid the tiara would never be returned, or not returned intact. That's when Harry went into his "What Meghan wants, Meghan gets" tirade, causing HM to redress Harry saying "She will get what I give her."

But I wasn't there, I don't know.

Then there’s the story of Meghan berating one of the Windsor Castle chefs as she said that she could taste egg in a vegan dish being taste tested for the wedding reception. The Queen arrived in the middle of it and reportedly said to her that “in this family we don’t speak to staff like that”.

I think they will be papped with children on Jubilee day at the polo. Problem is that UK press won't publish those type of pap shots without permission, and not much US media is interested.

How many Americans do you imagine will give a rat's as*, a tinker's tailor, or whatever over Polo? Quick name 2 Prominent , popular, well-followed Polo players who have appeared in Sports Illustrated..Is that crickets I hear?

Will Harry also gore a Polo Pony again. Now that will go over real well in the US. See article below

Prince Harry accused of animal cruelty Prince Harry faces animal cruelty claim over polo pony's stab wound from his spur. Prince Harry was accused of animal cruelty yesterday after his horse suffered a bloody injury during a polo match. He was photographed riding a pony that appeared to have been stabbed in the flank by his spurs.

An onlooker claimed that the 25-year-old prince continued to ride his horse while blood was visible on its flank, but St James’s Palace said he stopped playing as soon as the injury was spotted.

Animal welfare groups accused Harry of being ‘heartless’.

The Hurlingham Polo Association, the sport’s governing body, has launched an investigation.

The horse was injured during a match at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, in July, but photographs of the incident have only just emerged.

Prince Harry’s Household Cavalry team was beaten by the Royal Navy by five and a half goals to five. The Navy had been granted a half goal advantage at the start of the match.

Under polo rules, riders who use their spurs excessively face disciplinary action ranging from a warning for a first offence to a fine of up to £50,000.

They state: ‘Any player intentionally striking another player or any pony with his stick, or abusing his pony by excessive use of the whip or spurts shall be severely penalised.’

The rules also say: ‘Any spur likely to wound a horse is forbidden.’

Andrew Tyler, director of animal welfare charity Animal Aid, said: ‘It was a heartless and utterly selfish thing to do.

‘Polo is a very rough activity that causes stress and injuries to horses. The use of spurs in such a fast-moving event is a vicious indulgence.

‘Spurs are unnecessary for a competent rider and should not be used to punish a horse for the rider’s failure to gain advantage.

‘Prince Harry comes from a background of hunting and shooting which is at odds with the vast majority of the British public.’

Tony Moore, chairman of the Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe, said: ‘Prince Harry is cruel. If a rider uses their spurs in a way that injures a horse then that is cruel.’

Tina Brown has tagged Meghan for good with "6th on the Call Sheet" marrying the "6th on the Call Sheet" prince.

R243 Wow Shirley Ross. She had a kid late in life, that I used to babysit. the kid's name was Vickie Blum. No one knew who she was when I knew her and my dad figured it out. The thing I remember most about her was that she had a really gravelly voice. The kid was nice and not spoiled.

Thank you DL, going to buy this book for my Mom for Mother's Day after reading some of the excerpts here.

Angela Kelly couldn't get the tiara for Meghan not because she thought she wouldn't get it back, but because it's a crown jewel and needs to go through a whole processing. They are so dedicated that they need to be prepared and handled properly, Kate just practiced her hairstyle with a plastic tiara from Claire's.

r338 her wedding hair reminded me of when my Mom would get us all dressed up for an occasion like Easter Sunday and by the time my Mom took pictures at least one of us was mussed up. Instead of her usual artfully arranged dangling tendrils it looked like sloppy hair that fell out.

Camilla's #1 concern, is to be there for Charles. She has a full life of her own, and even Charles once admitted he spent more time with her grandchildren and her kids than he did with his own Son. William prefers the company of the Middletons because they are "normal people." he can sit around and watch Football, or rugby and go get a beer when he wants to. So I don't think Camilla spends much time worrying about William or Harry . She would only be concerned with how their relationship with their father affects Charles. I can see her being warm and cordial. I can see her having a relaxed familiarity with them all, but She doesn't need to be friends with them or be on intimate terms with them. And I will also include Anne, Edward and Sophie in that group. Warmth, cordiality, and easy going, but not intimate.

[quote]Angela Kelly couldn't get the tiara for Meghan not because she thought she wouldn't get it back, but because it's a crown jewel

Totally and absolutely wrong. You don't know what you are talking about. The Crown Jewels belong to the Government. The diamond bandeau that HM lent to Meghan is her own personal property. HM owns it outright personally and it does not belong to the State.

[quote]Geocities has about the credibility of an amoeba. Only a moron would cite it as a source.

Dear God, every newspaper in the world released transcripts of the phone call. We all heard the call. Only you would deny it happened.

That's fine R350, the point is that it is dedicated, needs special handling, and cannot just be procured on instant demand. That's all.

[quote]Prince of the polo people? Are he and the association planning polo getaways for underprivileged kids or training and horse ownership opportunities for gifted riders from low income neighborhoods? I wish he or SS could explain how participation in the sport of the 1% makes him the "People's Prince."

He could always use whatever excuse charles and william used when they played. You sound like a stupid republican who thinks all democrats have to take a vow of poverty. Very silly.

The low IQ crowd

R353 a vow of poverty? Polo is the most elite "sport" in the world. Sailing runs a very, very poor second. It's also cultural appropriation. It was an ancient Indian sport.

Here are the minimum expenses to play polo:

- Purchasing elite horses, which of itself can run up to tens of thousands of dollars

- Training of horses, upkeep, and the cost of traveling to tournaments

- Cost of hiring “grooms” for training and exercising the horses

- Club fees and other relevant expenses

- Medical expenses for injuries to the rider, plus vet care

"The Crown Jewels belong to the Government. The diamond bandeau that HM lent to Meghan is her own personal property."

A question - do all those jewels belong to Elizabeth herself, or do they belong to The Crown? Can the institution of monarchy own property?

Or could Elizabeth leave all her jewels to charity, if she wanted to really piss off her heirs?

Regardless of the wedding tiara's ownership, it would still need to be checked out of the vault and likely assembled, onto a frame, for use. Then it would be to be disassembled, cleaned up and put back in storage. That's takes time and effort, something Harry and Meghan may not have been aware of or cared to be aware of.

It would also need to be accompanied by at least one security guard.

Did M want a different tiara?

She didn’t realise that she would be choosing from whatever selection The Queen, who owns them, offered her.

Meghan seemed to think that it would like a royal tiara supermarket, where she could just browse the aisles under Buckingham Palace - pointing at what she wanted.

In contrast to Kate who wanted to wear flowers in her hair and when told that that wasn’t appropriate for the wife of a future King, chose the smallest tiara from those which the Queen offered.

Which tells you all that you know about both protagonists.

Kate’s tiara was a teensy bit underwhelming. There was one of the Russian kokoshniks —not the ones Eugenie and Megs wore—that would have suited, it had slightly more height.

r360, I agree. The tiara's lack of height made for a too flat look of the veil on her head, needed a modest lift.

R360, I remember reading that Kate hadn’t wanted to wear a tiara but complied with The Queen’s wish that she do so, and therefore chose one which was as unobtrusive as possible.

I think the low Halo tiara Kate chose was perfect for her at the time and showed her innate understanding of what works well for her.

Kate's tiara was in harmony with the design of Kate's total look. Good choice. Everyone loves Kate because she listens to advice from her underlings.

Sure, it works well symbolically but visually it is out of proportion.

I think for now, the polo is good for them. It’s something active and athletic that Harry genuinely enjoys. It gets him out of the house, gives him some male camaraderie beyond zoom meetings with Bay Area startup nerds. It’s good for his image, makes him look independent and macho as opposed to whipped by his wife. And the matches provide a somewhat glamorous milieu for him and Meghan to be photographed in. Does it fit their “brand” as woke activists? Probably not, but their hardcore fans won’t mind; they’ll spin it as the plucky couple conquering yet another staid, exclusive institution. Hell, the daughter of “working class hero” Bruce Springsteen is a serious polo player and Bruce gets no shade for it.

Bruce gets plenty of shade for being a sell out with bad plastic & even worse dyed hair. Since he sold his music to the highest bidder the question is who will be playing Born in the USA to sell some cheesy crap.

