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Questions, Questions and more Questions

 It feels like things have been quiet.  

Sure we hear of this bit of news that they are doing this.  Or have done that (not always with pictures which then begs the question: did it really happen?).  Or read that one of them is about to do something.

So many questions swirl around them.

Why are the exposures and interests appear to be more scattershot than a few general areas to be grouped under?  Consistently meaning the same groups or group types.

Why does the clothing still not seem to match the season they are in?  Are they still able to find people willing to offer stuff or are they running out of designers?  Or are they just not checking the weather?

What is happening with Spotify?  

Or Netflix?  

Or what do you think will happen as The Crown edges closer to current events?

Where are all the power hires who were to lead or guide them in some of the proposed projects?  

What if they left the Montecito house?  Where in California be a better or more visible place for their interests?  Or would New York beckon?  The City is always a flashy albeit expensive draw but many power people live in Westchester, Katonah (HRC), Greenwich, Westport (Martha although is now more in Bedford I think but could be wrong) and commute.  Sometimes there is even a pied-a-terre in the City. Old money.  Company head movers and shakers.  Brokerage money.  Serious money.

What about politics?  Is that realistic meaning there could be some support for it to start?  If politics was in the future, wouldn't that bring additional security risks? Would that be safe for any of them?  

Which brings the kids to mind.  Will there be any more kid sightings any time soon?  Valentine crayon glued on candy heart?  Easter looking for hidden eggs?  

Or expand the past influencer blogger life?  Where might that go now?  The field is way more crowded than it used to be five years ago.  New people are always flocking in daily.  Will there be enough interest to sustain past the initial flurry because it is revived?

It feels like things have been quiet.  Is it because energy is running down?  Or the money stream?  Or is it a conservation of energy because they are about to announce big things - something/bring things on line/meet all their contract obligations?  

What are your thoughts?


Comments

@Enbre

I was a fan of Princess Diana for years, infact up until the last 18 months or so and would gladly defend her against criticism. 🥴I was most certainly not a fan of Camilla, yes for all the damage she inflicted on the Wales’ marriage etc . ☹️We’ve come to learn an awful lot more about Diana over the years, and it wasn’t pretty or good. 😔For many, if we had known as much about Diana whilst she was alive as we do now, I believe many Brits might have viewed both Charles and Camilla rather differently. I don’t for one minute think either of them have behaved anything like Maggot and Mole! 🥺😒My view is, if William and the nearest and dearest (the ones most affected by her and Charles’ behaviour) have come to accept and embrace Camilla and move on, so should the British public. 🥴
Maneki Neko said…
@Rebecca

Thanks for te Sunday Times article.

He will try to find a “slate of white space” after the school run. “I now put in half an hour or 45 minutes in the morning when one of the kids has gone to school and the other is taking a nap,” he said.

This begs the question: where is * in all this? Taking the 'kid' to school? Putting the last touches to her latest podcast for Spotify?

I don't like the word kid and don't normally use it, particularly for children I know or mine when they were small. Kate & William's nanny doesn't use it either - that's her Norland nanny training.

Did we miss the latest Harry Markle blog, The Montecito Masters Of Misinformation? (4 Feb).
I wonder if the H&Ms have been stunned into silence by the thought that Camilla is a tough cookie and, with her enhanced status, won't let Charles give way to them as otherwise he might?

Just a thought.
Enbrethiliel said…
@LavenderLady
Just a consolation that the announcement about Camilla is actually mild. That movie put the whole thing in perspective for me.

It's very mild to me, too . . . and well, kind of predictable. Even the angry bloggers, in my opinion, were expecting this to happen and were just waiting for their chance to explain in detail why they hate it. But I agree with them that we are now being gaslighted and PR bombed by Charles. I suspect it is the way Charles is behaving with the public now, rather than the way Charles actually behaved toward Diana the 1980s, which really angers them. Does he really think he can just get away with it?

@Raspberry Ruffle
For many, if we had known as much about Diana whilst she was alive as we do now, I believe many Brits might have viewed both Charles and Camilla rather differently.

I like Diana, too. And the older I get, the more upset I feel that her twenty-year-old self didn't have an older woman in her life to protect her from marrying a man twelve years her senior, where the wealth and power imbalance would never be in her favor. Instead, she had that awful "tea towels" argument from her older sisters. Had Diana lived and not also matured, would my patience with her have run out the way it has for her younger son? I can never say for sure.

On the other hand, my opinion of Camilla has done a full 180 degree turn. It's nearly impossible to reconcile the Duchess of Cornwall we've come to know with the "Rottweiler" character created by Diana. This is why I don't really mind that she will be Queen Consort.

When evaluating Charles and Camilla's relationship, however, I realize there's one detail I'm not certain of. There are some who say that Charles always intended to carry on with a mistress (hence the CC cufflinks at his wedding). Others say he didn't return to Camilla until after his marriage had clearly gone south. Nutties, does anyone know which version of events is correct?
Enbrethiliel said…
@WBBM
I wonder if the H&Ms have been stunned into silence by the thought that Camilla is a tough cookie and, with her enhanced status, won't let Charles give way to them as otherwise he might?

I mostly picture * being enraged that Prince Charles is letting himself be influenced by a woman she considers much less desirable than herself.

If it is true that this was being planned for at least five years, however, then Harry would have known it was coming. But yes, he might have been stunned that the Queen used her Ascension Day to make the announcement herself. In this sense, this is a message not just from his father, but also from his grandmother.
Miggy said…
SueMe analyses JH's latest load of psychobabble BS.

Just Chattin' - Harry & Meghan: Would You Take Mental Health Advice from This Man?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h2EXiBcUgE
Maneki Neko said…
@Enbrethiliel

...I feel that her twenty-year-old self didn't have an older woman in her life to protect her from marrying a man twelve years her senior.
------
Let's not forget that this arranged marriage was organised by the Queen mother and her lady-in-waiting, Lady Germoy, who was none other than Diana's maternal grandmother.
Enbrethiliel said…
@Maneki

Thanks for the reminder! I wonder if any of these women ever held themselves accountable for the parts they played in Diana's self-destruction.
@Embre,

I agree with Maneki Neko. that Diana was set up by Lady Fermoy her grand mother. Diana it is said was in love with the idea of being in love (not uncommon with many young and older females) and with the idea that Charles being older was her Knight in shining armour, it really wasn’t a healthy situation overall. Diana was both naive and calculating, the latter trait probably showing itself more as she grew older. 😟🤔

I don’t think anyone can attest whether Charles’s had intentions of still seeing Camilla throughout his marriage or whether he only returned to her when he knew his marriage was over in all but name. I’m guessing we’ll never know the truth. 🥴
Nobody knows what really goes on n someone else's marriage - and often the couple don't know either.

Remember, when Diana threw herself down the stairs, she was carrying William at the time.
snarkyatherbest said…
i am thinking the Queen wanted the announcement so her death and the rising of Charles as King was not going to overshadowed by the Camilla thing. that being said. charles is like a kid in the candy store with the pr stuff. just let the announcement be said and don’t do anything else initially. after all it is the Queen’s platinum jubilee. it’s not about him.

then again this is where the dollars get it from. he can’t help himself neither can they. they are addicted to crafting a message and are tone deaf to any cautionary voices. doesn’t feel promising for a Charles reign. hopefully it will be short.

why do i think in the back of my mind that the dollars will suggest it was Camilla who said that “racist” thing? never had the pr ever had camilla and mrs dollar as besties even though mrs dollar should realize as a wife who has her husband’s um ear (and other parts) that playing nice with the wife may get you farther than not. she knows camilla has her number
LavenderLady said…
I wonder if the H&Ms have been stunned into silence by the thought that Camilla is a tough cookie and, with her enhanced status, won't let Charles give way to them as otherwise he might?

Just a thought.

---

This crossed my mind as well when I heard the news. They have treated Camilla like dirt. I'm positive Camilla has great influence on Charles as his beloved wife.

The saga continues.

@Enbre,
"I mostly picture * being enraged that Prince Charles is letting himself be influenced by a woman she considers much less desirable than herself."

Yes, I agree. Her narcissism would cause her to see herself above Camilla in every way. What's that saying be careful with who you meet on the way up? Something like that. You think she would mind her Ps and Qs with her step mother-in-law especially one so favored by Charles. But if she can so blatantly disrespect the Queen then no one is safe around TBW.

Perhaps in her devious pea brain she feels she has dirt on Camilla. Oh dear, if she goes there. Charles will be King in the near future. So maybe that will be her undoing. The twists and plots though not as treacherous nor bloody as with Henry VIII, are compelling.

I think Diana must have felt the same as TBW meaning Diana being an iconic beauty. The Natalie Portman role in the movie I mentioned was just that. A beautiful woman who bewitched the King but in the end his respect went to the lesser sister. I don't equate Diana with TBW. Not in any way except that one. I actually was an admirer of Diana. But yes, to see her Prince go to horsey Camilla must have stung like H.
LavenderLady said…
@snarky,
Our posts crossed in the mail again 🙂. We are on the same wave length.

I also hope Charles' reign is not drawn out. William is the best bet with Kate by his side. They need young energy to survive in this culture of SM.

But, pampered people have longevity if they don't have vices. Sigh ...
Enbrethiliel said…
@snarkyatherbest
then again this is where the dollars get it from. he can’t help himself neither can they.

Diana also liked using the press against Charles, and she stooped to using their sons as pawns not just in the drama of the divorce (which would have been bad enough), but in the news stories. Harry learned a bit from her, too. As did *, when she was neck-deep in the research she claimed she never did.

On the other hand, the one time I recall Prince William being furious at his father for a similar use of the media was when William's reaction to meeting Camilla for the first time was leaked to a tabloid. Charles, to his credit, didn't want to smear the mother of his children the way she was smearing him. But he went all out, guns blazing, wherever Camilla was concerned -- and apparently still does.

In this case, Harry seems to have inherited worst of Diana, plus the worst of Charles: A disastrous mix.
LavenderLady said…

@Enbre said,
But he went all out, guns blazing, wherever Camilla was concerned -- and apparently still does.
---

Anne Boleyn has long been considered as the most influential Queen Consort in that history. No pressure for Camilla then. It's been done.

I believe based on her conduct since she became Chas' wife, she will do fine. He will no doubt promote her in the media which will cause The Douche to spiral downward even more.

Isn't that exactly what we want?😉
Humor Me said…
Good morning Nutties!

Wow - what a 72 hours this has been. QC Camilla and radio silence from Montecito. I read somewhere that Kensington P had done a copy/ paste of HMTQ's announcement on their official page, but, nothing personal from that front either.
The timing makes me sad - on what should be, a once in a lifetime event - th immediate focus first was on her replacement. IS the Queen telling the People that she does not have long on this earth? Is this why William is silent?
Granted, HMTQ looked radient at the party (Westminster?) this weekend. The dress was perfect, and she was in her best form. However - she has lost weight, and, what struck me as an observer from across the Pond.....I have never seen HM in a coat! Coat Dresses are one thing - but she actually wore a coat, and a heavy one at that. Perhaps I am reading too much into the tea leaves that spill out across my iMac screen. Back to lurking....
Enbrethiliel said…
@LL
Anne Boleyn has long been considered as the most influential Queen Consort in that history. No pressure for Camilla then. It's been done.

There's a dating coach who likes to say, when she hears women make excuses about why a guy won't call or says he can't commit at the moment: "Henry VIII went against the Pope and founded a new church, just so he could have the woman he wanted. If a man really wanted to dial your number, he would."

Prince Charles is a lot less dramatic, but he, too, did the equivalent of moving mountains to be with the woman he chose. Luckily, Camilla seems to be a lot more humble than the unfortunate Anne.

He will no doubt promote her in the media which will cause The Douche to spiral downward even more.

I agree in looking for the silver lining in all things. And a downward spiral for * is a silver lining studded with diamonds!
Enbrethiliel said…
The more I think about Charles's conduct in his second marriage, the more I am grudgingly impressed by his love for his wife. (If only it weren't tainted by their history!) I personally believe Camilla would have been okay with the Princess Consort style; she is already married to the man she loves and is getting to use her status to do charity work that is highly meaningful to her. But Charles thinks she deserves better than that and he is making sure that she gets it, come heck or high water. @Snarky is right that he should probably show some restraint here, lest he lose the gains he struggled so hard for in the first place. But we are witnessing the actions of a man who is so in love that he will literally treat his wife like a queen.

Maybe Queen Elizabeth finally decided to allow it -- and to throw her full support behind it -- because it reminded her of her own husband's great love for her. And who would best understand how necessary it is for a crowned head to have a strong marriage than someone who was in exactly that position for over seventy years?
LavenderLady said…
@Enbre,

I love the quote from the dating coach. So true :)

You said,

The more I think about Charles's conduct in his second marriage, the more I am grudgingly impressed by his love for his wife. (If only it weren't tainted by their history!)


I think Charles really did and still deeply loves Camilla. He looks very happy with her. Anne B on the other hand was a master at seduction, trained in France. She basically was an aristo courtesan. That King, (Henry) was captured through lust by a siren. Who does that Henry sound like? Lol.

Ahhh the big difference between lust and true love.
Enbrethiliel said…
@LL

The Tumblr blogger @Scorpiotwentythree is the first one I remember comparing Harry and * to Henry VIII and Anne. It seemed very apt to me, too, but you're the first other person I know for whom the parallels are truly eyebrow raising! I guess the Tudors are too far in the past for the majority of people to sense that history is repeating itself with the Dollars. We need to read a good book or be immersed in a good period drama for it to feel immediate again.
SwampWoman said…
I feel compassion for Charles or anybody that has been in a marriage or relationship with a mentally-unstable individual. Unless a person has been in such a relationship or witnessed the devastation firsthand, I don't think that they can actually understand how horrific the effect can be on the normal person. Living with an unstable person is analogous to living in a house with sticks of old dynamite with unstable nitroglycerin weeping out. You never know when it will spontaneously explode causing great damage, you just know that it will. The person living with the unstable person can never relax. They are in fight or flight mode all the time, and the constant stress takes quite a toll on a person.
Mel said…
But yes, he might have been stunned that the Queen used her Ascension Day to make the announcement herself. In this sense, this is a message not just from his father, but also from his grandmother.
--------

Makes you wonder about being stunned, given their deathly silence, eh?

