...For
July 2004
July 29, 2004 - -
Harry's antics defended by polo pals
By
Daniel Lyons
POLO and party-loving Prince Harry will feel bolstered this
week as
friends and experts defended his exploits in being a young
man.
The 19-year-old playboy prince came under fire after a night
out
drinking with pals at the Chinawhite tent following Sunday's
Cartier
International Polo at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great
Park.
He was pictured smooching former flame Laura Gerard-Leigh, 19,
and
generally having a good time. But this week a source within
the
tight-knit polo set surrounding the prince sprang to his
defence.
The source told the Express: "He is a good-time bloke and
why
shouldn't he be. He is just behaving like any other teenager of
his
age would if they had half the chance. You don't see him like so
many
other drunk teens fighting outside pubs and getting into
trouble with the
police. I don't know why so many people pick on
him. Perhaps it is just
because he is Prince Harry and third in line
for the throne."
Harry
attended the star-studded bash after scoring for the losing
Prince of Wales
team in the morning's Golden Jubilee Cup match.
He was joined at the
event by Hollywood stunner Scarlett Johansson,
Baywatch star David Hasselhoff
and Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay, who
was apparently hit by a car during the
early hours.
Harry was romantically linked with Miss Gerard-Leigh last
summer but
their relationship is said to have cooled when they went on
gap-year
trips.
July 26, 2004 - -
SCREW THE NUT, HARRY
Queen makes a point
about her rude grandson
By Cara Page
HE'S off one's head, the
Queen seems to be saying at the polo event
where Prince Harry gave a cheeky
one-fingered salute.
Harry's gran made her own pointed gesture as she
walked across
Windsor Great Park.
Although the Queen was deep in
thought, it seemed a fitting retort
to the prince's rebellious
behaviour.
Harry was more interested in partying than protocol when
he
delivered his insult.
Hewas relaxing with his upper-crust pals at
the posh Cartier
International Event at the Guards Polo Club.
And he
showed his appetite for a good time as he downed glasses of
vodka and puffed
on cigarettes.
Dressed in scruffy jeans and a baseball cap, he looked
just like any
other 19-year-old on a night out.
One onlooker said: 'He
was letting his hair down after the match and
behaving like a typical
teenager.He smoked cigarettes and worked his
way around the room with up to
three drinks crammed in his hand.
'There were two detectives, but they
just watched from a distance
and let him get on with it.'
Earlier,
Harry showed his finesse on the field, although his Prince
of Wales side lost
to the Hurlingham Polo Association.
No sooner had he dismounted than
there were scores of fine fillies
willing to offer the playboy prince their
commiserations.
Pretty girls hung on his every word as he lived it up in
The China
White marquee sponsored by the fashionable London club he
frequents.
At one point, he sat at a table laden with spirits and soft
drinks
while pals made up vodka and Red Bull mixes.
He was still going
strong after midnight as many party-goers were
drifting away from the
bash.
The onlooker added: 'It wasan exclusive crowd with noVIP area,
so
Harry worked his way around the room sitting at various tables and
the
bar.
'At one point, he had a bottle of something and was pouring it
into
a friend's mouth, Spanish-style.
'When we left at 12.30am, he was
still enjoying himself.'
-
-
Prince Harry Makes His Mark
Prince Harry was
cheered on by his cousins Beatrice and Eugenie when he took to the field at the
Cartier International Polo event on Sunday. He and his brother William both
played on the Prince of Wales team against Hurlingham at Windsor Great Park.
Harry managed to score a goal himself, but in the end it wasn't enough
to stop their opponents taking victory. The teenage royal was applauded for his
fine performance nonetheless, with a representative from the Guards Polo Club
predicting that he is destined for big things. "He played extremely well" said
the spokesman. "He is going to be a star."
Among the glamorous guests
watching from the sidelines were Lord Freddy Windsor, Lady Isabella Hervey and
former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. The American actor, who is
currently appearing in the West End musical Chicago, enjoyed the chance
to chat with Harry after the game.