But that is another question entirely. The real question is how soon will Harry abuse another Polo Pony when he is losing a match. Harry is not known for great impulse control. See article below

"Prince Harry accused of animal cruelty Prince Harry faces animal cruelty claim over polo pony's stab wound from his spur. Prince Harry was accused of animal cruelty yesterday after his horse suffered a bloody injury during a polo match. He was photographed riding a pony that appeared to have been stabbed in the flank by his spurs.

An onlooker claimed that the 25-year-old prince continued to ride his horse while blood was visible on its flank, but St James’s Palace said he stopped playing as soon as the injury was spotted.

Animal welfare groups accused Harry of being ‘heartless’.

The Hurlingham Polo Association, the sport’s governing body, has launched an investigation.

The horse was injured during a match at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, Berkshire, in July, but photographs of the incident have only just emerged.

Prince Harry’s Household Cavalry team was beaten by the Royal Navy by five and a half goals to five. The Navy had been granted a half goal advantage at the start of the match.

Under polo rules, riders who use their spurs excessively face disciplinary action ranging from a warning for a first offence to a fine of up to £50,000.

They state: ‘Any player intentionally striking another player or any pony with his stick, or abusing his pony by excessive use of the whip or spurts shall be severely penalised.’

The rules also say: ‘Any spur likely to wound a horse is forbidden.’

Andrew Tyler, director of animal welfare charity Animal Aid, said: ‘It was a heartless and utterly selfish thing to do.

‘Polo is a very rough activity that causes stress and injuries to horses. The use of spurs in such a fast-moving event is a vicious indulgence.

‘Spurs are unnecessary for a competent rider and should not be used to punish a horse for the rider’s failure to gain advantage.

‘Prince Harry comes from a background of hunting and shooting which is at odds with the vast majority of the British public.’

Tony Moore, chairman of the Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe, said: ‘Prince Harry is cruel. If a rider uses their spurs in a way that injures a horse then that is cruel.’"

Harry and his family are going to the Platinum Jubilee. I guess they'll get on the balcony and a royal christening for Lilibet.

The Royal Family are officially "Idiots" in my book. This decision will come back and bite them on the ass.

Harry and his family are going to the Platinum Jubilee. I guess they'll get on the balcony and a royal christening for Lilibet.

The Royal Family are officially "Idiots" in my book. This decision will come back and bite them on the ass.

Harry and his family are going to the Platinum Jubilee. I guess they'll get on the balcony and a royal christening for Lilibet.

The Royal Family are officially "Idiots" in my book. This decision will come back and bite them on the ass.

Harry and his family are going to the Platinum Jubilee. I guess they'll get on the balcony and a royal christening for Lilibet.

The Royal Family are officially "Idiots" in my book. This decision will come back and bite them on the ass.

Stop being mean to Harry! Stoppit! I will bet you dollars to donuts, Meghan and Harry are working hard behind the scenes to try to repair the relationship with Charles. I don't know if that is even possible. Charles 's is not a forgiving nature. But I think Meghan is realizing that her value is completely attached to her proximity to Royalty. And Harry wants to go home. Just wait. OTOH, maybe they want to see how things play out once Charles is king. But with or without Meghan, Harry is going to be welcomed back in a few years.

Only "working" members of the Royal Family will be allowed on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

So no Andrew or Harry.

Oh come on, how entertaining would it be if they barged in on the whole jubilee thing.

I'd be afraid Meghan would push William, Kate and all their kids off the balcony. Bitch is hardcore.

Well if she can't be on the balconey then is this going to be another one of those awkward scenes like at the Prince of Wales Investiture Celebration where Meghan dressed like pregnant nurse and Harry tried to push their way in and were escorted out by footman or whoever those guys were.

Personally, I predict a contrived emergency of some sort by Meggy Sharp to divert attention to herself. Perhaps one of the children fall mysteriously ill or there's some manufactured security breach and she and the children will run for cover whilst Harry screams "I told you so!". Or perhaps she will fall back on a tried and true attention diverting tactic, a maternity coat or dress.

Oh, dear goodness, r353. You sound as intellectually gifted and perceptive as Duke of Sussex himself. Perhaps you, too, should seek platforms to spread your drivel.

You just know that some sort of stunt is coming, R376. What else have they got?

They won't actually attend. They will fake threats to the family.

Was there any gossip about William's alleged affairs in the book?

R376, myth-carriage?

How sad that the book pretty much demonstrates that Harry chose Meg out of desperation after losing the women he really wanted.

I think at the time they did it, Megs and Harry never thought the Palace would apply the Duke of Windsor protocols and literally cast them out. But there you are. Now I would be very skeptical of that balcony bullshit from the Daily Mail. IMO The Queen knows this is her last hurrah. She will want everyone on the fucking balcony. EVERY ONE. Including Andrew and Harry and Meghan.

She wants everyone to acknowledge their flaws and failings and make amends. She wants peace. No one knows better than her what Charles's own shortcomings are and she factors that into the equation when dealing with Harry. She is very fond of Harry and always had been. Not saying she doesn't love William. She does. But Harry has always been her ne'er do well and he adores her too. The sticking point with most of them, is that Harry breached trust when he related private conversations publicly. That was not only dumb, but really damaged his relationships with a lot of people who harbored no ill will. The trust thing is a big deal. WTFever.

Frau here, born one year behind Charles. I have always loved him, in a way, after I saw his investiture as Prince of Wales.

I know DL will scoff and scorn, but I believe I understand my fellow Scorpio, in particular regard to his love and sex lives.

As Irene Adler for Sherlock Holmes, as Countess Vera Rossakov for Hercule Poirot, so Camilla was and will be always "The Woman" for Charles.

First he obeyed his Monarch; then he obeyed his nature.

Everyone isn't going to happen. They announced it today.

The Queen is many things. Living a Lifetime movie isn't one of them.

OK, R383, how about:

The Telegraph: Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend the Platinum Jubilee – but they’re banished from the balcony

The Times: Meghan and Prince Harry to fly in with children for Platinum Jubilee

CNN: Harry and Meghan will attend Queen's jubilee, but they're not invited onto Buckingham Palace balcony

AP: Andrew, Harry and Meghan won’t appear on Jubilee balcony

Vanity Fair: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Prince Andrew Will Not Join the Queen on Buckingham Palace Balcony for Jubilee

R380 the only affair that was ever rumored was about Rose Hanbury which she completely discounted, saying it started out as vicious gossip among bored jealous gentry in Norfolk.

Brown obviously interviewed extensively Chelsy Davy and Cressida Bonas about Harry. They are really interesting in what they have to say about him and all his mental problems (though they don't qualify them as 'mental illness', they obviously are). Harry's a very disturbed individual and all the therapists he's seen so far don't appear to have helped him. But personality disorders are pretty much incurable. And then he marries somebody with as many mental issues as he has. Disaster beckons.

I'm not holding my breath that the undynamic duo actually make it across the Atlantic with two little children. We'll see what develops...

I think William mirrors George V, who was disgusted by his father's sexual incontinence, and was always faihful to May. I think witnessing Diana and Charles both be unfaithful he is not that way inclined.

Maybe I am wrong but I just don't get a reckless licentious vibe from William. He seems happy and domesticated.

If those news outlets are simply repeating rubbish that's one thing. (The Telegraph is shit.) But the fact is, neither Harry & Meghan nor Andrew are being singled out. I'm betting Sophie and Edward and Anne and her husband will not be on the balcony either. Period. It will be Charles, Camilla, William, Catherine and their three kids. Period. Because you can't have everyone except Andrew and Harry. No justification. The line of succession is justified. The media just loves to sensationalize it.

Sophie, Edward and Anne are all working royals.

Stories all say "working" royals, not anything to do with line of succession. If true then Anne and Edward trump Harry.

[quote]Sophie, Edward and Anne are all working royals.

And according to a post either above or in one of the other threads, they will be there, with Anne's husband and the Wessex kids. Also Charles and Camilla, all the Cambridges, the Kents, the Gloucesters, and Princess Alexandra. But no Yorks nor Zara and Mike. ,

R391, all of the stories are quoting a palace spokesman specifically saying that balcony appearances will be limited to royals who perform official duties. That means no Meghan, Harry or Andrew.