I wonder if the mole who was leaking to the Harkles has been found out and cut off.

Yorks? Now that PA is only family, maybe cut off from business communications?
Omid Scobie would still have access to embargoed info? Or not anymore? Is he still considered a journalist? Maybe not?

DesignDoctor said…
@Enbre
Do you have any suggestions for a good book or period piece to enlighten us?
Hikari said…
Lots of meat to tuck into here . . great commentary by the Nutties.

Re. the Queen's announcement about Camilla, it kind of floored me that she did it, given, oh, Canon Law and her well-publicized feelings at the time of Charles's second marriage. Her quite unequivocal 180 degree turn from that earlier position was unexpected, but ultimately practical, and Elizabeth has always been imminently practical amongst her chief virtues. Her statement embracing the change made to kick off her Jubilee year has very much the flavor of getting her ducks in a row. Personally, she may have found this a difficult task, reversing herself when her earlier dictum had the weight of Church law behind it. But things have changed precipitately in her realm since she had to refuse Margaret her first choice in love on the same grounds. Great Britain has become an overwhelmingly secular society, to the point where Her Majesty's own Archbishop of Canterbury--the sovereign's chief spiritual advisor through the centuries seems to not actually be genuinely sold on the most basic tenets of Christianity. I suppose Justin Welby and Chas actually get on like houses on fire, seeing as Charles had petitioned Mummy that after her, he felt he should be known as 'The Defender of the *FAITHS* in a nod to pluralistic Britain. I believe she told him absolutely not, this could never be, but Charles does indeed have a highly ecumenical bent. Basically what drives Charles and has done since childhood is, he wants to be liked, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve this, including embracing all religions practiced in his realm as equally valid to the one he was raised in. Such an ecumenical attitude (ie, 'openmindedness') is a trait highly prized these days but it does present problems for one when his hereditary title involves being the head of one Church and one only. Given that Charles's future kingdom is never going to go back to embracing the Church of England the way it did when his mother was a newly-minted Queen, maybe it's time to let the sovereign be the defender of the faiths, even if 'self-actualization' and finding 'white space' constitutes one's religion.

I myself am a conservative Protestant believer, but I see Charles' point of view. Hundreds of years of British tradition are coming to a close with the passing of the second Elizabethan age, and in fact have already been changing during most of Her Majesty's reign.

Embre, was it you who said on the previous page that it seemed to you that Elizabeth's feelings have guided her faith, especially when it comes to members of her own family? I think having to deny her sister her desired marriage partner, and her eldest son on the grounds of this pesky divorce question really ate away at her and have made her reconsider. Also playing into her decision has got to be that a full 3/4ths of her own children have failed spectacularly and extremely publicly at honoring the vows made in their first marriages. These divorces and the attendant scandals, particularly for Charles must have been awful for HM to deal with. Her own moral life has been conducted with steadfast integrity, and she's walked the walk of her faith for these 90+ years. Her children couldn't, or wouldn't, and that's got to hurt. Edward married late, when both partners were in their maturity, and that can only have helped. Had he been rushed down the aisle in his mid-20s, he probably would have imploded too.

Hikari said…
I think HM has chosen forgiveness over dogma. Would Jesus not also do the same? Charles and Camilla both sinned, lots, individually and in concert by their activities together when both married to others. Divorce grieves God . . but Charles's first spouse is no longer living. What matters to God now is how the partners in the current marriage have conducted themselves since they married. Camilla is, and always has been, I think we can all acknowledge, Charles's choice of life partner. Denied the first time, he eventually got his way, though life events which no one could have anticipated intervened. If Diana were still alive, I think we'd be having a very different conversation now. Could Charles's current marriage have taken place and still allowed him to ascend as King? Perhaps. But it seems a near-certainty that were Diana still here, Camilla would have had to settle for Princess Consort.

Camilla has earned her place within the Firm, in my opinion. Despite vile criticism and being pelted with food in public and decidedly being the most hated woman in Britain for many years, she has kept her head down, supported Charles absolutely and been a credit to the Firm with her patronages and good humor. For a woman in her 70s with some long-standing health problems, she's been very busy and hard-working for the Crown. Charles is a far happier and more settled man since their marriage. He will be King--his divorced status does not prevent that. The King's wife should rightfully be called Queen Consort. It's really all semantics with this title because whether she's called Princess or Queen, her duties and her role by Charles's side will not change one iota. Perhaps she doesn't care nearly as much about this matter as Charles does, which he clearly does--as a mark of respect for his wife and for him by extension. Respect, dignity, an acknowledgement by others that the title holder deserves to be accorded both--this is exactly why the Queen created her own consort as 'The Prince Philip'. He felt treated as a second-rate interloper by the court and the people and that was not ideal for marital harmony.

Let's be frank and admit that most of the people who would deny Camilla the title of Queen Consort are not doing it out of reasons of sacred conscience of canon law, but rather to see Camilla continue to be penalized for her adultery with Charles. She doesn't 'deserve' the title, out of respect for the memory of Diana. Does withholding the Queen Consort title change fundamentally Camilla's current position as Charles's only living wife, or the responsibilities attendant on being the wife of a King? No, it doesn't. Does Diana benefit in any way by having her rival denied the title? No; regretful as it is to all who watched her wedding and pictured Queen Diana, it was not to be for her. Diana is still tragically gone. Some people want to see Camilla sl*t shamed in perpetuity, and that is the main driver here for the most part, in my opinion.

Hikari said…
If the Queen can forgive, and if God can forgive . . then we should also. The only alternative to forgiveness, if we want to be absolutely fair in distributing the stones which are cast is that Charles too must be deemed unworthy to be styled King due to his adultery and must therefore make way for his son William.

I wonder if people are confused about the actual power which a Queen Consort wields? Camilla and Catherine to come after her may be called Queen but that is really only a courtesy title. No one will replace Elizabeth Regina as Queen Regnant by simply marrying in. I do not have an issue with Camilla being called Queen. It's not like it's going to be for long. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since 2005, when Diana's tragic demise was still a raw wound. Her Majesty has had a change of heart, but also maybe it was always going to be the plan to reassess the matter of Camilla's future title when and if the eventuality got closer. Deferring big decisions until the absolute last necessity is the Windsor MO. At the time of their marriage, public sentiment was still very harshly against Camilla, but I do believe her image rehabilitation has been largely successful. Even if people are not thrilled with the idea, it has ceased to be a hot button issue for the majority.

I wonder if ER recognizes how very much like her her son is in at least one respect: his stubborn talent for getting what he wants in the end. He won Camilla, her title is secured . . now all that remains is to see what happens to his proposed plan to live in Clarence House and commute to the 'Office' when he is King. Meanwhile, he would do well to shut up about the title. Mummy has spoken, so he doesn't need to and I wish he'd say no more. Or she might change her mind again.
Hikari said…
As for what this means for the Harkles . . .

The Queen has made it crystal clear that loyalty, service and decorum are prized virtues which are rewarded. Camilla deserves kudos for her impeccable conduct as the Duchess of Cornwall under extremely trying circumstances. Once she was unfavorably compared to Diana and now the equally glamorous, equally young, equally tall Catherine who wears clothes like a dream is literally side by side with her. Camilla has got to know that despite her current rank, there are loads of people that still want to see her fail or even better, die. She was abused in public, horrible things were said . . but she's been pretty steadfast and far from hiding away in a palace, she's out there as one of the busiest royals on engagements, like Anne, taking a lot of the 'lesser' more obscure patronages. I think, like Charles, the people that actually get to meet her and interact with her on a personal level think she's great.

It can be extrapolated then that if loyalty, service and decorum are rewarded, the very opposite behavior will have the very opposite result. * has made an enemy out of Camilla by her vile, baiting behavior. Not a good move. Lest there is any remote possibility of Chas wavering over entreaties emanating from Montecito, this show of favor by the Queen can only strengthen Camilla's position at court. Camilla is the Rottweiler in respect to being the top guard dog for Charles, and I'm sure she will continue as the gatekeeper, and even more so. Maybe Camilla should take over as Chas. private secretary--let Mole and Maggot deal directly with Camilla on the Zoom calls and see how far they get.
MacLaine said…
Bravo, Hikari. I agree that Camilla has conducted herself admirable! And I also hope she will be gatekeeper when Charles ascends.
I fear this acknowledgment by the Queen will only serve to further embitter the Montecito Prince, however. But woe betide him when/if his vile memoirs attack Camilla. That will be his final act of betrayal.
Longview said…

Regarding The Queen's announcement regarding Camilla.

I don't think it is to do with rewarding Camilla, or any sense of giving Camilla what she deserves.

Her Majesty is a realist if nothing else. It was reported that Prince Phillip and The Queen had always held concerns about what Charles would be like as King, and had resolved to stay alive as long as they could, to make his reign as short as possible, thus limiting any damage to the Monarchy. They feared he would be out of touch, indulgent, tainted by his decades-long conduct of selling access in return for donations to his charities, and that he would always be unpopular with his people.

Her Majesty knows that Camilla can keep Charles grounded and under control, that she is down to earth and pragmatic. When Charles is sulking in a corner, Camilla is the only one who can get him to pull up his socks and get on with it.

Charles needs to be managed, and the woman who is going to do that when Charles is King has to have the respect and authority to do so. That's why Her Majesty has made it clear that Camilla is to be respected when Charles ascends the throne.

Camilla is Charles's babysitter and minder, until such time as William and Catherine can take over.
Maneki Neko said…
'Difficult' Meghan Markle could learn from how Duchess of Cornwall has bided her time, not tried to 'outsmart Prince Charles' and never complained, royal biographer claims

Article by Angela Levin in the DM. She says 'Since Covid, Camilla has done lots of Zoom calls which showed sense of humour'.
* is certainly lacking in that department. She could have learnt so much from Camilla - had she been willing to learn, but she was above that.

'Comparaing the two women, she described Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex as a 'difficult woman' who is 'not somebody who wants to work as a team'.'
. . .
'When she's with Prince Charles, she takes a backwards step and she's there to support him rather like Prince Philip was,' Angela said.

'She doesn't try to interfere, she doesn't try to outsmart him, or rush ahead and shake hands with whoever is there.'


Ha ha! I hope * reads that last sentence 😁

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10485911/Royal-biographer-says-public-warmed-Camilla.html

snarkyatherbest said…
oh i like that. more power as wife and private secretary. she would have that phone number blocked in no time.

i think charles really wanted it but i don’t get the sense that camilla needed to have this honor. she seems happy on her skin supporting her husband and her causes. in fact i’d bet not being queen means less travel (which has been intimated that she hates especially plane travel) she would be all for it.

i don’t like that this overshadowed the anniversary of the ascension to the throne. could have been done on Camila’s birthday, just be fore the Jubilee stuff in June, on maggot’s anniversary etc. if it was charles pushing it hard for that day then it’s even sadder because it appears charles is in charge. he’s gonna ruin this gift and it is a gift. mom could have left him to write the letters of patent or whatever. she took that off his shoulders and his reign.

i too thought his statement was over the top. would the queen ever refer to philip as my darling in a public statement. it may have been charles sentiment but i think camilla would have been fine assuming those sentiment are made privately and regularly. you are set to be king man. think like a monarch. sorry he’s worse than a hallmark movie or a teen fan of a kpop group. wonder if he wrote it with a pink feathery pen (legally blind reference 😉)
As far as the Anglican Church is concerned, Charles was a widower when he married Camilla - it's remarriage of divorcees that is the stumbling block - making vows to a new partner when a previous spouse is still living. C & D may have parted, as we understand it, in the 1990s; they were parted by death in 1997 and Charles's vows to D were no longer relevant. That's what `until death do us part' means.

So may we please stop the talk about `taint'? Remember what Jesus said about casting stones? John 8 v7.

The service in St George's was what is sometimes called one of `prayer and dedication' ie not a wedding. It did, however, include the General Confession from the Prayer Book. The Press made a lot of it but it's what we used to say at Matins every Sunday - I'd wager they used the old language too, given Charles's love of the Prayer Book:

Almighty and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou them who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.


They would have been assured of God's forgiveness and it is not for us to continue being judgemental.
SwampWoman said…
@Wild Boar Battle-maid said: As far as the Anglican Church is concerned, Charles was a widower when he married Camilla - it's remarriage of divorcees that is the stumbling block - making vows to a new partner when a previous spouse is still living. C & D may have parted, as we understand it, in the 1990s; they were parted by death in 1997 and Charles's vows to D were no longer relevant. That's what `until death do us part' means.

Thanks for that! I was sitting here all confused about what the problem was when his first wife was dead.
LavenderLady said…
@Enbre,
"The Tumblr blogger @Scorpiotwentythree is the first one I remember comparing Harry and * to Henry VIII and Anne. It seemed very apt to me, too, but you're the first other person I know for whom the parallels are truly eyebrow raising! I guess the Tudors are too far in the past for the majority of people to sense that history is repeating itself with the Dollars. We need to read a good book or be immersed in a good period drama for it to feel immediate again."

I want to recall someone here, a good while back, may have mentioned it. There were a couple of posters who were very good at historical references. One in particular who had a long and unusual handle but sadly they don't post anymore, although I believe @ant is still here under a different handle. If so, cool. They had great posts!

I got my idea from the movie I mentioned. When it ended, I thought the subject would make a great series. Ha ha great minds and all. :)

Due to my heritage, I tend to view history as still with us ie: ancestors so it's not too far of a stretch for me to see the common patterns of the two women. Plus people tell me I'm deep. Heavy Virgo in the chart not surprising: OCD, overly logical, analyzes the cereal box at breakfast, shoots from the hip, doesn't hold back, opinionated, sardonic, distaste for long-windedness, pain in the a$$ etc. lol

---

Thanks to the Nutty who mentioned Chas being a widower when he married Camilla. Lattes for life with that nugget. That was no brainer that a lot of us missed.
HappyDays said…
LavenderLady said…
I wonder if the H&Ms have been stunned into silence by the thought that Camilla is a tough cookie and, with her enhanced status, won't let Charles give way to them as otherwise he might?

Just a thought.