And it seems the 19-year-old is now
in possession of some signed Baywatch publicity shots which David gave to
Princess Diana. "I asked Prince Harry whether he'd got the photos," revealed the
actor. "I usually carry some around to sign and give to the kids and when I met
his mother, I gave her some of myself and the Baywatch girls. He said he
got the photos of the girls."
July 23, 2004 - -
A TOAST TO THE POLO
This is
Gloucestershire
Hundreds of people packed out the Beau-fort Polo Club to
watch Prince
Charles and his sons compete in a charity game. The royals were
the
star attractions for the second St James's Place Polo Day
at
Westonbirt, Gloucestershire, that raised £35,000 for
Welsh
charities.
Almost 400 guests enjoyed a Champagne and Pimms
reception and gourmet
lunch, despite a fine drizzle before enjoying an
action-packed game
between Highgrove and Beaufort. They saw the Highgrove
team, which
included HRH The Prince of Wales, Prince William, Prince Harry
and
England playmaker Mark Tomlinson, narrowly defeated by
their
opponents.
The money was divided between two charities, George
Thomas Hospice
Care, a major provider of specialist home-based palliative
care in
Cardiff, and Ty Hafan, Sully, which provides respite and
end-of-life
care for children with terminal conditions.
A lunch
auction raised £9,000, with lots including a training
course
with the Red
Devils parachute team.
Chairman of the Beaufort Polo Club Simon Tomlinson
was thrilled with
the way the day had gone. "We are extremely grateful to St
James's
Place for their generous sponsorship of this day as well as
the
fantastic auction prizes that have been donated.
"The crowd
certainly seemed to enjoy themselves and were very vocal
in their support for
the teams -which all adds to the atmosphere."
July 20, 2004 - -
Harry Tests His Skills As A "Horse Whisperer"
Prince Harry demonstrated a touch of animal magic at a polo match in
Gloucestershire on Monday. The young royal, who had come along to cheer on his
brother William, was pictured blowing into the nostrils of the horses to help
calm them down.
The 19-year-old would have played in the match himself,
but he is still recovering from a knee injury suffered during a recent Army
training session. Harry still did his bit to help the team by soothing the
animals before they took to the field. And his efforts have drawn comparisons to
the legendary American "horse whisperer" Monty Roberts, who inspired a film
starring Robert Redford.
Monty, who once had a meeting with the Queen,
became renowned for his ability to win a horse's trust. But Harry is also well
recognised for his equestrian skills, having honed his abilities during his time
working as a "jackaroo" in the Australian Outback.
In the end the
teenage royal's contribution wasn't enough to secure victory for Wills' Umbogo
team, because they lost to White Hall. Perhaps they will fare better when
Harry's knee gets better and he can join them on the field instead.
July 19, 2004 - -
Burger King at McDonald's
By MIKE DARVILL
THERE'S nothing like a Big Mac and fries when you've got a right royal appetite.
And that's just what Prince Harry fancied in the middle of a polo match yesterday.
So he sped off in his car, flanked by royal minders, to buy some of the fast fodder.
Harry, 19, was at Cirencester Park Polo Club, Gloucs, for a charity polo match involving brother William, 22.
While Wills was playing, Harry sat munching his burger in the car. And after knocking back the snack, Harry tucked into a portion of chicken nuggets, which he shared with royal cops.
Afterwards the burger prince had a crafty fag.
An onlooker said: He may be third in line to the throne but like any teenage lad he likes a burger.
July 16, 2004 - -
Prince Harry the pop star
World Entertainment News Network
Music mogul Simon Cowell wants to turn British royal Prince Harry into a pop idol.
The American Idol and Pop Idol judge is convinced the 19-year-old heir could make millions as a chart heart-throb - and it doesn't even matter if he can sing.
Cowell has in the past said the same of Harry's brother William, but he claims the younger Prince is far more marketable.
He says, "Both of them would make millions, absolutely millions. But I'd sign Harry over William. I think he's far more attractive and more of a party boy.