Seems fair, if they're the ones going to all of the boring openings, meet and greets, funerals and so on. Haz and Megs shouldn't get the glory if they don't put in the work.

Now we can’t even talk about a book on the royals. Muriel, consider the fact that there are subscribers that wish to do so.

WE DECLINED!!!!

R397: ?

R391, you mean The Telegraph's politics isn't yours.

It's reporting is as credible as any of the broadsheets.

R390, interesting theory and one I hadn't thought of. But psychology 101 - you are the inverse in behaviour as an adult of the things that caused you pain as a child.

The Daily Mail and the Telegraph don't outright lie about factual things - what they DO do is they put a spin on things. Emphasise certain things, not talk about certain things, have certain viewpoints, etc. But they don't lie about factual things as a general rule.

William from a young age has always clearly liked women.. he definitely would like to sleep around in my opinion.

Sleazeball Andrew, much much younger.

R403, all fine and well. Seeing as Harry likes to beat them up.

R404 Pretty sure that's Prince Edward.

^^^ think you’re right r406

If only "working Royals" are included, then Zara Phillips and Pete Philips, and Margaret's kids won't be there, either, so it's not confined to Harry and Andrew. Beatrice and Eugenie? Are they in or out?

R408 Out.

The balcony may be the only public appearance the Queen can make.

You're right, R410. They're going to wheel the Queen out on a dolly early on the day, to the room where the balcony is located. They'll have a space heater near by and one of those portable commodes, and then at the proper time She will emerge. But first hair and make up and a quick sponging off so she can change her dress.

r408 r409 If Beatrice is set to be upgraded to counsellor of state as rumour has it then I guess maybe she would qualify to appear on the balcony?

The only people who 'qualify' to go out on the balcony are those whom HM dictates may do so. Being a CoS has nothing to do with it.

She - or by extension, Charles - has apparently determined that only the "core" Royal Family group: herself, Charles, Cam, William and his family - will be making that balcony appearance.

r413 A previois poster indicated the statement said only family members who carry out duties on behalf of the crown.Counsellor of state would qualify as doing something on behalf of the crown! So no if she is a CoS then it hasnt got nothing to do with it. The word core was not used.

R269 your review is right on target. I enjoyed the book and Tina's snark, but it felt lazy to me. While the Diana Chronicles truly broke new ground, Palace Papers reads like it was written by DLs--bitchy rehashes of well-known news.

I was expecting more depth on Meghan's background, but she clearly pulled the info from the same sources we read.

R406, that pic is Andrew. Edward was very blond when he was young, and doesn't have a pronounced equestrian face. And Edward has bigger lips.

R281 and all of DL I just had an amazing revelation (yes, I'm stoned): Tom Markle is Mildred Pierce and Megan is Veda!

That's a Markel movie I'd watch!

I'm available to wheel the Queen out.

Meghan as Veda is a good one. Have you seen that video where her dad is taping and she keeps rolling her eyes at him while acting like she's queen of the world? Even as an awkward looking little girl she was insufferable.

That is Prince Edward at r404, and really he wasn't a complete disaster. Hope some hot young chorus boys got the royal peen while the getting was good.

R416 you're wrong, It's Edward.

[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.]

R422 No idea who Sobie is but while the Sussexes can attend other aspects of the celebrations, only working royals will be on the balcony. And they are not working royals.

What a shame. After Andrew agreed to the straight jacket and handcuffs. Oh well, how 'bout me?

Interesting gossip on Twitter about Tina and William. The Daily Beast has become Kengsington Palaces new mouthpiece. Pro Willy anti Sussex. It involves a quid pro quo with Tina. Apparently she is the founder of the Daily Beast. Her book was pushed in uk tabloids and the Daily Beast pushes and promotes all things Cambridge while targeting the Sussex. All alleged but very very interesting. Info is coming from an inside source. Once again all alleged.

You didn't know Tina Brown founded the Daily Beast? Ignorant much? She was also the editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. She saved all three from ruin.

Megaloon's fangirls are extraordinarily dumb.

Tom Sykes got hired by Tina years ago to do a royal column on the Daily Beast. He went to Eton with Harry. He's very fair-handed about the Sussexes but also reports their many fuck-ups which annoys Sunshine Sachs.

Pic at R406 is Andrew, not Edward

R425 KGT there you are! You’ve been a little quiet for the past 24 hours. How was your time out?

You’ve toned down the hysteria but it’s still you: Twitter, tabloids, dry very, inside source, uk etc.

By the way, the plural of “Sussex” is “Sussexes” - just a little tip.

The Megaloons are so ignorant. Didn't even know who Tina Brown is. They obviously segued directly from the Kardashians to La Markle. Mucho trashy.

R421, no, you're wrong. Click on the link to the article. Edward is the first pic. Andrew is the second one. They're labeled. The one you claim is Edward is labled Andrew.

[quote] the plural of “Sussex” is “Sussexes”

Absolutely true, but I think Sussii is more fun.

It's EDWARD you blind cunts

R370 They have officially been confirmed as NOT appearing on the balcony.

To the geocities moron: I was referring to the bit about Camilla and the Earl of Sherborne, not the raunchy tampon call.

Did every paper in the world carry that, too?

Only you would forget that the bit about Camilla and the Earl is what you put up there when directing to the link to geocities. Did Camilla and the earl get recorded in a globally published phone call too?

"She [QEII] wants everyone to acknowledge their flaws and failings and make amends."

That's now how families work! How they work is that after the one person who wants family togetherness passes on, they never speak to each other again.

Will the Sussexes show up if they can't be on the balcony?

Beatrice is not a Counsellor of State and is not going to be one. The only place you read that is here and here is worth about as much as Helen Lawson's memoirs.

R433 you stupid fuck, read the damn article...they're talking about Andrew and how he's depicted in The Crown. Its the exact pic in R406. FFS moron.

Counsellor of State is provided for under the Regency Act of 1937. It does stipulate that it is the spouse of the sovereign and the next four people in line to the throne who are over 21 and physically in the country. Unless the Ginger Whinger is prepared to come and stay when and as needed, he's tits on a bull. It's an Act of Parliament. There was a Regency Act of 1953 that provided for the Queen Mother to be a Counsellor of State for her lifetime. The point being it's easy to make a change. CoS is meant to be a way to keep the Crown functioning in less important duties in the brief absence of the Sovereign (like travel) where a full Regency is not required.

"Counsellors of State are authorised to carry out most of the official duties of the Sovereign, for example, attending Privy Council meetings, signing routine documents and receiving the credentials of new ambassadors to the United Kingdom. However, there are a number of core constitutional functions that may not be delegated:

Commonwealth matters

The dissolving of Parliament, except on Her Majesty's express instruction

The creation of peers

Appointing a Prime Minister"

The Sovereign chooses from among the four who will act when a CoS is needed and issues a Letters Patent. Current CoS would be Charles, William, Harry (if in country as needed) and Andrew. There is no current provision for excluding him. And you can't have that now. So, Parliament could change the law in some way - adding the wife of the heir to the heir or leaving to the Sovereign's discretion who int the royal family undertakes the role as needed (opening up the flexibility to appoint Anne or Edward ahead of any York. Or they could open it up to Knights of the Garter. Or abandon it because with technology if the sovereign is out of the country but needed technology means it's neither 1937 nor 1953.

The point is changing the form isn't complicated and given the current complications, change will probably come.

They would only show up to get content for Netflix. They must be getting desperate now. They've got nothing but some Invictus footage and as nobody showed or cared about the Paralympics in China, nobody's going to give a shit about Invictus either. All they've got is their connection to the royal family.

[quote]a vow of poverty? Polo is the most elite "sport" in the world.

So what? Is there some law against him playing?

charles and william played polo. Charles played for decades and is the one who taught William and Harry how to play. But you have a problem with Harry being allowed to play polo.

Harry's not some slave. He can do whatever he wants. You come off like a lunatic. By the way, NO ONE one spends more lavishly than charles. Nothing is good enough for him.

Thank you, r441 for your certain demonstrative nature and lack of circumspection. Who did you try to "spear?" Was it effective, sir?"

Why haven't you had any answers the SIR from your original wicks?

I am fated to die because I am categorized! Who answered you? No beeps. It used to be so easy when anti-semitism wasn't so popular and eazy accessible.