@LL: Same thought here. I think Camilla had Meghan sussed from the start, and she’s witnessed how Meghan has extracted Harry’s personality and replaced it with her own.

With the title of Queen Consort and her likely influence over Charles, I think she will quietly but firmly flex her muscles to get Charles to deal with threats to the institution of the monarchy and threats to his own reign, which will be nowhere near as long as his mother’s. Charles will be much older at the start of his reign than his mother was at the start of her reign.

He will have fewer years to be remembered in history as a good king. He has a lot to compete with as the followup act to his mother.

I doubt Camilla will allow a pair of peasants like Harry and his wife to ruin it with their endless drama and accusations.

I can easily see Camilla forming an alliance with the Cambridges to assist Charles and leave a healthy monarchy to William and Kate.

The “new rules” for the Sussexes once Charles is monarch with Camilla at his side will hopefully begin with, “Now look here you pair of turds. This is how things are going to be from this point forward. If you don’t like it, you’d better start learning how to work at a drive-through window at McDonald’s.” XOXO, Pa and Camilla
Miggy said…
The Body Language Guy

The VILE Reason Why Harry IGNORED The Queen's Jubilee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyhYjYELGyc
LavenderLady said…
@Happy Days,
I wonder if the H&Ms have been stunned into silence by the thought that Camilla is a tough cookie and, with her enhanced status, won't let Charles give way to them as otherwise he might?

I think it was @Enbre who said this?
SwampWoman said…
Aaaaargh, Miggy! Now I will have to watch the BLG and find the vile reason!

I just got off the phone with hubby who is out of state again. I casually asked him where the first aid kit with the BIG bandages was, and how about the antibacterials? He started shouting "OMG, did you get out the chainsaw to cut up that downed maple tree when I told you not to? I'm on my way home NOW." "No, I just..." "Were you cutting something on the miter saw? I've TOLD you not to cut branches on the miter saw, they can kick back and hurt you, but do you listen? NO!" (Well, that's true.) "No, I'm fine, I just need a bandage." "WHAT DID YOU DO?" I tripped over an oak root in the dark and went knee first into a broken hunk of concrete hubby has piled outside for loading up and hauling off from our ongoing remodeling/demolition. My poor knee has no skin and some deep holes in it now. It looks like somebody whacked it with a big meat tenderizer whacking thing. So I told him "No biggie, I just tripped and skinned my knee. I'm FINE. Do NOT come rushing home tonight. I do not need to go to the hospital or emergency care clinic."

There are not many days that I get to sit in my lazy chair BY MYSELF and watch "Reacher" and catcall the hero while I'm eating chocolates. I think a husband would just get in the way. He can come back tomorrow and take me to get an MRI or something if I can't walk.

*sigh* But now I have to watch the BLG talk about ** first. This is messed up. I had my evening all planned.

SwampWoman said…
I think y'all that speculated that BLG reads here are RIGHT. His speculation about the (vile) reason sounds as though it came directly out of this blog.

/Now, off to hoot at man candy on TV while simultaneously keeping up with Canadian trucker convoy protest. Woot! Hope the Sikhs are playing some good bhangra music tonight.
CatEyes said…
Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles married in a Catholic ceremony. Camilla remarried as a divorcee and her prior husband was still alive at the time she married Charles. Besides in religious terms, she was married in a Catholic ceremony and I never saw it written her marriage to APB was annulled. I think is immaterial he was a widower from his 2nd marriage.

I hope Charles does not push the Title of Defender of All Faiths because as a Catholic he certainly is not the role model to defend my faith.

Regarding all the hysteric negativity concerning Diana being depressed when married to Charles (esp. the repeating the story about her throwing herself down the stairs while pregnant) then I will get depressed seeing how those who are urging forgiveness do not forgive Diana for her actions. Judging Diana is being judgmental too! If my husband had a mistress, a love interest that predated me and he continued it, I might be so upset to act out (because the love of my life was cruel and harming me with his infidelity).

It's a sign of the times to accept mistresses better than wives.



LavenderLady said…
I believe Charles, when he becomes King he then will be Defender of the Church of England faith. People of other "faiths" outside of COE don't figure in. Am I correct British Nutties?

And if Camilla was married in a Catholic ceremony but then divorced does it matter to COE? I think not BUT does COE recognize divorce and can divorced people remarry and remain in good standing if their ex is still alive?

Whew 😥 I'm exhausted.

LavenderLady said…
@Happy Days,
The “new rules” for the Sussexes once Charles is monarch with Camilla at his side will hopefully begin with, “Now look here you pair of turds. This is how things are going to be from this point forward. If you don’t like it, you’d better start learning how to work at a drive-through window at McDonald’s.” XOXO, Pa and Camilla

Omgeee, this is hilarious 😂
DesignDoctor said…
BLG does it again. Touchdown!

Is it just me, or does anyone else think his videos are getting even better????
CatEyes said…
@Lavender Lady
Clarification on my comment re: Charles and 'Defender of all Faiths". I know of course, he will presumably ONLY be Defender of COE. Thank the good Lord.

I was remarking on a quote by a Nuttie upthread as follows ".... seeing as Charles had petitioned Mummy that after her, he felt he should be known as 'The Defender of the *FAITHS* in a nod to pluralistic Britain. I believe she told him absolutely not, this could never be, but Charles does indeed have a highly ecumenical bent."
CatEyes said…
I know women/men here love to demonize Diana for being 'unstable' etc or worse but some of you tough talking people would probably get your gun and point it at the nether regions of your spouse and may even shoot if you caught your spouse cheating.

Now the honorable ones would be sooooooo sane, and civil and polite and befriend the other woman...maybe invite her for tea and crumpets. Really?!

I laugh at how vitriolic comments are for * so it is hard to swallow to think a cheating spouse would leave you so polite and sensible. Just saying. Let Diana Rest in Peace.
CatEyes said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Faltering Sky said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
LavenderLady said…
@CatEyes,
Thanks for clearing that up. I really was confused. Yes I've read about Charles' bent towards ecumenical thought. I didn't read the above quote about his request to mummy. I scroll past the really long posts. I just don't have the patience to read through all of them so I must have missed it. I hate to be a snark and ask for cliff notes like they do on LSA. Lol.
Fifi LaRue said…
Someone up post mentioned that Camilla would not be pushing past Charles at events, etc., like * did to Haznoballs. All those times we witnessed * shoving Haznoballs aside, there's too many to count. Which brings me to my first marriage, very young, to a narcissist. He pushed me around a lot, like * does to the husband. One day I "woke up" and discovered myself covered in bruises. I'm guessing that Haznoballs is covered in bruises from the constant hitting and shoving that goes on behind their closed doors. The kids, too, if any, are getting the physical abuse also.
CatEyes said…
@LavendeLady

Thank you. I know what you are saying; it's hard for me to read some of the longer posts too. Generally, I have not been on the site in a long time until now.
Enbrethiliel said…
Re: "taint"

That was my choice of word, so I'd like to clarify that I'm not talking about a widower remarrying. I'm not even talking about the affair they had before Prince Charles was free to marry. (If we're going to split hairs, Camilla never was free. Andrew Parker Bowles is still alive.) I refer only to the shadow of the affair. There are people for whom Camilla will always be "that wicked woman," and because we no longer have practices like public penance, they will always have a leg to stand on.

And if I wasn't clear about personally finding that unfortunate, let me be explicit now. I like Camilla and I think that she and Charles make a good team. I don't hold what has happened against her and think it's sad that their relationship had the "middle chapters" that it did. Had Henry VIII been happy with Anne Boleyn, and had she turned out to be a gracious and popular queen, it wouldn't have erased the facts of how their relationship started. But it might have made their subjects happy to focus on the positives instead (or at least to shrug off what could no longer be changed). I had thought that Camilla's conduct since her second marriage had had that effect on the British people and I was unpleasantly surprised to have had my impressions proven false.
LavenderLady said…
@CatEyes,
Glad you are back. It's always good to take a breather and then continue blogging with better perspective. It's helped me.

@Enbre,
Thanks for you last post. I really enjoyed discussing the Henry the 8th comparison with you. I always like every bit of your posts!
Enbrethiliel said…
@Hikari
Embre, was it you who said on the previous page that it seemed to you that Elizabeth's feelings have guided her faith, especially when it comes to members of her own family?

It was @CatEyes, actually. :-) Now that I think about it, I haven't considered the Queen's faith

My own view may be halfway between the two of yours. I agree with you that the Queen is quite pragmatic and she gives herself a lot of time (decades, even!) before changing her opinions. One thing that must have been hard for her to accept, given her own example, is that marriages entered into by young spouses don't always work out. Not even in circles where an occasional affair is perfectly fine. (As much as I hate to think it of Sea Duke, he likely did have other partners. Elizabeth always had his heart and the Crown always had his staunch loyalty, but that doesn't automatically connect to the dots of 100% fidelity.)

She also really likes giving second chances to people. (But only family members? I believe there was a seamstress who merely mentioned in a book that she the Queen used her services. There was no other tea or gossip. And the Queen immediately stopped patronizing the seamstress. If it weren't a business relationship, we might say the seamstress had been "ghosted." This old story came up at the height of *'s merching.)

If she has softened her stance, I'd say it was due to a combination of facts and feelings. Like the fact that Camilla has conducted herself with real grace, dutifulness and humility since marrying into the family -- maybe in combination with feeling moved by Charles's passionate love for his second wife. (In a previous comment, I wondered whether it reminded the Queen of Prince Philip's own love for her.)
Enbrethiliel said…
Re: "stunned into silence"

It was originally @WBBM's thought. :-)

I guess I should feel flattered that other Nutties' great commentary is being attributed to me!
HappyDays said…
@Lavender Lady: Glad you got a chuckle out of the “new rules.”

DesignDoctor said…
BLG does it again. Touchdown!

Is it just me, or does anyone else think his videos are getting even better????

@Design Doctor: Yes, yes, yes! The Body Language Guy is clearly upping his game. His discussion of The Vile reason why Harry IGNORED the Queen’s Jubilee is nothing less than A+++++ caliber.

HappyDays said…
I know this isn’t a recipe blog, but I thought
I’d just ask for this because it does have a royal connection.

Are there any cooks in this group who can point me to an authentic recipe for a British dish originally created to celebrate the Queen’s coronation called, what else — Coronation chicken?

I looked online and there are many, many recipes and variations on this dish. I’d like to try making it, but I want the recipe for the original Coronation Chicken if possible. It is probably online, but I have no idea which is the original recipe.

I would be very grateful if anyone here can post a URL for a web page for the recipe. I don't cook all that much beyond basic cooking, so if I’m going to take the time and effort to make it, I want it to be the authentic recipe.

If Harry and his wife end up staying in Cali instead of attending the main Jubilee celebrations later this year, since Harry’s wife is so well versed at cooking chicken, maybe the palace will send her the recipe for Coronation Chicken. She can whip up a batch. She, Harry, and the kids can eat it while watching news reports of the Platinum Jubilee festivities from the mudslide mansion.

Thank you in advance for indulging this request.

Of she’s really clever, she cannturn it into a podcast for Spotify to try to salvage their contract.
OCGal said…
@Happy Days, I’ve read a few articles in just the past few days about the original Coronation Chicken recipe, and how the creators had to be extra clever in devising a tasty treat, since post war rationing was still in force and many expected ingredients were hard (or impossible) to come by.

Here is what I believe is the original recipe:
https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/historical-recipe-coronation-chicken/

Bon appetit!
Magatha Mistie said…

@HappyDays

Meh’s recipe 😉

Abomination Dicken

Take a whole roasted haz
Well butteredup
Add a slug of bile
Not quite the full cup
Toss in some salad
and a dash of canard
Stir then serve
with spite on the side

Bonne Chance!!

OCGal said…
@Magatha Mistie, your Abomination Dicken recipe is sure to cause heartburn for the grifting grasping grafting duo holed up in Monte$hitShow. Is this a dish best served cold?
@SwampWoman - the problem was that Camilla was a divorcee, she'd divorced her husband. In some parishes the incumbent priest will conduct a marriage if the divorced party is deemed the innocent one ie they took proceedings against a straying spouse but that wasn't an option here. Andrew P.B may have been an adulterer but politically it wasn't on.

In fact, when I heard the news that Sunday morning, my first thought was that Charles was now a widower.










Magatha Mistie said…

This poem by Leo Marks
was issued as a code poem
to WWII British/French
secret agent Violette Szabo.
It sums up, for me, the Queen.

The Life That I Have

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and
yours

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a
pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and
yours



Magatha Mistie said…

@OCGal

Preferably half defrosted,
turns rancid in the sun 😳
I'd like to add that the Church of England is not governed by rules set in Rome, although very traditional Anglo-Catholics do follow such teaching as a personal choice, without pledging allegiance to the Pope.

What is often overlooked with Henry VIII:

The title `Defender of the Faith' was bestowed on him by the Pope in recognition of his rebuttal of Martin Luther's `95 Theses'.

That is, Henry VIII was acting in support of the Catholic faith - there's no way he was a Protestant. He eventually thought of himself as `Head of the Church' in England, supplanting the Pope. He executed Catholics in holy orders, however, who refused to accept this. Services continued in Latin, the Rosary continued, people still crossed themselves.

In the 1980s, a Requiem Mass was held in Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral for those who had died when the Mary Rose sank in 1534 , as the bones retrieved form the wreck had to be given a proper funeral, by law. The service was according to the Sarum Rite which is closest to the RC Mass of the time.

Yes, 1534 - the year Henry broke with Rome but their ship sank in July of that year, the Act breaking with Rome wasn't passed until the November. Vestment closest to those worn at the time for funerals were borrowed from the US. IIRC, the bones were then `buried' at sea.

Protestantism only became the law when Henry died and the young Edward VI became king. His uncle, a strong (some would say `rabid') protestant, was in charge as Regent and a period of considerable distress ensued - see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stripping_of_the_Altars

The reign of Edward was responsible for most of the iconoclastic damage to churches, not Cromwell as popularly believed.

IIRC, an Anglican Latin Mass was held in the chapel Of Christs College, Cambridge in the early - mis 1960s. It was perfectly lawful because Elizabeth has stated that services ha dto be in a `language understanded of the people' and at that time, all applicants to Cambridge had to have at least O-level Latin!