"At the moment there's much more attention on William but I think that's going to change.
They're moving in different directions and people will soon become more interested in Harry.
I don't know if he can sing or not but that's not always a problem."
July 15, 2004 - -
Fastest thing on 2 Wills
SPEED king Prince William has bought himself the 154mph superbike his dad refused to get him for his 21st birthday.
The Triumph Daytona 600 is the closest thing to a racing bike on the road.
William, 22, happily parted with Β£7,000 of his own cash to get his hands on one.
"It is fantastic. You feel so free on it," he told a pal.
The prince also likes being anonymous on the road in his leathers and full-face visor.
The tornado red, fuel-injected bike is a copy of the 2003 Isle of Man TT winner.
And the prince has wanted one ever since he saw it win the legendary race.
"It goes like a rocket," said a family pal. "William is a safe rider but he likes to go a bit."
Road testers described the four-cylinder, six-gear bike as "blisteringly good" at its launch.
Fountain
Wills had the bike brought down from St Andrews University in Scotland for the summer and rode it to his mother's memorial fountain ceremony on Tuesday.
Bodyguard cops have been given a new unmarked BMW bike to keep up with the biker prince.
Charles was horrified when Wills asked him for the Triumph last year. But he realises his son makes his own decisions now.
William caught the speed bug when his mother introduced him to go-karting as a youngster.
In a recent interview he said: "I've had a passion for speed ever since I was very small.
Riding a motorbike can be dangerous, but so can lots of things.
As long as you've had thorough training, you should be OK.
You've just got to be aware of what you're doing."
Heir Racer
PRINCE William set a hair-raising pace as he joined thousands on Sport Relief charity fun runs all over Britain yesterday.
The 22-year-old royal headed a Clarence House team on the one-mile course in London. But brother Harry said he had to "wimp out" after injuring his knee in Army training.
As Wills caught his breath at the finish line, he joked: "I tripped him up so he wouldn't beat me. Brothers are like that!"
The prince came second in 6 mins 10 secs just behind fiery celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay who is said to have run ****ing brilliantly and raised ****ing thousands in sponsorship!
July 13, 2004 - -
Diana's fountain runs dry
By Valentine Low, Evening Standard
The Princess Diana fountain suffered its second embarrassing
closure
today - one week after it was opened by the Queen.
On the day
after last week's official inauguration, the £3.6million
fountain had to be
closed after it flooded the surrounding grass.
But today the Hyde Park
fountain held no water at all after engineers
emptied it for repairs.
Officials insisted the work was routine
maintenance but admitted they were
also looking at a "glitch" in one
of the motors. Last week's flood was caused
by the fountain becoming
blocked by leaves after the heavy summer storms. A
spokesman for the
Royal Parks said then: "We didn't expect autumn to arrive
on the
seventh of July."
A parks spokesman said today that filters
were being installed to
prevent such blockages. He admitted one of the water
pumps "may not
be working quite properly" but claimed: "It is just a small
glitch."
An engineer working on the fountain said: "It may be that we
have to
turn it off every week to service it." Her colleague added: "We
hope
to have it back on later today but I wouldn't bet on it."
July 9, 2004 - -
A Royal 6 Minute Mile
Prince William has turned charity runner after joining the
nation's one mile sprint for Sport Relief.
The 22-year-old was a surprise
entrant in a mass charity dash, stunning fellow entrants by turning up in sports
gear to run a mile.
William was set to be joined by 19-year-old Prince Harry, but his younger
brother had to pull out after injuring his left knee and was only there to
watch.
The young Royals posed for photographs with some of the youngsters
running in London near Blackfriars Bridge before the run began.
Celebrity
chef Gordon Ramsay and comics Patrick Kielty and Nick Hancock also
raced.
The princes' appearance was kept top secret for security reasons,
with William and Harry arriving shortly before the start.
William, who
finished the mile in six minutes and 10 seconds, was sporting a white Sports
Relief T-shirt with "Clarence House One Mile" on the back and khaki knee length
shorts with two red stripes down each side.