The vow to "TOTAL BORING CUNTS"

is not unknowned for,.

but the ones he chose to submit.

The Daily Beast has shown no particular bent and Brown's book in most people's opinion was far kinder to Meghan than she deserved.

The reason the Sussexes are getting bad PR is their total inability to hide their, by turn, petulant and rtuthless dishonesty in service to ambitions that are farcical in proportion to their actual talents.

Nice try, though. This is DL: we don't fall for pathetic shit like that.

R441 It's just funny/ironic, that's all.

You know, I started out supporting the Sussexes, but they are so consumed with grievance and their interviews highlight negativity, that I've walked away. I don't care anymore, one way or the other. And when Harry sat there and inartfully aired his dirty laundry, breaching trust with the RF I winced. It was cringe worthy. I felt embarrassed for him. You had to know there would be huge repercussions. It wasn't that I cared so much for the RF, I just knew it was not the smartest thing to do. That it was not something you do if you want to reconcile with your Father and brother. And Harry had to know it was going to upset his Grandmother and Grandfather. it was Unnecessary.

Yeah, why couldn't they just walk away and live a good life? They just want to have their cake and eat it. Want 'privacy' but also publicity..

The interviews were basically warning shots across the bow if the BRF did not yield to the Sussexes' extortion attempts. But I suspect that after Harry's book is published, they will be all out of ammo.

Harry's book is going to be a shitstorm and he'll suffer for it. Nobody wants to hear this rich spoiled brat whine about how bad he thinks his life is.

He'll probably sell more copies than Meghan McCain did hers but I can't see it doing super well.

DL sleuths should investigate who actually owns their Montecito home. I can't imagine its in their name...I bet its in the name of an LLC controlled by Charles or a trust; I'm sure they're all leery of a divorce. I can't also imagine that HMTQ or Charles would leave money directly to Harry in their wills for the same reason, unless the divorce takes place before either of them kick the bucket, which is unlikely. Probably left in trust for the grandkids? Fun to speculate, nevertheless.

R452 do they even own it? I wouldn't be shocked if it was a 'front' while they actually live somewhere else (helps with security).

Well, whatever goes down at the jubilee (fun word) will give them a little more material.

“I stood, frozen, watching my so-called family together on the balcony waving to the crowds below. I thought, Our children deserved to be there. Was this how it would always be for them? Marginalized, excluded, told in ways both direct and subtle that they’re not good enough?”

R452 - Someone on another site did that research already. It is owned by a Maryland or Delaware based company in Meghan's name. Who they bought it from is the more interesting question.

The even more interesting rumours floating out there, and it's anyone's guess whether those have "legs", are that Charles is still supporting Harry financially but through wealthy friends so it's not public, that he plans to bring at least Harry back at some point, and that he's wants to give Harry the DoE title because the Sussex title is so debased already that in the event of a divorce, Harry gets a new title (and one with far greater cachet than Sussex) that Meghan, who would lose the Sussex title in a divorce, cannot get her hands on.

It is also alleged that Lilibet has already been christened in great secrecy and that details of that will be in Harry's memoir.

Frankly, I think it's all bunk, except for the Lilibet christening. That makes sense - the kid is already a year old when she gets here, it's not as if that christening gown is going to fit her. I wouldn't be surprised if Euge and Jack were godparents.

Harry is still trashing his father and brother in interviews, like the one he did right after his first meeting with his father in more than two years. I doubt he'd be doing that if he still needed things from Charles.

And it's ludicrous to suppose there is a divorce in the offing. She's not going anywhere after finding out over the last two years that no one is really interested in anything about her except her title and relationship to the BRF. It hasn't gone to plan, the only thing they've got to sell is their royalty, she'll only leave with splinters from the porch railings under her fingernails, and will take the kids with her.

So I think most of it is codswallop.

As fir that second balcony appearance . . . what the fuck for? Three days after the Trooping the Colour they're going to do a second balcony appearance?

Again, from the way Harry's behaving it doesn't sound like he got anything he wanted out of that first meeting except the news that he and the missus and kiddies are going to be lumped with Andrew and the York girls and not getting on to the balcony.

And if they were kept off the balcony for fear of booing, why would that fear be any less for a second balcony appearance? And if they let the Sussexes back on for a second appearance, won't she have to let Andrew on, as well?

None of it makes any sense.

Zillow and county records show the property sold on Feb. 24, 2022 for 21 million dollars. Weird.

In France over a century ago, there was a Salon des Refusés, an exposition of artists' work that had been rejected for display at the prestigious award shows. Perhaps all those who have been excluded from the balcony at the Jubilee can appear together on their own balcony, waving to the crowd below.

^^ A virtual balcony, perhaps. ^^

I think the Queen is just hanging on to get through her Platinum Jubilee year and then that's going to be it.

R455, the problem is the MM is not happy. As many of you have said, she’s an actress—and pretty much all actresses love the limelight. Harry hates the press and hates the limelight. She was happy to move to California and thought things would be different in California, but they’re worse. Harry is not a great husband. He likes what he likes and won’t do what he doesn’t like. Don’t be mistaken—he’s running the show. He’s not happy either btw, but he’ll never be happy since he’s so damaged.

R455 - you lost me at the "Harry gets a new title". He already has a Dukedom and he won't be getting another one. That's not the way it works.

The Duke of Edinburgh title was promised to Edward and when Charles becomes King, he will likely bestow it on him for his years of royal duty. If Charles doesn't do that, it would be a slap in the face to his father Philip. The only reason he wouldn't give it to Edward would be because he wants someone else to have it. The royal dukedoms are becoming scarce and Charles may want to keep it for another (Louis?). If Charles wants to begin his reign on the right foot, he would give it to Edward as it was Philip and The Queen's wish. I think it should go to Edward as he has taken over his father's Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

Perhaps Charles can make a new rule that stipulates that the dukedom returns to the Crown on Edward's death rather than being inherited by the his eldest son (James). It's kind of silly that eldest son's inherit the royal dukedoms but do no official duties.

^ eldest sons'

OK R453 - I did some digging...

765 Rockbridge Road

Owner: Residential Real Estate Trust - Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Seller: Rockbridge LLC

Mortgage Amount: 06/18/2020 - $9,522,000 City National Bank

Sale Price: $14.650,000 Sale Date: 6/9/2020

R463 Thanks.. to the uninformed look, it's not that helpful since of course the buyer and seller has hidden their true identities. Residential Real Estate Trust? Rockbridge LLC?

You could google the LLCs and you will find out. You used to be able to buy property under the guise of an LLC but now there are forms where you have to convey who the person is behind the LLC. Rockbridge LLC is: AMMAN KHAN

Got it.. I googled Residential Real Estate Trust though but didn't find anything?

There have been rumors from the beginning that H&M are actually renting the Montecito property from the Russian oligarch owner behind a series of disguised real estate transactions.

This is allegedly supported by the fact that the property is still listed as being available for daily rates for film and TV shootings.

But the neighbors say they are there and hate them.

R441 He’s not a slave, but he is a jackass and a hypocrite. People are making fun of him because he and his wife pose as animal rights activists and humanitarians. It’s only natural people would mock him for playing polo in light of the “just Harry”, “People’s Prince” and “egalitarian world” nonsense. Prince Charles is at least smart enough not to pretend to be the epitome of the common man. It’s fine if Harry plays polo. It’s his being a jackass that sets people off.

I believe the Queen will grant the title to Edward about a year after the death of the D of E, and not wait for Charles to do it.

As Philip's son, Charles already has the title DoE. HM has no say. But he can't assign it elsewhere until he actually becomes King and the title merges with the Crown.

R465 Amman Khan, the name associated with Montecito's seller, Rockbridge LLC, is the name of an LA lawyer. A profile for this atty says he specializes in international law & “delicate personal matters,” and has “represented a Russian billionaire.” No telling if this is the same individual whose name showed up at link at r465 but is the only lawyer by that name licensed to practice in California.

[quote]Amman has represented an international clientele and is known for tackling and resolving the toughest problems – whether by aggressively litigating high-stakes cases through to trial or acting as a trusted advisor for delicate personal matters behind the scenes. He has been hired to deal with complex commercial, entertainment and trust and estate litigation matters and delicate personal matters. He has represented a Russian billionaire, multinational family offices, entrepreneurs, the fifth largest bank in the United States and a number of other companies and national brands.