If only Elizabeth had applied her rule to Ireland (and Cornwall) a great deal of grief could have been avoided and our history could have taken a very different course, as the Dean of Killaloe once pointed out to me.
Thank you so much for the poem associated with Violette Szabo - it is a perfect summary, brought a lump to my throat. Her story was the subject of the film `Carve Her Name with Pride'
Magatha Mistie said…

@WildBoar

I’ve seen the film, many times,
have a tatty old paper back
copy of the book by R.J. Minney.
I’ve never forgotten the poem.
Seriously now said…
Going out on a limb here with an observation of BLG. His focus and disdain of the dollars has been in direct proportion to the views and traffic he gets. I think he is conscious of his market.
Svetlana said…
Reading now about the latest insanity of Kanye West. Maybe he will be Meg’s next husband. What a good pair they make.
Magatha Mistie said…

Hairy Fails

The Queen’s verification
for Charle’s predilection
Must have caused the harkles
much angst, a conniption
Taken the wind from book sales
of their false fairy tales
As Camilla’s promoted
Haz’s memoir’s unnoted
The tome deemed as fodder
Pulp Fiction

CatEyes said…
@WBBM

The title 'Defender of the Faith' was first conferred by Pope Leo X on Henry VIII (Oct. 11, 1521) as a reward for the king’s pamphlet Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (“Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther”), written against Luther.

When Henry broke with the papacy, Pope Paul III deprived him of his designation, but the title was restored to the king by Parliament in 1544 and is still used by his successors on the English throne. The abbreviation Fid. Def. or the letters F.D. have been regularly on the coinage from the time of George I.

Interesting that there is a trend of Anglican churches now reverting to Catholic Churches. I wonder if it's not because of what the COE represents under the Queen.

It was a title, nothing more nothing less (as we see now days.) So, Parliament appropriated the Catholic title for Protestant Kings/Queens. Reminds me of how meaningful * has a title. I just wish the Queen and Charles would give back all the monasteries/lands0 that were stolen from the Catholic Church during the horrific persecution starting with Henry VIII.
LavenderLady said…
Whew. All the rules pertaining to divorce and remarriage based on very few scriptures, which were likely "doctored" over time...

Legalism (and wars caused by religion) is what finally turned me off from "church" of any form even though I vowed to never remarry-which I haven't but it was more due to my picker being broken back in the day than archaic rules.

Now that I got all the wisdom on how not to be played, I'm too old for men my age! Go figure. Sigh...

I could do as some cultures and find a young un 😉
LavenderLady said…
Clarification just in case...
Legal age but younger than me. 🤷
Girl with a Hat said…
the Americans on the program The View have decided that Camilla won't get to be Queen Consort.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1562523/the-view-camilla-duchess-of-cornwall-queen-elizabeth-ii-queen-consort-video-vn

Who knew that they had such influence in the UK!
Girl with a Hat said…
Trevor Coult is telling veterans who will be filmed for Hairy's Netflix Invictus documentary to sign a form telling the * that the * have to pay the veteran to appear in their documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFA1emXIuYw
Enbrethiliel said…
@LavenderLady
Due to my heritage, I tend to view history as still with us ie: ancestors so it's not too far of a stretch for me to see the common patterns of the two women.

This is another area in which our thinking aligns. History is interesting and meaningful precisely because we're still connected to people who lived hundreds of years ago. When I hear reminiscences from older people about their youth, it puts the "dry" history of books and classrooms into wonderful, vibrant context.

Royals are lucky in the sense that they have such detailed information on their ancestors. But one reason they do is that they value keeping tradition alive. I think that if more of us had that sense of connection to our own ancestors, we would be similarly careful to preserve keepsakes, to remember stories, to work on friendships from childhood, and to conserve beautiful areas and buildings so that they can be meaningful to multiple generations.
Enbrethiliel said…
@Svetlana
Reading now about the latest insanity of Kanye West. Maybe he will be Meg’s next husband. What a good pair they make.

You might have written that with tongue firmly in cheek, but the little bit I know of Kanye makes me suspect * wouldn't mind being his next wife. Kim Kardashian said that she wasn't attracted to Kanye at first, but was won over because he adored her so much. She never had such undivided, unadulterated attention from any other man. (In contrast, her former husband Kris Humphries would call her out if he thought she was wrong about something and had a life separate from her.) Kim didn't even mind when Kanye threw out most of her clothes and insisted on making her over; she was happy to be Galatea to his Pygmalion because he just gave her so much . . . dare I say it . . . fuel.

I think that if Kanye pursued * with the same intensity, she might believe it is exactly what she has always been entitled to and snatch at it. She has already made herself over multiple times since we all "met" her in 2017; what's another makeover, with a Svengali-like master involved?

It's too bad she's likely too old for him. The real beauty of this pairing would be * thinking she could start a feud with Kim and having Kris Jenner absolutely finish her for it.
Enbrethiliel said…
Re: Coronation chicken

What a great idea! Thanks for the heads up, @Happy Days -- and for the recipe, @OCGal!

When Prince Philip died, I made my first attempt at British fish pie. I didn't choose it for that reason, but it turned out to be the most fitting thing to prepare. When my family sat down to dinner and asked questions about it (as it was their first fish pie, too!), our conversation inevitably drifted to Prince Philip. And then I saw the intimate connection between good food and special events. It was lovely to be able to commemorate the long life of a man I admired.

I'm sure my family will love some Coronation chicken for lunch this weekend!
LavenderLady said…
@Enbre,
I think that if more of us had that sense of connection to our own ancestors, we would be similarly careful to preserve keepsakes, to remember stories, to work on friendships from childhood, and to conserve beautiful areas and buildings so that they can be meaningful to multiple generations.

What a sublime thought. Thank you for sharing it. You made my day. :)
Enbrethiliel said…
I finally had time for the videos linked by @Miggy and @GWAH.

Re: The Body Language Guy's "The VILE Reason Why Harry IGNORED The Queen's Jubilee"

Mr. Rosas's analyses of the Dollars' every move are usually filmed with a twinkle in his eye, but in this one, he's a lot more forceful . . . and maybe angry? I wonder if even he was taken by surprise when Harry completely ignored his grandmother's Ascension Day. Maybe he expected something passive-aggressive, like the "Thank you for your service" message they put out for Prince Philip's death. But not this.

I like his theory that Harry's memoir would have taken direct shots at Camilla -- something the Dollars had felt they could do with some impunity until the Queen's announcement. I wonder if the publisher was the first to tell them they might have to reign it in, because it's a much bigger battle than they ever foresaw fighting. They could risk a boycott of their authors in Britain and perhaps even have some authors jumping ship. It wouldn't be a good look.

Re: Trevor Coult's "Horrid Harry EXPLOITS Veterans"

There's some righteous anger here, too! Plus practical tips for throwing Harry's plans back in his face.

That Harry completely turned his back on his commitment to help veterans is doubly sad when we think of how beneficial helping can be even to ourselves. Shallon Lester has said that the quickest way to stop feeling sorry for yourself is to do volunteer work. There's nothing like seeing people who were dealt a worse hand than you to turn the self-pity faucet off! You'd think a "life coach" would understand this. But I guess helping others would cut into his precious meditation time.
LavenderLady said…
P. s. @Enbre,
"It's too bad she's likely too old for him. The real beauty of this pairing would be * thinking she could start a feud with Kim and having Kris Jenner absolutely finish her for it."

Sooo true. That was my point in my post above; older women being too old for men our own age. Ugh. Kim has so much dough she is now with a 20 something (though that creepy kid would go on my reject pile even though I'm a nobody. Ha Ha).

I would pay to see Kris burn TBW down on SM...

*s version of Coronation Chicken is Engagement Chicken. Lol.
snarkyatherbest said…
stop with the food references. dry toast is not cutting it for me today. now i want fish pie and coronation chicken for breakfast.

CatEyes. there are a lot of anglican priests that have converted to Catholicism here in the states. i read the entire anglican church in one US state wholesale converted. then again this was pre-pope Francis. all very curious to watch the dance between and around the two religions.

i am so behind on the Body Language Guy videos. maybe he got threatened with lawsuit or the sugars are causing trouble. we love you Jesus. keep up the good fight. we love your witty observations

curious on the silence in Montecito. usually it’s a precursor for something big or they are broke or both. i imagine a lot of going on behind the scenes or Mr Dollar is exhausted from his one hour a platitudes on his ButterUp call. work is hard or so he keeps telling us 😉.

i am curious. someone pointed out on another blog that the BRF made the announcement about the Prince Philip memorial and the queen “hopes” to attend. as they pointed out are we being prepped for less Queen or a major illness related decline here soon. she look thin but happy in recent videos but i guess some of that can be filmed in advance when she has energy as maybe her good days are less predictable.
SwampWoman said…
Enbrethiliel said: That Harry completely turned his back on his commitment to help veterans is doubly sad when we think of how beneficial helping can be even to ourselves. Shallon Lester has said that the quickest way to stop feeling sorry for yourself is to do volunteer work. There's nothing like seeing people who were dealt a worse hand than you to turn the self-pity faucet off! You'd think a "life coach" would understand this. But I guess helping others would cut into his precious meditation time.

Indeed. As somebody who has done a LOT of volunteer work in the past, I prescribe volunteering for people that are depressed, that are lonely, that for whatever reasons no longer have purpose in life.
SwampWoman said…
Snarkyatherbest said: i am curious. someone pointed out on another blog that the BRF made the announcement about the Prince Philip memorial and the queen “hopes” to attend. as they pointed out are we being prepped for less Queen or a major illness related decline here soon. she look thin but happy in recent videos but i guess some of that can be filmed in advance when she has energy as maybe her good days are less predictable.

That is a good point. We called in relatives regularly when a declining relative had enough energy to see visitors. Some of the relatives saw her responsive, speaking, and somewhat energetic and decided that we were exaggerating her condition. They did not understand that she was barely responsive and near comatose in the days before and after because they were "sad" and "depressed" and didn't want to see her in that condition and so rarely visited. Other relatives that visited with her regularly knew.

The Queen is not yet near that end stage, thank goodness, but I can see where the family and physicians would wish to carefully ration her energy and make sure that she does not exhaust herself. Those that have taken care of people in the end stages know that the downward spiral can be barely perceptible and take months (or years), then quickly.
Blue Dragon said…
Am I the only one thinking that all this Camilla coverage has been a very strange start to the Jubilee? I don't think this would have happened if Philip was still alive. I sense the influence of Price Charles and think it shows that he has a tin ear for gauging the public mood. It's the Queen's jubilee and the focus should be on her.

Diana has been heavily briefed against since her demise but there is a residual affection for her even though she has been shown to be a bit of a madam at times. They don't want to overdo the Camilla stuff. It's like the smouldering embers of a fire, poke about too much and whole thing may go up in flames.

@Happy Days if you are close to a Marks and Spencer store do what most Brits do and buy your coronation chicken ready made. Other wise mix plain yoghurt and mango chutney throw in a cold roast and diced chicken breast or more depending on how many you are feeding.
Fifi LaRue said…
@Blue Dragon: Coronation Chicken sounds good! I made a similar recipe with mayo, but will substitute fat free yogurt the next time. I also add in sliced green grapes, and add salted, roasted cashews just before serving.
Enbrethiliel said…
There seem to be as many variations of coronation chicken as there are cooks! I guess the basic idea is chicken salad (with either mayo or yoghurt) and something sweet (apricot puree, mango chutney, sliced grapes -- take your pick!). After I make the original version, I think I'll try

@BlueDragon
if you are close to a Marks and Spencer store do what most Brits do and buy your coronation chicken ready made

Is coronation chicken enjoyed annually in Britain, like turkey at Thanksgiving in the US?

@snarkyatherbest
stop with the food references. dry toast is not cutting it for me today. now i want fish pie and coronation chicken for breakfast.

I'm sorry! I'll try to rein it in, but food is such a fascinating topic! Not to mention a breath of fresh air, given our usual theme. And what better time to discuss something so fun and inoffensive than right now, when the tiresome and super offensive Dollars seem to have finally managed the art of silence?
Enbrethiliel said…
I didn't finish one of my first thoughts, so I'll continue it here:

After I make the original version, I think I'll try using local substitutes for the sweets. :-)
Enbrethiliel said…
Appropriately enough for this period of silence from the Dollars, the Body Language Guy releases this video:

Watch Meghan COMMAND Harry To STOP Talking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgRHOhN2zg

I also appreciate it for all the "tells" for when someone you are speaking to is only faking her interest. Yes, they all came from * -- and there were many more than I would have bet at the beginning. (To his credit, Harry showed respect to the parents whom he conversed with that day.)
The other point about the original Coronation Chicken was that the guests were international - with their own dietary restrictions, especially with regard to meat.

The basic meats of the time were beef, pork and lamb, available in only very small quantities. Chickens were a real luxury - we had one a year for Christmas lunch, luckily there were only 3 of us. Meat was the very last thing to come off ration - in 1954, 9 years after the end of the War. Much livestock was slaughtered at the outbreak of war to release land for cultivation rather than grazing. A large number of chickens could be raised relatively quickly though.

Nutties might be amused to hear that offal (variety meats) wasn't rationed, there just wasn't much of it. Our village butcher operated his own system of fairness so everyone had a chance to buy liver once every 4 weeks. He had a blackboard outside, saying whose turn it was, according to one's surname , like the then London telephone directories, A-D and so on.
Enbrethiliel said…
@WBBM

That's interesting. Why were chickens so rare, if they were quick to raise and there was obviously some demand for them?
Maneki Neko said…
@Enbrethiliel

Thanks for the link to the latest BLG video. Nothing new, in fact this is par for the course for * but very interesting nonetheless.

As for coronation chicken, it's not eaten similarly to Turkey at Thanksgiving - turkey is eaten at Christmas - it's just something you can eat any time. Actually, I've never eaten it myself! I don't fancy the look of it in plastic tubs but might give it a try, perhaps making my own.
@Embre

Chicken was expensive and a luxury, because in the 1950s (in the UK) we didn’t have factory/battery farmed chicken etc. That kind of horrible farming didn’t occur till 1960, but a lot has changed and improved since it was introduced.🥴
Enbrethiliel said…
@Maneki

Didn't * start doing the praying hands and Mary poses in response to early criticism of her body language? I wonder if she's going to make some tweaks when she next emerges from her lair, in the hope of outwitting Mr. Rosas. He'd rise to that challenge beautifully, of course!