This is the first event of
its kind that William has taken part in.
It is also believed to be the
first time the brothers have carried out a public appearance together without
another senior Royal to accompany them.
William pronounced himself
pleased with his time after finishing.
July 7, 2004 -
-
The Princess Diana Memorial
Fountain has been flooded a day after it was officially opened by the
Queen.
Gusts of wind up to 70mph blew leaves off trees and into the £3.6m
fountain where they clogged up an outflow, creating the overspill, a Royal Parks
spokesman said.
Officials turned off the water supply while the leaves were
unblocked.
Several square metres of flood water were then pumped off the
sodden grass.
The opening of the Hyde Park fountain was attended by
Princes William and Harry, Diana's brother Earl Spencer and other members of the
Spencer family.
Water spilled out from the fountain's tranquil pool
section close to an inscription dedicated to Diana.
Theo Moore, spokesman
for The Royal Parks, said unseasonable weather was to blame for the
flooding.
He said: "It if was autumn we would have people on site to pick
leaves out and have additional measures in place.
"But given that this
was July we didn't expect that much leaf fall."
Predictions of more bad
weather mean Royal Park staff will be on hand in the coming days to clear leaves
from the fountain.
A system to automatically turn off the water supply if
levels rise too high will also be brought in, Mr Moore said.
-
Princes Charm Crowds During Walkabout
By Simon Baker, PA
News
Princes William and Harry laughed and joked with the public
today as
they carried out a rare walkabout following the opening of
the
memorial to their late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
The
princes chatted freely to the crowds as the basked in glorious
sunshine at
the sight of the fountain in London's Hyde Park.
The short encounter had
echoes of the scenes seven years ago when the
princes, aged 15 and 12,
greeted some of the 4,000-strong crowd
mourning Diana outside her Kensington
Palace home.
Today is believed to be only the second time since then that
the
brothers, now 22 and 19, have performed an official joint
walkabout.
However, there was a slight difference in mood today as the
princes
who looked happy, calm and relaxed crouched down to speak
to
children, shook hands with as many people as they could and
accepted
compliments from dozens of female fans.
A 52-year-old woman
from Indiana in the US was just one person who
appeared to melt at the sight
of the heir to the throne before
telling him, "I think you are
gorgeous."
But Marsha Scott said the prince, rather than appearing
bashful
simply replied: "You're not bad looking yourself."
Another
American woman who met Prince William Jennifer Woodson who
is currently
living in London asked the prince to pose for a
photograph with her
nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth.
She said: "I told him: 'Now I have got
a photo of the future King of
England' and William just laughed and said:
'Well, where is he
then?"'
Prince Harry also took time to speak to
more than a dozen people
waiting behind barriers and, like his brother, had
to be ushered away
after the 10-minute meet and greet opportunity was
finished.
Spotting a group of nursery school children from the nearby
Hyde Park
barracks, the younger prince crouched down prompting fits of
giggles.
He told one child, who like the others was wearing a blue cap:
"I
love your hat."
A woman called Elizabeth, aged 60 who did not
want to give her
surname, then spoke to Prince Harry about how she had
travelled from
Ireland before today's ceremony.
She said: "He thanked
me for coming and I told him that he should
tell his brother not to take all
the attention and he laughed."
Maria Jukes, 56, from Cheltenham, said
Harry had seemed surprised
when she told him that she had been waiting in the
crowd since 8am.
She said: "He asked why and we said that it was to see
him and he
laughed. He also said he wished he could get into the water
(the
memorial) and play in it."
Renee Wallen, 34, from Ilford, Essex,
said she asked Harry what he
thought of the memorial.
"He said he was
not sure before he had seen it, but he said he
thought it was a nice thing
after seeing it today."
Both princes also met several members of the
McConnell family from
Kilkeel in Co Down, Northern Ireland, whose firm were
behind the
stone used in the memorial.
Alan McConnell said: "I told
Prince William that the family had
worked on the stone and he said it was
very impressive."