The Russian billionaire matter was nothing glam, seems was a small-stakes harassment thing. Not real estate related.

R461 I totally agree. I said I thought most of it was codswallop. It makes no sense at all. But it's floating around out there.

It's one of those things that quickly gained traction. All Charles would have to do is put out a statement when Philip died that he was honoured to carry his father's title until such time as he ould fulfill his father's wishes regarding the title.

I know they keep clinging to their omerta thing, but in today's SM world, I think they would do themselves a favour by cutting the legs out from under this crap with more frequent direct statements.

As oversaturated as we've been with Jeffrey Epstein, the chapters on his cultivation of Prince Andrew make for sordid and sorry reading:

[quote]What did Prince Andrew see in Jeffrey Epstein? The Prince wasn’t the first or the last prominent sucker to be taken in. Epstein always knew the right buttons to push. He exploited Andrew’s sense of grievance about being relegated increasingly to the royal margins. The wife of a financier who sat next to Andrew at an Epstein dinner told me how the Prince suddenly declared, “I don’t know why people don’t pay us royals more respect.”

[quote]Epstein made Andrew feel he had joined the big time—the deals, the girls, the plane, the sexy Manhattan world, where he wasn’t seen as a full-grown man still dependent on his mama’s privy purse strings or on the harsh pecking order of the Palace. Privately, Epstein told people that Andrew was an idiot, but—to him—a useful one.

As the UK’s (then) special representative for international trade and investment, Prince Andrew was seen as a potent social magnet, who could entice A-list acceptances from businesspeople abroad. Epstein confided to a friend that he could fly Andrew to obscure foreign markets and go along for the ride. Then, using Andrew as front man, Epstein could negotiate deals with big (often shady) players and cut Andrew some cream off the top.

R469 - She can't. The title is no longer hers to give. Upon his father's death, which WAS a year ago, the title passed to Charles. And Charles dose not have the power to bestow it elsewhere until he accedes to the throne. Once TQ gave it to her husband, the next person who would retain it and any power to grant it, it was Philip's eldest son, who automatically inherited it. That would be Charles.

The Queen can no longer do a damned thing about that title: it's Charles' now. She can't give something to one brother that now belongs to another brother.

So Charles now has three royal ducal titles: Cornwall, Rothesay (his formal title in Scotland), and Edinburgh.

The question now is, what becomes of Andrew's title when he dies (and given his lifestyle, I'd be surprised if he made it to 80). The York title usually goes to the second son of the Sovereign. As Andrew has no male heirs, the title would revert back to the Crown until Prince Louis marries.

I can just see Eugenie grinding her teeth at 60 or so as William's son is gifted with what was once her father's royal ducal title.

Or maybe it will be put into abeyance for a generation to get the stench out.

R473 - I agree. Those were absolutely the most sombre and unsettling parts of the book, not the rehash of what we already mostly either knew or guessed at about the Sussex/Cambridge/Wales/Middleton/Markle circus.

Prince Andrew was warned repeatedly about Epstein and told to have nothing to do with him, but Andrew was so stupid and arrogant he wouldn't listen.

Didn't the association w/Epstein begin with Epstein paying off Fergie's debts and that seeded the initial interaction between Andrew and Epstein?

As Brown describes the relationship between Andrew and Fergie, it's beyond bizarre. He gratuitously insults her "fat cow" in front of a business associate. Then others claim he's still in love with the fat cow. I keep thinking Fergie's never-ending debts come from gambling, but Brown says it's all wasting money on vacations, pricey hotels, shopping, etc.

Since Andrew has no sons, the Duke of York title forfits back to the Crown where it will eventually be reassigned.

Since dumbass sleazeball Andrew has tarnished the title, I'm guessing it'll be put in mothballs for a bit.

He's only 62 and he comes from a long living family...well, at least for the non-smokers. He could be around another 20 or 30 years.

It's possible Louis could be made Duke of York or maybe Charles is thinking of saving Duke of Edinburgh for him.

Can't Charles create new duchies for the Cambridge kids? And anyway Chuckles will be dead most likely when they come of age so one could be Cornwall also, another Cambridge, another Kent maybe (because all the Kents will also be dead). And yes, I am incl. Charlotte as a duchy recipient because this ridiculous sexist exclusion needs to stop.

[quote]Since dumbass sleazeball Andrew has tarnished the title, I'm guessing it'll be put in mothballs for a bit.

In addition to "Windsor," "Clarence," and now "York," can't the family just stop shaming themselves by putting those smeared titles into abeyance?

What's wrong with Duke of Clarence? I'd think that should be fine to use.

“As the defense sits by and has their champagne JUBILEE after that not guilty verdict, somewhere out there the devil is dancing tonight.”

The Duke of Clarence was Edward VII's oldest son and heir to the throne after Edward. He was put forward as a Jack the Ripper suspect but that was laughable. Nonetheless he was a wastrel who led a dissolute life and was as stupid as Madison Cawthorn. He supposedly died of influenza in the 1890s at Sandringham but the people who were there described symptoms more closely resembling tertiary syphilis.

He was engaged to Princess May of Teck and did she ever dodge a bullet. After Eddie's death, she married his younger brother and they reigned as George V and Queen Mary.

Oh well, there seem to be plenty of other extinct dukedoms that can be recreated anyway. Norfolk, Bedford, Somerset, Ross, Cumberland, etc.

The Mail's latest: "Palace staff make plans to block Harry and Meghan's Netflix cameras from Jubilee events - after insider at streaming giant said bosses were furious Prince gave interview about Queen to rival NBC despite their multi-million-dollar deal"

[quote]You used to be able to buy property under the guise of an LLC but now there are forms where you have to convey who the person is behind the LLC. Rockbridge LLC is: AMMAN KHAN

Amman Khan is their lawyer who set up the LLC and a trust for them

Right, so we still don't know who the real seller/buyer is for sure...

[quote]As Brown describes the relationship between Andrew and Fergie, it's beyond bizarre. He gratuitously insults her "fat cow" in front of a business associate. Then others claim he's still in love with the fat cow. I keep thinking Fergie's never-ending debts come from gambling, but Brown says it's all wasting money on vacations, pricey hotels, shopping, etc.

Andrew kept Fergie around to act as his go between. He sells access to his mother and he rents out the palaces to rich people. And Fergie is the one who handled the pay offs. She collected the money for him. And we know this is true because she got caught doing it by the News Of The World.

Ever since Fergie got caught they've had to come up with new ways to get the money and they were having people just put money in their bank accounts. And they (Andrew and one of his daughters) recently got caught doing that.

That's how he's been able to live such a luxurious lifestyle

Now he has to keep Fergie around. She's such a sloppy drunk. She can't live alone, or be trusted to keep her big mouth shut.

Will Haz be showcasing his juggling skills at the Jubilee?

They should force MM to stand next to Kate. The subsequent unfiltered, un-photoshopped photos in the tabs will make her hair stand on end.

The Norfolk and Bedford dukedoms are still held. Norfolk is the most senior dukedom of all of 'em. He's Earl Marshal.

They created the Wessex title for Edward. If royal dukedoms are needed, yep, they could create them if need be but the sting of faintly scandalizing dukedoms is muted surely at this point? There are no secrets since the internet or the ability to sweep things under the rug. Clarence will have been dead and unused for more than a hundred years by the time Wiliam's children are of age for titles (which traditionally aren't given until marriage anyway so Louis could be in his thirties even.)

That's if they even get titles beyond what they hold. By the time it's William's show he may have imposed a totally new approach. Though given he insisted on prince and princess for his own children from birth, he may hew closer to tradition than not. That said, it's been reported he prefers an approach that focuses on a few core issues, so perhaps he doesn't want a wider royal family like has been.

This is going to be GOOD. Can't wait.

This Royal Windsor Horse Show event next week in tribute to the Queen sounds like a hoot!

From R496's link...

[quote] I can also reveal that most of the Queen’s great-grandchildren will pay a sweet tribute to her at next Sunday’s @windsorhorse Jubilee Pageant, riding together in a horse-drawn carriage. Lady Louise Windsor will also drive the carriage and ponies bequeathed to her by Prince Philip

So that's why the kids were climbing all over that big carriage at Windsor Castle a week or so ago. Some video or pictures came up online as I recall.