@Raspberry Ruffle

That makes sad sense. On Instagram, I follow homesteaders who keep chickens; they always have some around for the eggs, but I see the occasional video of the butchering and freezing of multiple chickens at a time. And I guess I imagined they did that more frequently than they actually do. And since one can get more meat out of a cow, a pig or a lamb than from a chicken, it's probably as rare a treat for them as it was for @WBBM in the 1950s.
There was also a major outbreak of Newcastle disease, aka Fowl Pest, in 1950.

I used to catch the bus to school from a stop by an egg farm. I can still see the bonfires of carcases amid the swirling smoke and the figures of the men wring necks and chucking the dead birds onto their pyre. Not unlike later foot-7-mouth outbreaks.
Fifi LaRue said…
A variation of Coronation Chicken: Major Grey's Curry Chicken, curry being the main flavoring along with the mayo. Found in the deli section of the local high-end grocery store. Delicious. Is this by any chance a British recipe?
@Embre and SwampWoman

O/T

Things have moved on significantly since the 1960s. I really only wanted to answer why chicken was such a luxury at times. 🙂We still have a lot of organically raised chicken etc in the UK, and we have a lot of strict food regulations that ensure that livestock is kept to a high standard. 🥴

Hikari said…
Embre,

I'd love to see Madam set her weave for Kanye, the Artist Formerly Known as Yeezy. Or is he still?

Kanye's behavior is off-the-chain bizarre, but he is a documented and diagnosed case of mental illness. Several, in fact. Definitely bipolar, possibly schizophrenic. That is not a secret as he's been open about that in recent years. His status as a megamillionaire celebrity allows him to be as erratic as he likes and it's looked upon pretty indulgently. This puts the whole Taylor Swift incident into perspective, as well as why Kim K. wanted/needed out of their domestic arrangement. He is possibly a danger to himself and/or others when he's not properly medicated.

We could really say the same about both halves of the Montesh*tshow, but unlike Kanye, neither of them has an official diagnosis of mental disorder, at least that they are copping to. Harry has said cameras trigger his PTSD, but such 'anecdotal' evidence from the self-serving isn't official.

They are both batsh*t nuts, in my non-official non-medical opinion. Mole has been an easy target for Maggot. A weak, namby pampy codddled man-baby. Kanye might be the same but he's got his *own* money and some talent, if you like the kind of thing he does. Maggot might find that she's met her match with Kanye and she wouldn't be able to control him nearly so easily as she does Husband #4. But Kanye wouldn't be interested in her. She's not attractive, no body, too old, and looks every inch of her (44) years. He'd absolutely ridicule her for trying and I'd love to see that.
D1 said…

Coronation Chicken Recipe

Roast or poach chicken
1 Carrot
Water & a little red or white wine (wine is optional)
Pinch of salt and a few peppercorns

Sauce
2oz chopped onion
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp tomato purée
1 wine glass of red wine
3/4 wine glass of water
1 bay leaf
1–2 slices of lemon
1 squeeze of lemon juice
1–2 tbsp apricot purée (or apricot jam)
3/4 pint mayonnaise
2–3 tbsp whipped cream, plus a little more
1 tbsp oil
A pinch each of salt, sugar and pepper

Method
Poach the chicken with the carrot, bouquet garni, salt and peppercorns in water and a little wine, for about 40 minutes or until tender. Allow to cool in the liquid and remove the bones.

For the sauce

Fry the onion in oil for 3-4 minutes, then add curry powder. Fry for a further 1–2 minutes.

Add tomato purée, wine, water, and bay leaf. Bring to boil, add lemon slices and juice, pinch of salt, pepper and sugar. Simmer uncovered for 5–10 minutes. Strain and cool.

Add mayonnaise and apricot purée in stages. Season, and add more lemon juice if necessary. Mix in the whipped cream.

Coat the chicken in the sauce and mix in a little extra cream and seasoning. Serve with salad and a little extra sauce.
Enbrethiliel said…
@Hikari

I think he's simply Ye these days. I'll keep calling him Kanye anyway!

Now that you've reminded me of his bipolar diagnosis, I recall that Kim's new guy Pete Davidson also has a confirmed mental illness (borderline personality disorder). And he has similar "reviews" from ex-girlfriends. One of them said that the intensity of his focus on her was like nothing she had ever experienced before. As she's a supermodel who presumably gets a lot of intense focus from all men whom she happens to be around, that's saying a lot. People are commenting that Kim probably went for Pete because he's so different from Kanye, but what if they actually fulfill the exact same need she has of intense, exclusive attention?

* might have a chance with Davidson, as he seems open to date older women. Before Kim, there was Kate Beckinsale. (Rumor has it that it was just PR, though.) He also seems open-minded in general. It wouldn't be the sh*tshow that we'd get with Yegan (HA! IT FITS!), but if it also makes her attack Kim the way she has been attacking Catherine, I might still get my Kris Jenner devastation fantasy!
SirStinxAlot said…
Hmmm. Most people have never questioned or considered why older man/ younger woman is the norm. It goes back to history and evolution. Men can have children well into their golden years. There are articles of men fathering babies at 90+ years old. Women get a fraction of that, having menopause between 40-45 usually.
Before modern medicine it was not unusual for women to die during child birth. Infant mortality was high. Even if you survived childhood, you could be maimed or die from a plethora of other diseases. Now people in general, are living longer. Women outlive men an average of about 10 years.
The human brain isnt completely developed and won’t be until age 25 or so. In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.
In teens' brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not always at the same rate. That’s why when teens have overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.
I have qualms with older woman/younger man relationships.


Girl with a Hat said…
@SirStinxAlot,

maybe with the advent of the little blue pills, older men can get it up more easily, but as soon as the doctor gives you medication for high blood pressure, a man has problems performing.

Also, older men have a much greater incidence of having children with autism and schizophrenia, and probably of tons of other issues, so I don't see that being encouraged in primitive societies.

Older men require more stimulus to become aroused and having an extreme form of stimulus in the form of a bigger bosom or very young nubile women, helps them with this matter.

Older men in society also have more wealth and power so they feel they can choose the most fertile women, who would happen to be younger to the detriment of younger men who would have fewer women their age to pick from.

As women are getting more power in our society, the tables have turned and older women are now seeking out the company of younger men, for the same reasons.
Girl with a Hat said…
@Enbrethiliel,

Davidson has been seen in the company of other women in nightclubs. His relationship with Kim K is purely for show. Same as Kanye, btw, who had countless other women on the side, but used Kim for publicity
Enbrethiliel said…
@GWAH

There was definitely a transactional aspect to Kim and Kanye's marriage -- and perhaps in more celebrity marriages than we would like. But I think Kanye's supposed intensity where Kim was concerned is evident in how much say he got in her look after they became a couple. She really let him mold her into someone else. I suppose she was okay with it because he was the bigger celebrity when they got together. Well, the tables have turned!

I'm not surprised that Davidson has entered into another contractual situation with Kim. (When they were first papped, it was around the time Kris Jenner needed a distraction from the tragic events at Kylie's boyfriend's festival performance.) I just found it curious that an ex of his described him the same way Kim described Kanye, and it's not way out there for me to think that he exhibits some of that behavior with Kim as well. (Some people just can't turn it off, if you know what I mean.)

I guess we see the same facts and just disagree on how to interpret them. :-)
Este said…
Kanye is a troubled soul who has some real talent. Kim K got famous leaking a sex tape and the Kardashian women are straight up succubi: Bruce Jenner; Lamar Odom; Kanye West. They are were all doing far better in life before the Kardashians got their meat hooks into them. Even Kanye doesn't deserve to be cursed by a spider named Meghan crossing his path. Let's send Meghan to Elon who can use and then toss her like he did to all his ex wives, Amber Heard and the Weird Music Girl from Canada who nobody's heard of her music. And like all the women he's used, she'll live under the delusion, similar to the one she has that she's on Kate's level, that she landed a big fish. Yeah, a big fish that swallowed you whole and pushed her out as refuse.
Maneki Neko said…
@Enbre

Didn't * start doing the praying hands and Mary poses in response to early criticism of her body language?
-----
I'm afraid I don't have the answer to that one. If it was in response to early criticism of her body language, it probably backfired. The pose was simply ridiculous and pretentious.
@Este

I completely agree with all of your comment. Kayne definitely doesn’t need anyone like Maggot in his life, it’s bad enough with Kim K. He’s a very troubled man, I hope he can break away free from the K family and may Maggot never cross his path!
Blue Dragon said…
@ Fifi LaRue I like the way you jazzed up the dish. Try a few sultanas in the mix. I've not heard of Major Grey's Chicken Curry so it may be a local take on the original.

@ Enbrethiliel Coronation chicken isn't an annual celebration dish like Christmas Pudding or Haggis. I'd say for me its more a summer dish than winter because it's eaten cold. However people eat it with with a baked potato or on sandwiches year round.

@ Maneki Neko Yes coronation chicken in a plastic pot looks like something that the cat's sicked up but give it a go you will be pleasantly surprised.

Now anyone for Queen Cakes?

https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/food/recipes/baking/baking-with-kids/queen-cakes

or Queen of Puddings?

https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/collections/delia-online-cookery-school/queen-of-puddings


Who says the English can't cook!
Este said…
Thanks, Raspberry Ruffle!

On a slightly different rant, the Harry Meg has changed my views of Camilla, whose had far more scorn and bad press than those 2 losers ever did, but who kept her mouth shut and did the work for decades. I also see Diana differently all these years later. She's not the saint I once liked to believe and she was a highly manipulative player. I feel like her orange haired son inherited all her bad qualities and none of her good ones or even star power. He is sooooo boring!

I also think the Queen just stale mated if not check mated them by naming Camilla Queen Consort. I think we can safely assume he'll coming for Camilla but with the Queen's backing it won't LAND like it would have because the decision has already been made. And, apparently, the Queen is the one person he can't come after. I love this move and I love that those 2 losers WONT be at the Jubilee. They've canceled themselves from the Firm, which is better than having it be the other way around.
Maneki Neko said…
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are 'very money driven' and 'would like to earn $12 million a year like James Corden while doing good things', royal expert claims
$12 million a year 😆. Sounds a tad ambitious (and unrealistic). I'm not sure that sum is enough for *.

I case anyone is bothered (I wasn't):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10494359/Harry-Meghan-money-driven-like-like-James-Corden-royal-expert-claims.html

@Blue Dragon

Thanks for the advice re coronation chicken, I'll give the ready made one a try - it always looks unappetising to me - and will try to make my own.
LavenderLady said…
Older women and younger men are not accepted in certain western societies because the male gaze has been lazer focused on Insta girls and OnlyFan girls. Old broken down goats without any real money are now thinking they can score a hot young chick because as someone said here recently, TBW looks in the mirror and sees Zendaya. So the decrepid, Peter Pan looks in the mirror and sees a hot young stud. Not.

Too many old farts glued to their phones for free pics of highly filtered young women so they are blind to the real, well taken care of, nicely put together women in their sphere.

These same old broken down buzzards end up in a hospital bed with an illegal needing a green card to change their bed pan because they don't have the real coin to get any better. How beautiful it could have been to grow old with a beloved than end up waiting for the geezer to croak so they can cash in and spend it on hot young men.

They get by with a little help from their blue friend until they end up on deaths door trying to jack it up.

Ha ha. I love saying all that 😂😂😂 I've seen it happen more than once.
CatEyes said…
@LL

Your comment was so on point! I died laughing!!

But when I was a newly single very attractive thin 49 yr old and the 20+ yr olds young studs came looking at me, the first time one turned on the TV and wanted to watch cartoons, I realized I was just as bad as an old geezer maybe.
LavenderLady said…
@CatEyes,
LOL. Cartoons.
O-m-geee. Hilarious!😹
Enbrethiliel said…
@Raspberry Ruffle and @Este

Thanks for your compassionate posts on Kanye. You're right that we shouldn't want to wish * on such a troubled soul, especially one who has already been through the Kardashian women's wringer.

There must be some other way to get * in Kris Jenner's sights . . .
Enbrethiliel said…
The latest from The Body Language Guy: "Guess Who's REALLY Behind Diana's SMEAR Campaign"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sQVtPEMDw

I changed my mind about sending Kris Jenner to destroy *. Mr. Rosas is taking * and her juggling husband down so efficiently that I almost feel sorry for them!
Fifi LaRue said…
Just a comment about Borderline Personality Disorder. People who have it are vicious to those closest to them. Joan Crawford, as a public example. I know by experience. The exception is the Waif subset, which threatens suicide, and act powerless to get power. That would be Diana. There are four types: the Waif, the Queen, the Witch, and a fourth, I forgot the name, that is a form of extreme loner, even with family.
Pete Davidson might be bi-polar, with mood swings.
Hikari said…
Embre & Fifi,

Bipolar disorder can really Jack up a person’s life but at least it’s manageable with the proper medication and therapy. There is no cure for Borderline Personality Disorder. Pete obviously suffers from something but I’d been chalking it up to addiction all this time. For a guy who presents like the Joker’s little cokehead brother, and one of the most spectacularly unattractive, unclean appearing specimens I know, he does all right with the ladies. Seriously, if the calendar page is flipped over to a new month, Pete Davidson is going to be papped with a new girlfriend, And these are all high profile women who is certainly can’t be using him for exposure. I guess Kaia Gerber’s parents are relieved—Weren’t they last year? Or was it Andre MacDowell’s daughter, another nubile 20something? Pete seems to toggle between being a skeezy predatory type to being a skeezy boy toy. I absolutely failed to see the attraction. My
Fifi LaRue said…
@Hikari: Don't forget Kate Beckinsale. She's absolutely delicious, 45, and I'm a straight woman saying this. Davidson must be funny as h*ll, fun, charming, fun, a pleaser in bed, funny, and just up for all kinds of shenanigans.

Pete just needs some under eye concealer for those dark shadows. Bleaching his hair doesn't do him any favors. Then, he goes and buys an out-of-service Staten Island Ferry. For what? Party time!