He added: "They're a credit to their mother and
father."
Shortly after the walkabout the princes were ushered away from
the
barriers before leaving the memorial area with the Queen and Duke
of
Edinburgh
-
Togetherness at the fountain
THE new fountain in Hyde Park, dedicated
to the memory of Princess
Diana, has been dogged with controversy, like much
of the princess's
life. The winning design was chosen from 10,000 entries -
something
of a record - but Diana's mother, the late Frances Shand
Kydd,
criticised the memorial as possessing a "lack of
grandeur".
Others have deplored the fountain's £3.6 million cost, saying
it is
not what the princess would have wanted the money spent
on.
Nevertheless, the unveiling of the fountain yesterday occasioned
a
rapprochement between the Windsors and the Spencers - it was the
first
time they had been together since Diana's funeral. And it
suggested that the
pain and public scandal of the Diana years is at
last behind the Royal
Family.
At the unveiling, the Queen admitted that "memories mellow with
the
passing of the years" while Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, was also
in
a reconciliatory mood: "I can honestly say the rift thing has
been very much
overplayed." The Royal Family will have other battles
to fight, but the
unveiling of the fountain seems to have drawn a
line under the worst of the
Diana years. That is good for Prince
William and Prince Harry, but it is also
good for the future working
of Britain's constitutional monarchy.
A
non-political head of state has its advantages, but it cannot
function when
mired in scandal or intrigue. Let us hope those
troubled waters can now
subside in the calm of the Hyde Park
fountain.
July 6, 2004 -
-
Queen opens Diana memorial fountain
The Queen has paid tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales
at the
opening of her memorial fountain in Hyde Park.
It is the first public
appearance of the Spencers and
the Windsors together since Earl Spencer's
famous
attack on the Royals at the Princess's funeral seven
years
ago.
The Queen acknowledged the "difficult times" in
Diana's life but
spoke of how "memories mellow with
the passing of the years".
She
added: "I cannot forget - and nor can those of us
here today who knew her
much more personally, as
sister, wife, mother, or daughter-in-law - the
Diana
who made such an impact on our lives.
"Of course there were
difficult times, but memories
mellow with the passing of the years.
"I
remember especially the happiness she gave to my
two grandsons."
It
was her first official speech about Diana since she
addressed the nation on
the eve of the Westminster
Abbey funeral in 1997,
Echoing her previous
words in which she called Diana
"an exceptional and gifted human being", the
Queen
described her as "remarkable".
She paid tribute to her "wider
legacy" and her ability
"not only to touch people's lives but to change
them".
At the ceremony in London's Hyde Park, the Queen
made
reference to the Spencer family, and said she was
opening the oval
granite fountain "on behalf of
Charles, William, Harry and all my family and
of all
the Spencer family with us today".
Earlier the two families had
greeted each other warmly
with Earl Spencer bowing for both the Queen and
Prince
Charles.
As she began her speech, the Queen made a
particular
mention of Diana's brother, saying: "Secretary of
State, Lord
Spencer, Ladies and Gentlemen".
Seven years ago, Earl Spencer pledged
from the pulpit
at Diana's funeral that the Princess's "blood
family"
would look after William and Harry and ensure "that
their souls
are not simply immersed by duty and
tradition".
The two princes, their
father the Prince of Wales and
the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, appeared
before
the world's media alongside Diana's brother the Earl
and sisters
Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane
Fellowes.
-
We're just friends, says Harry's polo girl
A blonde woman
photographed kissing Prince Harry has denied reports
of a royal
romance.
Jo Davies, 27, laughed at claims that she and the 19-year-old
Prince
were an item.
Miss Davies, who is the assistant manager at
Cirencester Park Polo
Club in Gloucestershire, joked: "What can I say? It's
all a bit silly
really. We're just friends."
Her embarrassment
increased last night at the discovery of a topless
photo of her published in
a charity calendar for Cancer Research UK.
She and a group of polo-playing
friends are shown using oranges to
cover their modesties.