R497 Meghan will bring the firecrackers to spook the horses!

If I am ever Queen, I want a parade of men who are hung like horses to march in my honor.

I guess I don’t see why it’s important to have a royal dukedom if you are already a prince. People would refer to you as HRH Prince Cyril vs HRH Prince Cyril, the Duke of Whatzit. Prince is a higher title than Duke. Especially since most of these dukedoms don’t come with land, eg Cornwall.

MM seems quite content to drop her feminist principles to be known by her husband’s title. If he lost the Sussex tag, she’d be the Princess Henry but 99% of her fans would call her Princess Meghan.

R485, do you think there's anything to the rumour that Collars & Cuffs was poisoned? I mean, his brother Georgie was euthanized in order for the news of his death to be announced in the morning papers and not the arvo broadsheets.

R500 the more titles the better! You don't think a Prince/ess of the Realm should only have 1 title do you? For shame!! Did Danerys Targeryan Stormborn Breaker of Chains Mother of Dragons teach you nothing?

For me, fuck the titles, the ONLY thing that matters is HRH. That is everything.

I knew Cam had a good sense of humour. Her current book club reading is The Paper Palace.

I love Camilla!!!!! Diana up in heaven, that doesn't I don't love you too and we gave Camilla a hard time for the past 20 years in your honor.

Harry gets a bra fitting

I bet Haz & Co. will have Netflix staff disguised as part of his "security team" to get around the Netflix ban.

I do wonder how the BRF will get around having private photos of the kids with grandpa and great grandma from being immediately distributed or if it's even an issue. Although Haz will probably save any private photos of the kids with the current and future monarch for his book.

I wonder if there will be any blowups between William and Harry when they're together during the Jubilee. Relations have been very tense between them for awhile now. And of course Meghan, shit-stirrer par excellence, will also be in attendance so maybe fireworks will ensue.

Hilarious pic of William giving Meghan the stinkeye

Like with Diana's statue unveiling, any time Harry tries to engage William in a conversation, I am sure there will be a 3rd party intervening as witness to prevent Harry from being able to bullshit about whatever William says to him.

R496 - I'm curious about Roya Nikkah's "MOST of the Queen's great-grandchildren . . ." riding in the pageant at the Windsor Horse Show.

First of all, how will that even work? Even 12 year olds shouldn't be without supervision in those horse-drawn carriages. Is the processional route to the Horse Show private so there won't be a risk of booing from crowds if the Sussexes are in one of the carriages? Of course, people might not boo if they're with their kids, it would be . . . just wrong. That might be the one place the Harkles feel safe sitting in a carriage and waving to crowds.

Infants like August Brooksbank, Sienna Mapelli, and Lilibet M-W would be considered too young unless adults are present - I wouldn't trust them with young teens . . .

Curious to see how this works.

^Oh, just realised the dates are next week, long before the Sussexes arrive.

Never mind.

It's on ITV on 15th May. It looks like the children will appear at the start of the show. This is the event.

So, them carriages full of grandchildren and great-grandchildren ALSO will not feature the Sussexes or their kids.

R513 - Interesting, as ITV is a well-known pro-Sussex outlet. Or used to be . . .

I wonder if ITV getting this is still payback from the BRF to the BBC for that ridiculous programme about the Princes and the Press by that anti-momarchist journalist, Amal Rajan?

[quote]Royal Windsor Horse Show has always been highly favoured by Her Majesty, who has attended every edition of the Show since its inception in 1943.

Amazing to think about that. The Queen hasn't missed this event since 1943!

R516 Remarkable because can you imagine how BORING it must get. I would never be able to be a working member of the Royal Family. I'd get bored after a few of those shows, 'seen, done it all', and drop it.

R481 The Duchy of Cornwall belongs to the Prince of Wales. When Prince Charles ascends to the throne it will go to William. It can’t just be given to anyone.

I think the tides are turning on H&M. Over the past 2 weeks, I have seen the American outlets be a lot less flattering, especially since the Netflix deal that was dropped. Their usual pro M&H mouth pieces, People & US, have been more critical recently.

While it belongs to the current Prince of Wales, it is given to the eldest male son of the Monarch (provided they are the heir apparent), who may, or may not, be the Prince of Wales. If a minor, they only get 10% of the income until they reach majority. If the heir apparent is female, they get the income, but not the title of Duke or Cornwall.

Isn't a female always the "hear presumptive"? Never the heir apparent?

No...since first-born females in many RFs have the same standing as first born males, they would be the heir apparent.

Tom Bower confirmed today that his book about Meghan will be out by the summer. He said the book is done but that Meghan's lawyers are trying to stop publication. Her lawyers allegedly have also gone around threatening the people he spoke to many of whom are apparently speaking on the record for the first time about their dealing with Meghan including crew from Suits.

R481 The Cambridge title belongs to William and stays with him until he becomes King when it becomes open again. The current Duke of Kent has male heirs so that title is not available.

R486 Most of those duchies you mention are currently filled. Cumberland is available though.

So when Charles accedes will William then be both Duke of Cambridge and Duke of Cornwall?

Where are you getting that R523? It doesn't seem to be being reported by any of the UK papers...

R526, that's because it's happening in R523 's Malibu Meghan playhouse. If you look closely, you'll see a laptop switch on. On the screen in tiny little letters that's the headline (in other words, I didn't see it after using our best friend that starts with a G).

R525 Yes. When William becomes King then the Cambridge title is free again. The Cornwall title always descends to the male heir apparent.

If George and Louis marry while Charles is still King, either one of them could get the Duke of Edinburgh title if it's not given to Edward Wessex.

If they marry after William becomes King, then it's likely one of them could get the Duchy of Cambridge.

If Andrew is dead by then, then the York title would be up for grabs.

But, they should give that one a rest for awhile...bring back the Cumberland title! Or, even Clarence!

H&M must have mind-bending bills from lawyers.

R529 Well, that's the never solved mystery of the Sussexes....who is paying all these legal bills, and pr bills, and security bills, and overall lifestyle bills?

Can't wait for the day when the Sussexes slink back to the UK because they are flat broke. The property taxes and maintenance on their Ca. place must be horrendous, and as mentioned, the legal and PR bills. But Harry will have to fly solo on his comeback because MM would be the last straw for the British public. So he may actually get his half in-half out deal.

When there is no male heir to the Duchy of Cornwall, the title and its income revert to the Crown. A female apparent will inherit the Duchy of Lancaster upon accession.

As William is already Duke of Cambridge, he may forego using Duke of Cornwall publicly even though he has the title by right of inheriting the Duchy, but he will most certainly be named Prince of Wales.

It's one reason he and Kate ate being sent to Wales for Jubilee connections, whilst Anne is being sent to Scotland and the Wessexes to NI.

Tom Bower is commenting frequently and negatively of late with real confidence in his statements. Part of it is pre publicity for the book but you can bet it will be a barn burner.

Some quotes:

"It is an untold story, I have found out things that are really quite extraordinary about her, and I think the public perception of her will either be confirmed or outraged or in any case it'll be a great surprise."

“William will worry that Harry and Meghan will pull a stunt to try to get the limelight. Kate and William would be foolish not to be suspicious and would be unwise not to be cautious.”

"Brand Markle is struggling after Netflix's decision. The celebrity Duchess has shown limited talent for original entertainment. Her children's book On the Bench flopped and her voiceover for a Disney film was mocked."

"It is an astonishing story of a woman who came from nothing and is now a world figure has trampled on all those others on the way which is classic for the sort of people I always choose, whether it's a politician or a tycoon."

He's really coming down hard on them, which suggests he's got a lot of hard hitting content in his book, consistent with his reputation.

Bower has written a book about them and he can't even get the title of her book right?

He probably messed up the name on purpose.

[quote] .bring back the Cumberland title

R528 It can't be "brought back". The Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale title was suspended in 1918 due to Ernest August's pro-German activities during World War I under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, as it was for his son. Under the Act the lineal male heirs of the 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale have the right to petition the British Crown for the restoration of his peerages. The current heir apparent of the title is Caroline of Monaco's estranged husband, Prince Ernst August of Hanover. He's the great-grandson of the last holder of the title.

I'm still reading, skipping now the utterly boring early stuff about E &P.