We, obviously, do not know what we are missing.
I was on the fence about Charles and Diana until I watched the Bashir bombshell's first broadcast.

I was appalled at how she slagged off Charles publicly, without regard for the boys she professed to love, because I saw it as an attack on them, admittedly an indirect one. It's never a good move, tempting as it may seem, to criticise the other parent in front of the children - they are `half their father', and you are attacking that part of them that comes from their Dad.

Charles kept quiet throughout the War of the Wales's, probably because whatever he said was likely to be used against him. You know, `Well, he would say that wouldn't he?' Manipulative narcissists are very good at laying the ground work for pulling the rug from under their victims, so that that are not believed when they try to explain their position.

I imagine he was at his wits end. It was reported that he did attempt to get counselling/psychiatric support for her.
Mimi said…
How do we know Charles did not try to get help for Diana’s mental/emotion problems? She needed to be involved and WANT to help herself but it doesn’t look like she did!!
Mimi said…
Gosh how I wish that Diana would be left to rest in peace and not be brought up over and over and over AND over.
Magatha Mistie said…

@WildBoar

I love liver and onions, with
mash and bashed neeps and
a liberal sprinkling of ground
white pepper
Heaven on a plate!!
Magatha Mistie said…

@WildBoar@Mimi

Diana said herself, in the
Peter Settelen tapes, that
the RF arranged
counselling/psychiatric support
for her.

Mimi said…
So what the hell was the problem? If she did indeed recognize she needed help and participated in the therapy it obviously did not help her in anyway and if anything she passed on all her mental and emotional issues to her sweet little Harry who everybody knew was not Charles biological child. Yes, I know I will be vilified for raising such an OUTRAGEOUS opinion, but we are all entitled to express our opinions.

oh wait, she said or rather the Royal Family said she had not met James Hewitt until 2 years Harry was born. yEAH! RIGHT!!!!!!
Mimi said…
I am sure many of you will all be glad to know that I am removing myself from this blog….I have nothing more to say because I know NO FACTS .all I know is what is printed in tabloids and from second hand information ( royal sources…who the hell are these royal sources, and just WHO are these “sources “. I will continue to lurk but for most part I am sick to death of these people and what they claim to represent.

I will still enjoy reading everyone’s contributions as we see this melodrama unfold and will stick to it until the end, as I have never in my life ever come across something so abominable happen in recent history.
Miggy said…
Prince Harry breaks his silence... to pay tribute to Diana: Duke uses interview to vow to continue his mother's 'unfinished' HIV work - but makes no mention of announcement that Camilla will become Queen.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10496959/Harry-Every-single-one-duty-HIV-test.html
Magatha Mistie said…

Oedipussy

Haz’s support for HIV
Another plug
to get his mug on UK TV
Using his mother
Low down tactic
vile bugger
Has he proffered himself and
Archehell for a fee



Enbrethiliel said…
@Miggy
From the article: Prince Harry urged Britons to 'go and get a test' for HIV

So he claims to be continuing his mother's work, but it's individual Britons who have to do the legwork and spend the money to get themselves tested?

the royal has still made no mention of Camilla becoming Prince Charles' Queen.

He must really be angry!

I'm genuinely wondering if there is more to this than his planned memoir. I wouldn't pin all the rancor toward Camilla on * alone; it's highly possible that Harry never accepted her as a stepmother and was looking forward to some payback time.

Take that old idea that if your ex-spouse cheated on you but married his or her cheating partner, that makes his treatment of you okay. You are cast as the interloping third party in your own relationship -- and your pain as a necessary evil for some greater good. Your ex-spouse and the affair partner are the first-class citizens who get to build their love story on your second-class back. Harry may be immature and unstable, but even he has a sense of justice that can be offended; it's reasonable for him to remain angry that his father and Camilla felt entitled to marry even after their tumultuous history (in which not just his mother, but also he and his brother were collateral damage). Angry at his father, furious at his stepmother, and hugely disappointed in his brother.

This is not to excuse his actions since 2017, but to see them from another angle. If someone had told Prince Charles that he could have only one of two futures -- 1) one in which Camilla is his Queen and everyone is forced to respect her (just as he himself once forced his own sons), and 2) one in which Harry has one less emotional mountain to climb -- could we really be sure he'd sacrifice that second marriage? He could still have Camilla as his partner (something I think modern Britain would be okay with), just not be married to her and making it possible for her to take the HRH that had been stripped from his first wife.

Of course there's no guarantee that that was the fork in the path of Harry's life -- and that he would be a lot more stable now, had his mother's great nemesis not become a stepmother he had to pretend to like. I'm commenting on Charles here.

And I now think that everyone who is worried that Charles will force his future subjects to accept Harry again can breathe a little easier now. Charles has been choosing Camilla over both his sons for decades. He probably cut Harry off not because the Dollars were making a mockery of the BRF in California, but because Harry made a potshot at Camilla some time after *-xit.
Magatha Mistie said…

@Enbreth

Charles cohabiting with Camilla
would not have pleased many
people, in Britain and abroad,
not to mention delicate diplomatic
relations.
Damned for marrying, damned for not.

As for Harry, he’s had many forks in
his path, forked them all.




Enbrethiliel said…
@Mimi
oh wait, she said or rather the Royal Family said she had not met James Hewitt until 2 years Harry was born. yEAH! RIGHT!!!!!!

I believed the rumors for a while, too. But after Harry's few years as the spitting image of his paternal grandfather, I changed my mind. (There isn't much of a resemblance remaining, but that's less due to genetics than our eventually ending up with the face we deserve.)

But when you brought it up again, I couldn't help following it down a short rabbit hole. IF Harry is Hewitt's son, then "Archie" and "Lilibet" are simply chickens coming home to roost for the BRF. And if they thought it okay to sneak one questionable baby into the line of succession, then why should they be upset that they've had to accept another two?

To be clear, I still don't accept the Hewitt theory. But I'm even less of a fan of victim narratives. And I recently watched a video which defined the black sheep as "the scapegoat overall of the dysfunction of the family." It's never just one really bad kid; there's the rest of the family uniting to put all the blame on him so that they look better. (Even if that's not what's going on here, we can't deny that many people didn't know what they had in "waity Katy" until * came along to spread her special brand of nasty.) Harry is a grown man who needs to stop blaming others; but his family can't say they're totally innocent. There is a chicken coming home to roost here. (I wish I could say that was the subliminal message of the chicken coop, but the Dollars are not that deep.)
Enbrethiliel said…
@Hikari and @Fifi

I don't get Pete Davidson's appeal either. There's a YouTuber who pointed out to her audience of high school and college girls: "He's all jaw" -- meaning that the cornerstone of his attractiveness is that single feature. Weaken his chin a little, she implied, and nobody would have a crush on him. I wonder . . .
CatEyes said…
Let's just blame the victim (Diana) over and over and over for her husband marrying her when he was really in love with another woman. Yes, that's a classic from the 50's, blame the cold wife for her husband's infidelity. She is a shrew so he had to step out on her. Just because Charles says he didn't stray until the marriage broke down, why didn't HE GET Help for his lust addiction to Camilla? Why didn't he get counseling before Marriage to get over Camilla so he could be free to love another woman (since Camilla left him)?
Enbrethiliel said…
@Magatha
Diana said herself, in the
Peter Settelen tapes, that
the RF arranged
counselling/psychiatric support
for her.


Some credit to them, I guess, for taking steps to clean up a mess of their own making. They could have saved themselves the bills had they not pushed a union with a 12-year age difference, when the couple met only 13 times before getting married and the man was well aware he was in love with another woman.

And they could have saved her some agony. Even if Diana would have, no matter whom she married, always lacked the intellectual and emotional tools to be a good wife, it's fair to say that being in the BRF did not help. The worst thing for celebrities with addictions and mental illnesses is the very fact that they are celebrities. Diana may have received the best psychiatric treatment money could buy, but she was in the worst possible situation for someone with her natural challenges in the first place.

@CatEyes
Just because Charles says he didn't stray until the marriage broke down, why didn't HE GET Help for his lust addiction to Camilla? Why didn't he get counseling before Marriage to get over Camilla so he could be free to love another woman (since Camilla left him)?

These are very fair questions.
Miggy said…
Talking of Charles...

Prince Charles tests positive for Covid-and is forced into self-isolation - just a day after he rubbed shoulders with Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak at British Museum.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498195/Prince-Charles-tests-positive-Covid-forced-self-isolation.html
Miggy said…
And in other news...

Samantha Cohen is being wooed by Boris!

He wants her to become his Downing Street 'gatekeeper' and bring order to No 10.
Miggy said…
Link to the Samantha Cohen article...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10497561/Boris-eyes-Samantha-Panther-team.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed_article&ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed
@Magatha- Ooh, yes! It's a marriage made in heaven, especially with oodles of butter on the neeps and some nutmeg as well!

Now I'm off to make leek and potato soup - it's a cold day here & British Gas is asking its elderly customers with a repair contract if they're likely to die if BG doesn't send someone to fix their boilers soon...
HIV test - UK people wouldn't have to cough up directly for this - we've got something called the |NHS...
Magatha Mistie said…

@Enbreth

The Spencers were very
happy to broker the deal,
desperate to finally marry
into royalty.
Diana was the sacrificial lamb.

Magatha Mistie said…

Royalty isn’t celebrity,
that’s where madam
went wrong.
Enbrethiliel said…
@Magatha
Charles cohabiting with Camilla
would not have pleased many
people, in Britain and abroad,
not to mention delicate diplomatic
relations.


Fair enough. I should have looked further.

Damned for marrying, damned for not.

They wouldn't have been damned if they had broken up. Which I still think would have been the best course of action in the late 90s.

Had that happened, Camilla would have gone on to live a quiet and private life (as her first husband and their children do). I believe she would have an easier time getting over him than he getting over her. That alternative life might even be as fulfilling to her as her actual one has turned out to be. She seems like she has the wisdom that knows how to spin straw into gold.

As for Charles, I think the worst-case scenario is just that he'd remain pretty much what he is today: Unpopular, out of touch, and perceived as petty and weak -- just (maybe!) with a new, much more discreet mistress. The best-case scenario is that he'd become a stronger, better person, and that this growth, becoming evident in his changed manner, would bring increased respect from the British people. And set a better example for his younger son.

Camilla may have turned out to be a gem, but it didn't do much for Charles to get exactly what he had wanted, after the way he had behaved. I initially disagreed when @Longview described Camilla as "Charles's baby-sitter and minder," but now I think she's right.
Enbrethiliel said…
@WBBM
HIV test - UK people wouldn't have to cough up directly for this - we've got something called the |NHS...

I stand corrected on that point, then! But I do still think Harry's idea of work is expecting other people to do the lifting for him. (Not just the heavy lifting, but any lifting.) At least we've yet to see any kind of concrete plan. This smells like his wife's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks method.
Maneki Neko said…
@Mimi

I have nothing more to say because I know NO FACTS
---------
True but this applies to all of us. None of us actually knows anything. We can surmise, assume, hypothesise etc but facts are very hard to come by except, for instance, when we see * pushing H out of the way or the bump deflating etc.

Keep lurking :)
Enbrethiliel said…
@Magatha
The Spencers were very
happy to broker the deal,
desperate to finally marry
into royalty.
Diana was the sacrificial lamb.


I think we agree on this point. @Maneki reminded me earlier that Diana's grandmother and the Queen Mother did the matchmaking. As the BRF had so much more to lose than the Spencers, one would think that the difference in age (and temperament!), compounded by a courtship seemingly designed to ensure the couple learned as little about each other as possible, would have looked like too much of a risk. But even those whom you'd think would be clear-sighted about such a situation seem to have been wearing blinders.

There are times when I see a clusterflop and wonder: "Well, what did they expect?" This is one of them.

A general question for British Nutties: Did the coveted royal connection pay off for the Spencers long term? Or did their chickens come home to roost even earlier?
LavenderLady said…
@Enbre,
Re Pete Davidson's appeal.

It is well discussed on SM that his "women" agree he has BDE. Supposedly he's well hung.

But you'd have to past the ugly to get to the BD.

I find him a repulsive, talentless, social climber not unlike TBW except he has youth on his side, and just the right maternal heritage to be connected and promoted. He found his niche when he noticed women, (for whatever reason), like him. He then began to systematically attach himself to popular, rich and/or up and coming women celebrities; young and old. Then he hit the mother lode with KK.

I think he's a PR gigalo.

Also I agree with this
@Longview described Camilla as "Charles's baby-sitter and minder," but now I think she's right.

Most older dudes need this type of management in my experience. In their minds, you are either a nurse or a purse (sometimes both!) I choose to stay unattached because I am not interested in being either. We older dames have figured this out. Many, many of us stay away so we can enjoy the peaceful quality of life we have earned.
Magatha Mistie said…


The answer from this
British Nuttie is No!
Charles Spencer is gross.
Magatha Mistie said…
Disappointed for the start
of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Expected cheers, well wishes,
instead anti Monarchy/CoE on here.
LavenderLady said…
Stating opinions or expressing thoughts based on history and/or reality does not necessarily mean someone is ____________. Fill in the blanks.

I recently read how important it is to gather all the ***available*** information before making a decision, choice, statement or address a particular problem. In my career we called it an informed decision.
LavenderLady said…
Correction on my post re Pete Davidson @4:04 PM:

and just the right ***paternal heritage*** to be connected and promoted.

___

For any questions please refer to my above post @ 5:15 PM
SwampWoman said…
I do not think that the IQ or EQ (emotional quotient) deficit between Diana and Charles could ever have been bridged regardless of station in life. She could never, ever have understood that being in a worn comfy chair reading a good book in silence is an enjoyable way to unwind from a day of stress at work and family politics (grin). I think that the gulf is bigger between bibliophiles and non-bibliophiles than between couch potatoes and marathoners, vegans and carnivores, rap enthusiasts and classical music lovers, or twerkers and ballroom dancers.
SwampWoman said…
Magatha Mistie said...

The answer from this
British Nuttie is No!
Charles Spencer is gross.


Apparently he can't keep a spouse for very long, either.
Until Feb 1982, when the engagement was announced, we were heading for a Constitutional Crisis, in that Charles showed no sign of wanting to marry any of the women that came his way.