Getting a sympathy note for the death of a corgi? Jeez Louise. The Queen likes Balmoral? You don't say! Philip wanted the kids to be named "Mountbatten"? Get over yourself. He berated an author for writing that P. served "ON" a ship, when P. insisted it should be "IN" a ship? Say what?

What kind of silly book have I started?!

I think he wrote On the Bench, like a badly-performing athlete, to mock her.

I thought Lancaster was an ancient title that accedes to the Monarch. Right now Elizabeth is both Queen and holds the Duchy of Lancaster. I read that somewhere a long time ago. It goes back to John of Gaunt? And the Duke of Clarence title was discredited long before Victoria's time. That was the the title of Edward IV's brother George who was actively scheming against his brother the King, and a traitor during the War of the Roses. He was a degenerate, too, and after being sentenced to death asked to be drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine. His wish was granted.

"But Harry will have to fly solo on his comeback because MM would be the last straw for the British public. So he may actually get his half in-half out deal."

R531, you think being in the incredibly weak negotiating position of being broke is going to get him his half-in-half-out deal? No, the BRF doesn't want to give anyone a half-in-half-out deal, so if he runs through his money and has to beg, if he stays married he'll be given the choice of living at a spare family house and signing all the NDAs in the world, or the life of a Remittance Man in Botswana. If he gets divorced, it'll be the choice between edging back into the life of a working royal on *their* terms, or yeah. Living as a Remittance Man.

Change one letter of "On The Bench" and you've got a book about a doomed pair waiting to die in an approaching nuclear wind.

R542, Harry may well be broke but he does know where all the bodies are buried. That is why they haven't blasted him into oblivion yet. What I envisioned was him flying back and forth from UK to perform some functions on behalf of the BRF and then returning to Ca. to be with his family. The BRF know that the sight of smirking MM in her designer clobber would bring the whole royal house of cards down for good and all.

R531

Harry's now appearing in a TV commercial for Travalyst. I tell ya, his goal is to be the McConaughey of Lincoln of any number of TV commercials.

So, the question remaining now is..will the inevitable arc be a brief shot on Real Housewives prior to landing on Only Fans?

The Palace, especially Charles will NEVER allow Harry to take attention away from himself or William. Not happening. If Harry can prover he has matured and is willing to be "helpful" in the way that the practically mute Edward is helpful they might allow it. And if he is allowed, he will have to go it alone because Meghan will be "Busy with her career" in the states. As things progress and time passes I do expect William and Harry to reconcile, but once the Queen is gone their lives will be so different it will never be as close as it once was.

[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.]

R543, I suspect that was the author's intended allusion.

Harry's children will be brought up and educated as Americans. There is not now and will never be a place or purpose in the UK for Harry anymore.

HM has made it clear that The Firm's future is all about the three living heirs.

[quote]Harry's children will be brought up and educated as Americans. There is not now and will never be a place or purpose in the UK for Harry anymore.

So it doesn't make sense for Archie and Lilibet to have the HRH title and to be Prince and Princess. They're Americans, for all intents and purposes, and they have no physical connection to Britain or the Monarchy. It just doesn't make sense for them to have titles, no matter how much Harry and Meghan yammer on about it.

As long as the only truly interesting thing about those kids is their connection to the BRF, r550, I expect everyone involved will find some way to keep the connection alive.

"Did you know Mother was once on Suits?" ain't gonna cut it. Even if Mom and Dad blow it, those kids are gonna haunt Windsor like the ghost of Katherine Howard.

[quote]"It is an astonishing story of a woman who came from nothing and is now a world figure has trampled on all those others on the way which is classic for the sort of people I always choose, whether it's a politician or a tycoon."

But she didn't "start from nothing". He's full of shit

Figure of speech, r553 and true enough. While Meghan was afforded private schooling and dance lessons, her older half-siblings certainly never were. Her parents split up when she was 6 and she grew up in a modest LA suburb with her mom. That’s no knock on her, though.

R553 check out Meghan's IMDB page. She came from nothing and there she remained.

No new facts, r539 if you’ve followed the BRF, but owing to Tina Brown’s unique perspective and deft, sly writing, she presents her observations on a fancy silver service for those of us unfamiliar with the details. For example. After Meghan’s efforts to become a UN Woman’s Advocate (à la Angelina Jolie) didn’t pan out, she cultivated Piers Morgan and other contacts to get the intro to Prince Henry. Here’s Meghan, stunned by the British tabloid press’s coverage when her 4-month relationship with PH was revealed:

[quote]The cable actress who had slogged so long for name recognition now played the part of a besieged celebrity, wearing a long dark coat, beanie hat, and dark glasses.

[quote]In the first round of coverage, she was portrayed as Grace Kelly redux, an actress, humanitarian, and gender equality campaigner, making it hard not to believe that the initial leak came from Meghan’s side (though a servant tip from the House of York has been fingered). The second round, however, struck a different tone, forcing Meghan to experience the full-on bare-toothed barracuda swarm of hacks on the royal beat.

[quote]Used to publicist-fed entertainment coverage and magazine puff pieces in return for access, American celebrities often find themselves dazed by the sheer demonic creativity of the popular press. If you are not the target, the tabloids’ tearing through other people’s reputations is a guilty pleasure of the English breakfast table, like the tartness of orange marmalade. At their best, they provide pungent demolitions of the pretensions of the rich and pompous. At their worst, they reflect the basest instincts of jeering reactionary trolls.

Great prose. The British tabs dug into MM’s mundane upbringing, & her former marriage, made unsavory insinuations about MM’s previous romantic relationships, and a completely nonexistent connection with Pornhub, for the sole purpose of putting names together on newsprint. “Harry went ballistic.”

Prince Harry stormed down to get Kensington Palace’s PR people to issue a statement, unprecedented for a relationship of only four months. KP’s statement condemned the “smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”

[quote] Unsurprisingly, Harry’s salvo was a news sensation. … A woke House of Windsor was a marvel to behold!

[quote]For Meghan, the statement was a quantum leap. It revolutionized her status, from minor celebrity to [italic]cause célèbre[/italic]. She was now a global avatar of diversity and style and, on social media, something more potent still: a victim—in actual, ugly fact to be sure, yet also imbued with the aura of a woman who could assert she’d been wronged. She absorbed her new identity ravenously. On the moral high ground after clearly heinous press treatment, Meghan was close to invincible.

Delectable description, savory insider insight. Tina’s assessment of MM seems fair—she gives her credit for hard work and “progressive drive” all along, from childhood on. Her description of the MM+Prince Harry wedding is rapturous.

But in Tina’s eyes, the new couple unnecessarily & self-destructively blows up KP’s traditions and the BRF’s expectations, Harry because of his hatred for the press and Meghan due to an American celebrity cluelessness that her new star wattage didn’t provide any “call my agent” leverage over the stark fact of primogeniture—No. 6 on the royal call sheet, inevitably slipping further down with each of sister-in-law Kate’s pregnancies.

MM appeared to think that the Kensington Palace staff was supposed to serve her, and that her level of in-house power would rise with her level of public acclaim. She had no realization that KP’s staff serves the public institution of the BRF—not like a crew hired by an entertainment industry production to meet all her demands without question. Nevertheless, for her wedding she got everything she wanted, according to one Palace source, “‘the chapel she wanted, the preacher she wanted, the choir she wanted, the location for the after-party, the chef, the entertainment, the guest list. No one said no to anything.’”

The Palace aides were getting fed up with all the demands. There was obviously a culture clash, as the “preparation for the Sussex union was all drama, all the time. Meghan’s MO was seen as revving up Harry whenever she sensed any obstruction.”

[quote]So why didn’t Harry help navigate Palace culture for his future wife? He didn’t want to. Their new complicity required Meghan to fight against all the norms he had kicked against for so long. An aide described their confrontational stance to me as a mutual “addiction to drama.”

One thing Tina missed is the fact that Meghan's celebrated complaint to Procter & Gamble about women washing dishes was part of a class project where all the students were supposed to call out sexist bits they'd seen on TV. Meghan's got chosen for coverage because her Dad got the producer at General Hospital to pull some strings for her.

R559 source? It's not impossible but I've never heard that version and find that a bit hard to believe from a teacher in 1992/93.

It's been reported over and over. Wake up.

Tina actually went very easy on Meghan, probably because criticizing Meghan = the Megaloons screaming RACISM!!!! She either didn't investigate or didn't want to report on anything she found out about Doria, woman of mystery who is no doubt in a cult.