Ask yourselves - who was next in the Line of Succession, who would take the throne in the seemingly likely event of Charles dying without legitimate issue? Yes, Andrew, followed by Edward. What would you have done, had you been a Senior Royal, to avoid either of them as king?

I admit, when I heard how young the fiancee was, and that she wasn't really a `teacher', I thought `Oh dear... '
SwampWoman said…
Magatha Mistie said...
Disappointed for the start
of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Expected cheers, well wishes,
instead anti Monarchy/CoE on here.


I'm so sorry, Magatha! I am so happy for and have great respect for Her Majesty, long may she reign. I don't know anything at all about the Anglican church except for vicars in old movies (grin), so I have no opinions.
Charles has COVID again, I hope the Queen doesn’t have it! 😟
snarkyatherbest said…
just saw Charles ha Covid, again. hope he wasn’t near the queen but he was everywhere the last few days. can i send a big bottle of vitamin d and zinc to the cambridges?

they have to get me dollar and andrew for that matter out of the line of succession. this all makes me nervous 😉
snarkyatherbest said…
oh for those who like snark. search on youtube Tracy Ullman as Camilla. she is a hoot.
Mel said…
H trying to overshadow PW's Dubai trip. PC: watch this.
Spotlight just went away from H. Oops.
OKay said…
I know a bit about Pete Davidson, having a teenage daughter who has informed me that he will be my son-in-law. *L* I must say that some interpretations of him are quite surprising, given the little that I know. However, I must state unequivocally that he does NOT use anyone for personal gain or fame. Pete's the sort of guy who just kind of lets life happen to him. He is an honest and straightforward person who suffers from bipolar disorder and addiction, and he's just damaged enough to appeal to a certain sort of female. Ever since he and Arianna Grande broke up, however, different women have been using *him* for exposure - and that absolutely includes Kim K. He's not dumb; he understands that raising his profile is good for his career, and he also understands that he has a limited shelf life as a celebrity so he's willing to go along with it. But I must insist, despite his flaws there is not one malicious or even selfish bone in his body.
Miggy said…
@Raspberry Ruffle,

Charles saw the Queen two days ago!

Fears for the Queen as Palace REFUSES to say if she has Covid after it's revealed she met Prince Charles two days before he tested positive: Monarch, 95, is being 'monitored' but is 'not displaying symptoms'



snarkyatherbest said…
Mel - saw that and Mr dollar is still on my mother's work. HIV testing? just saw a stat recently that the rate of new infections globally is down over 30% in the past 10 years. Something not talked about much anymore. Do they own stock in a manufacturer? Just seems so random to talk about now. Then again, there is no focus on what the two of them preach about. Covid Vaccines, mental health, now HIV he's giving me a headache!!

Miggy said…
On a lighter note...

I wonder what pronoun H and TBW will choose?

Would you care for a woke-up call? Soho House now asks global members of the exclusive group to choose from more than FORTY ‘neopronouns’ as part of their profile.

Posh private members' club Soho House is asking its members to choose from a list of 41 pronouns after signing up for its services.

The storied society, which sports 32 locations across the globe, implemented the new prompt last year.

The prompt asks members creating a profile on the club's app to specify their preferred pronouns after entering their name, out of a list of 41 options.

Examples aside from the conventional he/his/him and she/hers/her include co, cos, e, eir, em, ey, fae, faer, mer, mers, ne, nee, ner, ners, nir, nirs, per, and pers.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498469/Soho-House-asks-members-choose-FORTY-neopronouns-sign-exclusive-hotel.html
snarkyatherbest said…
Miggy - so what is pers, per - short for perverts? 😉
SwampWoman said...
Magatha Mistie said...
Disappointed for the start
of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Expected cheers, well wishes,
instead anti Monarchy/CoE on here.


I agree.

There's a lot about the UK that is paradoxical as we try to navigate our way from a deep past into the future. I try to explain how things have come about and hope that those from other backgrounds will understand.
Mel said…
Do they own stock in a manufacturer?
------

That was my first thought.
Especially considering the way they were trying to get in on the vaccine manufacturing in the third world.
$ to be made, they're all over it.
Miggy said…
@Snarky,

No idea - but if the cap fits... 😉
LavenderLady said…
@Okay,
So do you personally know Pete Davidson?
OKay said…
@LavenderLady I do not. But I do pay attention to what's out there.
CatEyes said…
"Expected cheers, well wishes,
instead anti Monarchy/CoE on here."

This blog is founded on the principle of bashing, lol! For years everyone here bashes Harry/*(daily) and Andrew (frequently) who are part of the Monarchy.

I did not see anyone bash the COE (specifically my comments were Not about the Church of England spirituality but rather people who made decisions.)

Freedom of speech?! I thought it was valued on both sides of the pond.


Girl with a Hat said…
did any of you see this posted by Bookworm?

Bookworm 2
il y a 10 heures
I take no pleasure in doing this, but today will be the third time in approximately a week where I feel the need to say 'I told you so...' My intuition derived from gossip which reached my ears has now been confirmed by two royal reporters;
All indications are that the 'plan' is that once the 'dust has settled', Harry will be reintegrated on a part-time basis by being allowed to resume his involvement with the UK military and veterans.
The prediction is that we'll see/hear more of Harry in this regard after the Invictus Games in The Hague in April...
WATCH THIS SPACE!!!
LavenderLady said…
@Okay,
Thanks for the reply. ��

Not to bug but just wondering if you do tarot or are you an intuitive? I've been learning the cards for awhile now. My mentor passed. She was the most brilliant tarot reader but I'm letting her spirit and energy guide me.

Just curious. If you don't feel comfortable discussing it I understand.
OKay said…
@LavenderLady I do indeed. :)
Maneki Neko said…
@Miggy

I don't know about H but I 'm sure *'s pronouns are I, me, myself, mine 😉
LavenderLady said…
@Okay,
I picked that up. Cool!! 🙂🙂🙂
Anonymous said…
Samantha Cohen is to be the ‘gatekeeper’ at 10 Downing Street. I guess if she can survive working with the Sussexes, Boris Johnson will be a cakewalk.

‘Mrs Cohen is known to have likened working for the Sussexes as trying to deal ‘with a couple of teenagers’. She left in 2019.

Friends expressed shock last night that she would even consider taking a job at the heart of No 10 after the ‘poisoned chalice’ of the Sussex position.’
Hikari said…
@CatEyes

We have had plenty of choice words in this space for HM’s Archbishop of Nonsense, Justin Welby. With him and Charles in charge after HM, I fully expect HM’s great churches to be turned into namaste yoga retreat centres. Welby doesn’t believe in God and I suspect the same of Charles. Or rather, Chas is happy to believe in anything equally.

Harry’s paternity has been questioned by the Hewitt brigade based solely on his red hair, when Diana’s siblings all have blazing red hair land did Johnny Spencer. Diana was the anomaly in her birth family. Red and blond are very close together. Charles also has red hair on his side back several generations. So why can James Hewitt be the only possible explanation for Haz’s follicles? Philip’s beard in the Navy…RED. Go back and see. Harry is a Mountbatten; William has the Spencer genes predominating. All but the mental ones, Harry got those. Harry also has his grandfather’s body type, jawline, mouth and eyes. Captain Hewitt was a much stockier body type with rounder features and his eyes are brown. We don’t have an Ancestry DNA analysis but we do have eyes. What a shame H is so conduct unbecoming—he is a Mountbatten but he doesn’t deserve to be called Philip’s grandson.
Hikari said…
PS the second paragraph above is for Mimi if she is still reading.

Diana was a naughty girl often but I do not think she was stupid enough to play away until her heir and spare were secure. I think until Harry was born she still was trying to make a go of things with Charles. It’s curious how this rumor continues to have legs nearly 38 years later. Hewitt was an opportunist who benefited from this Royal tittle tattle for a little while but he has categorically denied it. With Diana gone he could have extorted the Crown for millions—no whiff of anything like that. This rumor smears Diana’s reputation posthumously and who knows to what extent it has contributed to Harry’s rage and self esteem issues. It’s not the Crown’s way to be transparent even when they should. Harry is Charles’s though Charles probably wishes otherwise now.
CatEyes said…
@Hikari

I agree with you...as I always do because your observation is so incisive and detailed resulting in such great analysis.

Much is made of Diana's DNA and attitudes influencing the bad in Harry but I see much from Charles also (bucking the traditional, namby-pamby attitude, weak almost, wanting to get his own way even if it isn't good for him etc...)
Fifi LaRue said…
The RF getting mental/psychiatric help for Diana: those with Borderline Personality Disorder can't be helped usually. The patient must really want help, and then it's still a struggle that is ultimately not successful, but may ease life a bit for the patient and family.

* is the same. She made a claim of needing mental health help, and then her statement that the RF took away her car keys and passport. She may have been hospitalized for her mental disorders, but nothing could help. * also played it both ways: I needed help, and they refused; and, they (hospitalized) me, and there was nothing wrong with me. * is a vile viper, who's permanently mentally unbalanced.
.
As for Pete Davidson not having a malicious or selfish bone in his body, that is quite rare in the entertainment world.
Hikari said…
CatEyes,

Charles and Diana certainly brought out the worst in each other, like another couple we could mention.

We have scads of anecdotal evidence that Diana could be incredibly warm, thoughtful and generous. She could also be capricious, vindictive and manipulative. Considering how she played the media from the beginning with the Shy Di persona, she was not quite the naive babe in the woods it pleased her to play. Charles kind of fell into her lap by dint of being her sister’s sloppy seconds, but she played exactly the role she needed to be to snag the prize. Absolutely aced the Balmoral test weekend by all accounts when she loathed everything about the country life. That points to a sophisticated level of deviousness from a teenager. She was not in love with Charles but she really liked the title Princess of Wales. She made the same error that * did in assuming that her rightful place was as the star of the family. I had sympathy for the “sacrificial lamb” narrative until the day I read that she had tried to kill her stepmother Raine by pushing her down the stairs.

Lambs do not try to commit (step)matricide in a manner worthy of “The Bad Seed” film. Di had an obsession with stairs, as some years later she would gamble with William’s life in a histrionic roll down the staircase at Sandringham. Even if it was a calculated gentle roll strictly for attention, mentally balanced women who actually care about their unborn babies don’t go about flinging themselves down staircases for show. Thank God nothing happened to the baby.

Harry has gotten some cards from this deck…and *’s controlling and erratic behavior…hot and cold …must feel like “home” on some level that he can’t even consciously understand. Charles did not give him much to work with either. Basically he is screwed. On the list of colossal failures of human history, Hazmat is right up there with Judas Iscariot. And we know how he ended up.

I’m sending prayers and good wishes for Charles’ recovery and the Queen’s health. I just got over Omicron myself…I had a negative test just 24 hours before I tested strongly positive. So Camilla still could have it too. Prayers that all will be well.
Enbrethiliel said…
@Hikari
she played exactly the role she needed to be to snag the prize. Absolutely aced the Balmoral test weekend by all accounts when she loathed everything about the country life. That points to a sophisticated level of deviousness from a teenager.

I'm inclined to give Diana a pass because I remember being 19, dumb, and very easy to manipulate. I also think that Diana's grandmother and older sisters should have known better than to set her up that way. It wasn't just any arranged marriage between an older, wealthy man and a younger, fertile woman. This one would have the pressures of the whole world watching, judging, and never forgetting. And if the Spencers had been aware of Diana's problems back then, they had absolutely no concern for her mental health or wellbeing.

As I said earlier in this thread, the older I get, the more upset I am that the grown women in Diana's circle didn't look out for her better. Of course she should be held accountable for lying through her teeth at Balmoral and for all the stunts she pulled later in the marriage. But I now find myself asking about her what you asked earlier about Harry, factoring in @SirStinxAlot's reminder that the brain doesn't fully develop until the age of 25: Did she have full agency and control when it came to those emotional meltdowns on the stairs and other incidents?
Maneki Neko said…
Diana did have some misgivings about the wedding so must have known there might be problems in the union. You might remember her sisters saying to her 'too late, your face is on the tea towels'. I think this was on the eve of the wedding. It's a pity she didn't have more time to think about being married to Charles before getting engaged. I think they only had a dozen of dates before the wedding.
Hikari said…
I do think that Diana’s family let her down badly. Anyone that young needs someone looking out for her best interests, and Diana’s fragile emotional state was well-known to her family. If she was the sacrificial lamb, it was from both sides—the Windsors needed a virgin bride for Charles and that dovetailed nicely with the overweening ambition of the Spencer dynasty to get as close to the crown as possible. Diana’s childhood nickname was ‘Duch’…so there never was much chance that Diana would marry an average bloke. Growing up as a playmate of Prince Andrew didn’t make the idea of a Royal marriage a completely out of left field notion either, not nearly so random and Cinderella like as the Spencer family liked to promote it as, to obscure the fact that they had been conniving for exactly this outcome for their girls since birth.

They didn’t do right by Diana. But a nearly 20 year old person is a legal adult and has some agency in her own conduct. The human brain may still be developing, but even so, the majority of people manage to make it to 25 without pushing parental figures down stairs on purpose and lots of them even make functional marriages before that age. I do think it would be beneficial if people delayed marriage and children until after 25 though.
Teasmade said…
Somewhat rhetorical question: Isn't it well known that royal marriages are for the purpose of producing royal babies, and not necessarily, or not at all, for love?

My implied question is, why did she or the Spencers think this instance would be any different?

And I'm piling on on the criticism of the two conniving old ladies who cooked this up.

Disgraceful all around.
Part1:
It was reported that the Spencers considered themselves more royal than the Windsors, and not a particularly pleasant lot either. There's a relevant article in the Spectator chive but it's only available to subscribers.

This seem to have the gist of it though;


SPENCERS VS. WINDSORS --

PRINCESS'S BROTHER STARTS FEUD
WITH FUNERAL SPEECH
By Ray Moseley
Chicago Tribune

Daily News
Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 9, 1997
Earl Spencer's bitterly angry speech at the funeral of his sister, Princess Diana, has opened a feud between two powerful families, the Spencers and the Windsors, that are both frequently described as dysfunctional.

In his tribute to Diana on Saturday, Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, referred indirectly, but with some derision, to the fact the Windsors had stripped his sister of the title Her Royal Highness.

He also promised in the presence of Diana's former husband, Prince Charles, that the Spencers would not allow the couple's children, Prince William, 15, and Prince Harry, 12, to grow up in royal stuffiness but would preserve in them Diana's own free spirit.

One newspaper Monday likened the division he had opened to the feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families from whom the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet sprang in literary tragedy.

Another compared Earl Spencer to Mark Antony, the friend of the murdered Julius Caesar who roused the people of Rome against the assassins.

Constitutional historian David Starkey said, ``It was one of the cruelest speeches I have heard.''
Part 2

The Spencers are a family whose noble lineage goes back to Tudor times, a family with ties of kinship that range from George Washington to Winston Churchill. They have lived at their Althorp estate in Northamptonshire since 1486. They are, in short, quintessential English aristocrats.

Diana's friend Rosa Monckton wrote Sunday that Diana was far prouder of being a Spencer than of being royal and would constantly tell herself when she felt challenged: ``Diana, remember you are a Spencer.''

The Windsors, the royal family, also have a long and distinguished history, but their English roots go back only to the early 18th century. The family was originally German, named Saxe-Coburg until World War I prompted King George V to change it. Queen Elizabeth II married a Greek, Prince Philip, whose own family ancestry was German.

Both families have seen their share of troubles in recent years. All of the Windsor children, except Prince Edward who is single, have gone through divorces that were often, as in the case of Charles and Diana, tumultuous.

The Spencers have long been known as a difficult family, and many found supporting evidence in the fact Diana was continually firing and replacing members of her personal staff, evidently unable to get along with them.

Charles Spencer, 33, who has blamed British editors for Diana's death on the grounds they encouraged photographers to hound her, undoubtedly has personal reasons to be bitter toward the press.

When he was a bachelor, he came under criticism for his choice of friends, including the best man at his wedding, fellow Etonian Darius Guppy, who later was convicted of fraud.

Spencer's various love affairs also attracted a lot of press coverage, and he was christened ``Champagne Charlie'' for his exuberant lifestyle after he left Eton College and Oxford University.

In 1989 he went on television to denounce tabloid journalists as ``totally insensitive, evil people'' for harassing him and his fiancee, 24-year-old model Victoria Lockwood, whom he married that year.

Himself a television journalist who worked in British broadcasting and then for NBC, Spencer attracted more unfavorable publicity as his wife was revealed to be an alcoholic and a victim of anorexia. She was in and out of various clinics before Spencer, apparently to escape the publicity, went to live in South Africa with their four children.

He is separated from his wife, but she lives near him in Cape Town. In 1995 he wrote to the Press Complaints Commission that journalists had constantly harassed his wife at a private clinic.

Yet at his 30th birthday party a year earlier, Spencer embarrassed guests by recalling his father's wish he should marry somebody who would stick by him through thick and thin.

``Those of you who know Victoria know that she's thick - and she's certainly thin,'' he said.

Six years ago Sally Ann Lasson, an old girlfriend, told a British tabloid she and Spencer had rekindled their love during a Paris weekend six months after his marriage.

Since Spencer's move to South Africa, the British tabloids have continued their coverage of him, including his liaisons with former model Josie Borain and model Chantal Collopy.

Like Diana and his surviving two sisters, Spencer had a painful childhood. Their mother walked out on them in the middle of the night when Diana was 6 and he was 3, saying she could no longer live with a bullying husband.

Their father's second wife, Raine, was loathed by Diana and her brother, and they nicknamed her ``Acid Raine.''

His blast at the royal family Saturday provoked a wave of applause from those listening to the funeral service outside Westminster Abbey, and the applause was taken up by those inside.

Diana's sons, and one of the young daughters of the Duchess of York, joined in the applause. But adult members of the royal family sat in frozen-faced silence.
Part 3

The British public is clearly divided over the wisdom of what Spencer did, as reflected in the letters columns of major newspapers. Readers of the liberal Guardian, for example, have mostly cheered him on, with one writing: ``Earl Spencer for president!''

In the Daily Telegraph, sometimes described as the bible of British conservatives, a few readers sided with Spencer. But most were highly critical, saying his remarks damaged the monarchy and were hurtful to Diana's sons as well.

The Times of London, with no letters on the subject in Monday's edition, deplored Spencer's words. In an editorial, it said he, rather than seeking reconciliation with the Windsors, had reopened old wounds.

Times columnist Peter Stothard said Spencer had ``thrown down a graceless gauntlet to his sovereign - and one that must damage his best hopes.''

The Times also carried an article by Sarah Bradford, a biographer of the queen, who wrote: ``Spencer's appreciation of his sister was magnificent; his bitterness devalued her memory.''

Bradford said his remarks were undoubtedly deeply upsetting for Diana's children, ``who only want love and unity around them.''

Newspaper reports Monday said Prince Charles was angry over Spencer's funeral tirade.

The Guardian quoted royal sources as saying Charles believed Spencer had misunderstood his close relationship with his sons. Charles also was dismissive of Spencer's promise to have a hand in how the boys were raised, the sources said, pointing out it would be ``impractical'' to think of him traveling back and forth from South Africa to perform this role.

In the Guardian, writer Matthew Engel put the feud between these powerful families in a historical perspective:

"Now we begin to understand why the most popular and enduring tragic plays of history have been written about kings and princes and earls, and not about, say, the European Union or the parliamentary Labor Party."

End
Enbrethiliel said…
The Body Language Guy's latest is on the body language of the Dollars' engagement video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtq9-gJpYD4

It's one I actually haven't watched much. (After the engagement interview got stuck in my craw, I avoided everything all "Dollar engagement" things like the plague.) After hearing Mr. Rosas's explanation, I have to wonder why the Dollars chose to exit the way they did. He is right that it was awkward. So awkward that I'm sure that someone on staff who was experienced in dealing with the media warned them not to do it. And they did it anyway. To their own detriment.

Was that a narc thing? Someone told her that they had planned things to go a certain way and she did it differently just to pull rank? I'm reminded that when she was causing trouble for her security after the wedding, it was leaked that she had haughtily informed them: "I will walk where I like." (I haven't thought about it in a while, but had it been more at the front of my mind during the Oprah interview, I would have been more outraged at * bleating about not getting proper security for "Archie.")

Mr. Rosas hints that he may do a follow-up with more on *'s poses from that day. I've always thought the one in which her back is arched away from Harry, with a "Hey, y'all" look on her face, was particularly awkward. Later, when I learned that narcs (and psychopaths) have to mimic other people's facial expressions in order to fake emotions, her imitation of happiness made chilling sense. I can't wait for the next video!
Enbrethiliel said…
@Magatha
Disappointed for the start
of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Expected cheers, well wishes,
instead anti Monarchy/CoE on here.


I'm sorry it has been disappointing, Magatha. Given what we normally discuss, the current topics didn't seem out of place, much less Scrooge-ish. I thought the posts about coronation chicken were appropriately festive! But I know what it's like to be excited about something and to sense a "bah, humbug" mood from others.

May I ask if the mood is different where you live? I'm wondering because my only "direct" experience of the Jubilee comes from this blog and from Royal Tumblr. And over there, the mood is very similar to what we have here. Straddling both communities, I'd say there's a shared sense of awkwardness over the Queen's announcement about Camilla. We had expected something different, too, and the surprise of what we actually received required several days to process properly. Since some of the Tumblr bloggers are British (and Trevor Coult called out Camilla's critics in one video), I assume there is a bit of division in the UK over this, too. How does it look like in your corner?
LavenderLady said…
In my opinion, Charles Spencer took full advantage of the fact that he did not face the dungeon, the rack and beheading if he spoke his mind at his sister's funeral. It was at the precise moment that he wielded the most power, and he used it. It may have cost him his standing as an uncle but he took that chance it appears. I can imagine, in his grief, he was furious at the RF for how they brokered a deal for a young Diana to be married off to the Prince of Wales. Any young women (any woman) could have had their head turned at the magnitude of that thought. I do not claim to know much about that history just what is usually mentioned. What is posted above. It's common knowledge even to someone like me that the Spencers were more blue blooded than the Windsors.

Back in the very old days, had that whole soap opera happened, it probably would have sparked a revolution, a another very bloody, costly war for England. One that could have destabilized the BRF even further. But here in 2022 they are still going strong so I guess some damage was done but they are still living well, marrying, reproducing etc.

I have zero feelings either way about Charles Spencer. Just that he must have been livid over the death of his sister and at the details of her last years of her life.

I'm sure he has experienced the metaphoric beheading in his social standing, his reputation, his ability to keep his estate afloat etc. I am not taking sides just stating what I see as an outsider looking in with the information available to me.

That funeral speech will go down in history as epic as time passes. On paper the Spencer name was vindicated and I believe that was the goal.

---

Nice to know that when another poster mentions the 25 year old brain not being fully formed, they are given props. But when I mentioned it first, more than once, I was disemboweled. No offense to anyone in particular, just saying in general...
Blogger Enbrethiliel asked about the reception of the Camilla news in the UK:

As far as I can make out it's been received positively here, apart from the minority of bitter Diana diehards. I've also had a quick look at The Tablet (RC newspaper) and found nothing critical, ditto the CoE Church Times. On the whole, people seem to be forgiving and compassionate, willing to move on.
SwampWoman said…
Hikari said:
I’m sending prayers and good wishes for Charles’ recovery and the Queen’s health. I just got over Omicron myself…I had a negative test just 24 hours before I tested strongly positive. So Camilla still could have it too. Prayers that all will be well.


I think that Camilla is the person most in danger because of her health challenges.


Enbrethiliel said…
@WBBM

Thank you for sharing the article. I hadn't known that William, Harry, and one of the York girls joined in applauding Earl Spencer's remarks. I read a lot of articles about the funeral that year, but I don't recall that specific detail. (The one reaction from a BRF member that did get widely reported was Harry's crying.) The only angle my local press cared about was "Diana's boys;" reading the story as a late chapter in a centuries-old Spencer saga is very interesting.

I remember Charles Spencer's speech fairly well, considering that the last time I heard it was over two decades ago. I recall hoping that Diana's brother would get a chance to help raise her sons the way she would have wanted. Many years later, when I learned that this righteously angry brother had refused Diana sanctuary at her own childhood home and actually didn't see his nephews very much after her death, I was a little disillusioned. And the article doesn't make him look any better. But it doesn't take away from the power of that eulogy.

@LL
In my opinion, Charles Spencer took full advantage of the fact that he did not face the dungeon, the rack and beheading if he spoke his mind at his sister's funeral. It was at the precise moment that he wielded the most power, and he used it.

It was probably his finest moment as a Spencer, and I don't say that ironically. Perhaps the "Diana diehards," who will always be a thorn in Prince Charles's side, are as much a legacy of that speech as of Diana's actual work.
@ Enbrethiliel

Watching the funeral and paying attention to what Spencer said, I got the impression that William and Harry hadn't grasped what Spencer said, beyond eulogising their mother.

I thought it was all a bit rich when the Spencers had done bugger towards Diana's funeral and left it to her ex-in-laws. The RF were no longer her next of kin - how many of you would stand back and let someone else, and an estranged family at that, bury your blood relative?
LavenderLady said…
@WBBM,

The ex in laws were the royalty with endless protocol. Isn't there protocols for a royal death? Even Wallis got something. A grave in Froggy Bog. And that car that TBW was carted in.


If I were Spencer I too would have said "have at it... and do it royally".
LavenderLady said…
P.S.
Let us not forget who William's mother was. I exclude Harry the spare. Wills will be King.

What a hoo haw that would have opened up if they had left Diana's funeral to just her family.
@LL - Wallis was the widow of a former king, not his ex-wife.
LavenderLady said…
@Enbre quoted me,
@LL
"In my opinion, Charles Spencer took full advantage of the fact that he did not face the dungeon, the rack and beheading if he spoke his mind at his sister's funeral. It was at the precise moment that he wielded the most power, and he used it."

And replied,

"It was probably his finest moment as a Spencer, and I don't say that ironically. Perhaps the "Diana diehards," who will always be a thorn in Prince Charles's side, are as much a legacy of that speech as of Diana's actual work."

Exactly. Sometimes a non biased view is best when dissecting history.
LavenderLady said…
@WBBM,
Yes I know but weren't the RF Wallis' "in laws"?

If Diana had not died young she would have been the ex wife of a King. Correct?
Hikari said…
Lavender Lady said,

What a hoo haw that would have opened up if they had left Diana's funeral to just her family.

As I recall, that was precisely what the Queen thought should happen. Her failure to acknowledge Diana's death publicly for an entire week was due to her having divested herself of responsibility for anything to do with Charles's ex-wife. She may have been the mother of the future King but she herself was no longer a Royal and therefore, her family's responsibility. As ever, Her Majesty was exquisitely on point as to the finer tenets of Royal protocols. In principle, she was correct. But such correctness showed a fairly shocking want of human feeling, at least to the onlookers. Diana had been extremely troublesome during her lifetime but she was the mother of two of the Queen's grandchildren, regardless of her cult status as 'The People's Princess'. HM was bullied into relenting by PM Blair and also Charles, who insisted on going personally to Paris to retrieve the body of his children's mother in a Royal plane. That was against protocol, too. Charles inquired acidly of Mummy if she thought it better that Diana's body be brought home in the back of a Harrod's van.

He won the point.

LavenderLady said…
@Hikari said,
HM was bullied into relenting by PM Blair and also Charles, who insisted on going personally to Paris to retrieve the body of his children's mother in a Royal plane. That was against protocol, too. Charles inquired acidly of Mummy if she thought it better that Diana's body be brought home in the back of a Harrod's van.

He won the point.

___

Wow. Thanks for this. Yes, Charles won the point. I think we've been through this several times here on the blog :)

I wish I could say 100% that HM has bossed up better over the years. I feel deeply for her at her age to be dealing with the MESS certain member's of that fam have gotten themselves into. I believe she's trying to be compassionate. I believe as we get closer to the other side we do begin to reflect and change old patterns so we may meet our Maker.

If anyone could want to knock some heads together it would be her. Her life was so exemplary and her union with PP, with it's blips, was one of dignity, duty and I believe true love. And then The Harks, PA, and other f ups.

Looks as if she has help now with William and Kate. Thank God!

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