Meghan did come from nothing. She was an average middle-class Cali girl, average looks, average intellect, but huge ambition. She fixes herself up with cosmetic surgery, rigorous body care, and ceaseless efforts got her, by 35, to a d-list actress on a show in which she was 6th on lt call sheet.

Compared to where she ended up, that is nothing.

And it was my understanding that someone else recommended the Chicago preacher, Meghan hadn't a clue who he was. Brown made lots of sloppy mistakes like that

I mean, Meghan had been busy distancing herself from her black heritage and family for years. She wasn't into gospel and black church tradition. Someone else brought those in.

The book was entertaining but lazy. Brown didn't check up many things that she took from second- and third-hand sources.

Meghan wouldn't have known who that preacher was if he'd fallen on her from a great height.

Meghan was planning on converting to Judaism when she married Trevor. Being Jewish would have been a good career move in Hollywood. So her religious beliefs are obviously negligible to non-existent.

She just barely beat Bower's spicier bio - lucky Tina. Hers would have been buried

I really don't see how anyone can she went easy on Meghan. Calling her out for the way she dumped Trevor, and stating over and over that all she wants in life is fame and fortune

Tina was very cautious about stating anything as fact as opposed to rumor or inferences drawn in some of the chapters around Meghan (especially treatment of staff) and in her discussion of the William/Rose affair. She’s been around the block before and likely has good legal counsel,

Is it spooky that Doria's so firmly in the background? She certainly hasn't been erased. But her daughter could use her to puff up the Su$$ex brand.

It's a fun read but I wish I hadn't just read Tom Bower's "Rebel Prince" since Brown practically plagiarizes it in sections.

R569, that's the title of Bower's term paper, is it?

r569, how did you manage to read Bower's book so many months before publication? And how did he manage to read Brown's book before publication? And if those manuscripts have been out there for so long, how do you know who plagiarized from whom?

R569 is referring to Bower’s biography of Prince Charles.

I thought Brown's book was already out! I keep reading all these nuggets from it. I don't want to read the whole book - I would have already heard all the interesting bits, such as they are. You'd think these people cured cancer or brought about world peace. They're really not worth the time - read a history book about all the people, not just the pampered "beautiful people" who reign so far above us, that we must bow and curtsy to, and address as Her Majesty or Your Royal Highness... my god it's revolting.

I was so delighted to hear William and Kate got the message on their recent tour to see the underlings... and they've decided to be called by their first names instead of all that falderall - at least some of the time. I don't have the details yet, but what makes them deserve such worship? Do they still believe in the divine right of kings?

R573, has anybody asked if you're OK?

R538 The Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale are two separate titles. The former is an open duchy and the latter has been struck off because they were Krauts.

I hope the interaction of Archie and Lilibet with the other great grandchildren is closely supervised . Allegations of racism towards the two Sussex spawn will inevitably be fabricated by their parents .

[quote] and they've decided to be called by their first names instead of all that falderall

Oh, Dear.

At this point I won't buy the Brown book.. I can't believe there's much worth paying for given how much has been written about it. Am I wrong? If you have read it, is it still worth reading?

Another American dolt oblivious to the historical links of how the monarchy fits within the three arms that underpin the British ship of state.

And yet, here she is, eagerly devouring Bower's io of Charles, ininsisting she only read "bits" of the Brown book, taking a tabloid story at face value, exclaiming her immunity to and contempt for it all as she also devours royal threads on DL, and actually asking if we all believe in the divine right of kings.

Sweetheart, open a history book.

The divine right of Kings disappeared from this green and pleasant land centuries ago. The last monarch to wield any power at all was done and dusted by 1660.

This is a constitutional monarchy JUST LIKE THE ONES THEY HAVE IN SWEDEN DENMARK NORWAY BELGIUM LICHTENSTEIN LUXEMBOURG SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS.

Yes, most of Europe, just staggering under the oppressive ruthlessness of QEII, Queen Margrethe in Denmark, etc., etc.

Move on to threads more appropriate for your level of comprehension of history and how things really work in places outside of Cleveland.

Hear hear R579!

R570 Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

Hope this helps.

Run that by me again, R581

[quote] And yet, here she is, eagerly devouring Bower's io of Charles,

Who are you even ranting about? R569 said nothing about the divine right of kings blah blah.

R578 it's very well-written and entertaining.

I never referenced R569. - do you see R569 at the top?

It was meant for R573. Here is her post - note the last sentence (and the spelling of folderol).

"I was so delighted to hear William and Kate got the message on their recent tour to see the underlings... and they've decided to be called by their first names instead of all that falderall - at least some of the time. I don't have the details yet, but what makes them deserve such worship? Do they still believe in the divine right of kings?"

Who are all these dumb Americans who are unfamiliar with constitutional monarchies? For fuck's sake, the educational level in the US is abysmal.

I think most are, r586. Maybe I'm wrong, but I will admit every so often somebody crops up to say, well the English don't understand democracy cause they live in a monarchy. I do think to most of us that sounds moronic, but still I have heard it occasionally, so you are not entirely wrong.

r578 it's almost 500 pages long. If you like what you’ve read about it here, then buy it.

Oh, plus dozens of photos, snapshots etc to go with the text. I’ve been enjoying it, even as a non Royal-watcher. 30% off at Target. Must say, the binding is a little cheap-o, but the photo pages are on pretty good stock.

[quote]Who are all these dumb Americans who are unfamiliar with constitutional monarchies? For fuck's sake, the educational level in the US is abysmal.

Many British people don't really understand the three branches of the American government and exactly how the President governs. It's all relative.

While that may be true, R589 - you don’t find them taking over threads as self-appointed experts on the government of the USA and refusing to be corrected when they are wrong.

It’s not all relative at all.

Because everybody is interested in the Royals r590. The American political system isn't exactly entertainment for people.

For that matter most Americans don't understand the three branches of government, either.

R529, what's not to understand? The three branches of government are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, right? - D. Plorable

Wow.

Just finished "The Palace Papers".

Say what you will about Tina Brown, but let it include that woman can dish. And the dish is delicious, credible, and additive.

I'm finally at the part where Tina is talking about Meghan. Whew! Loving evey minute of this book, Della!

[quote] the American political system isn't exactly entertainment for people

Did you miss Trump's daily jokes on Twitter? His rallies as a standup insult comic? Rudy Giuliani's press conference next to the adult sex toy shop, with black dye rolling down his face? Ted Cruz's Caribbean holiday in the midst of a state crisis? Bill Clinton's impeachment trial over a blow-job? I could go on and on...

Ahoy, r595.

I posted this on a different thread but it's more apt here:

"... I have to echo what other have pointed out about Brown's writing about Markle:

Clever, aware, and self-preserving Brown knows how to approach the topic of bigotry. She begins her discussion of Doria and Markle by creating the frame which will border her describing the racism and bigotry that Doria, and, by extension and witness, Markle, have endured throughout their lives.

That serves two purposes: setting forth what is a real, actual experience endured by Doria and Markle and 2. inoculating Brown from any perception that her criticism of Markle has any whiff of bigotry to it.

And Brown is deeply critical of the Sussexes, both expressly and "between the lines", while deploying a measure of empathy for the reasons for their behavior.

It's very well written and without overtly criticizing Meghan, Brown makes it obvious what a shit-stirring pain in the ass and narcissist she is.

Della, I'd say oveall, Tina Bown does a very good job of providing context for all of them, including Pince Phillip and The Queen. Cetainly she does with Chales, Camilla, etc. She is able to provide background on each one that informs their behavior without excusing the behavior. And in Markle's case, that context says, " This is who she is and she has been this way almost her entire life. Both her parents raised her that way."

As a POC I have to say neither one of them seemed to do a very good job raising her with some sense of her cultual identity and racism. I'm gateful my family did a good job in that area.Living in the real world, making us aware of Racism, raising us to not self limit, understanding where we fit in?? All of that seems to have been ovelooked by Meghan's parents. pesonally I think Meghan has a good heart, but she gets in her own way, as my Granny used to say. In that regard, Hay is her soulmate because he also has a good heart, and gets in his own way.

Oh my yes. People with good hearts regularly lie about such trifles as suicide, and being kept a prisoner. So normal.