...for May 2002
May 30, 2002 -
- Liverpudlian beauty Liz McClarnon - one third of the girl band Atomic
Kitten - will sing at this weekend's pop concert at Buckingham Palace.
"I am really pro the Queen and I think Prince William is an absolute
dish," she told me at the opening of Liz London's Moulin Rouge
exhibition. "I mean, he just looks so much like a prince: he's good-
looking in this unique way. But I don't think I stand much of a
chance. At 21 I am too old and, worse than that, I'm Catholic."
When I suggest that the Act of Settlement - the 300-year-old law
banning Catholics from succession - might be repealed, Liz perks
up: "Oh wow! I hope I meet him." From The Telegraph.
- It's rumored in several papers that Prince William and Prince Harry will join the Queen and several other royals in singing with Sir Paul McCartney during a Jubilee concert in June.
- While most footie mad teenagers across the UK will tuning in to England’s first World Cup match against Sweden on Sunday morning, two of the team’s more prominent fans will be missing the match because they have to go to church. That, however, is the price you pay for being Prince William and Prince Harry.
As England star striker Michael Owen and the rest of the team take to the field in Saitama, Japan, the two young royals will be attending a church service at St Mary’s Church, Swansea. Both princes are well known fans of the hallowed game. 17-year-old Harry was famously spotted sporting an England scarf when the team beat Colombia in the 1998 World Cup in France but they were reportedly happy to give priority to the service for their grandmother’s Golden Jubilee.
In a rare public statement, William, 19, said on Monday: "Obviously we’re sorry to be missing England’s opening World Cup game, but of course we’re confident that England are going to do well. We’ll both be catching up with progress in the other matches."
It is not known whether the princes will be allowed to fly out to Japan for any of England’s later games, as they have exams to study for later this term. Their uncle, Prince Andrew, is expected to attend the game on Sunday in his capacity as president of the Football Association.
However, although pagers and mobile phones are not allowed into the church, it is believed the princes will find some way to keep up with England’s progress. "I’ve no doubt some means will be found of letting them know the score," said Canon Alun Evans, the Vicar of Swansea, on Monday. "Some people have joked that we could put up a scoreboard in the church but I don’t think we’ll go that far." From Hello Magazine.
- William has won an award for representing St Andrews
University at water polo.
The 19-year-old was one of 15 members of the university's squad to
receive their sports colours.
The prince, who played the sport at Eton College, was listed as
William Wales in the official list of award winners.
From The Daily Record.
- Prince Harry helped an Eton team to a narrow 3 ½-2 victory over
Uppingham in a schools exhibition match at Rutland Polo Club on
Sunday. The game was a re-run of the 2001 Schools Tournament final.
Uppingham were unique in consisting almost completely of members of
the Collie family.
ETON: 1. Edward Eggins (-1), 2. HRH The Prince Harry of Wales (0), 3.
Alexander de Lisle (1), Bk. Hugo Taylor (-1). From Polo World.
May 25, 2002 - - Prince William will continue studying history of
art at St Andrews University, confounding recent reports that he
might switch to the intellectual thrills of geography. 'What remains
curious,' a courtier muses, 'is that a private conversation about his
future that the Prince had with staff, and not with fellow students,
should have ended up in the popular prints' reports the Observer newspaper.
- The Royal Studs: at 17 and 20, the UK's young Princes are the most
eligible bachelors in Europe -- perhaps the world. And they're
making the most of it while they can.
Nam Long Le Shaker, a Vietnamese restaurant best known for its bar,
which serves lethal drinks with names like the Flaming Ferrari and
Formula One, has been a hangout for London's rich kids for nearly two
decades. On any given weekend it is packed with young City bankers
and their trophy dates, the Sloane-y crowd and a sprinkling of
trustafarians—young millionaires with messy hair and holes in their
sweaters.
And sometimes Princes William and Harry are among them. One evening
not too long ago, Prince William, who was wearing sneakers, showed up
with a group of friends, and the owner, Thai Dang, who immediately
recognized the Prince, told him no sneakers were allowed at Nam Long.
His Royal Highness Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales, the
future king of England, smiled and offered to take his shoes off.
Dang appreciated the young Prince's show of humor and, of course, let
him stay.
Meet the next-generation royals. Unlike their father, who grew up
sheltered behind palace walls, William and Harry behave like any
other upper-class lads: mixing with commoners, hanging out in
Chelsea's trendy haunts and spending weekends in the country with
their mates—a mix of young professionals, pals from Eton, cousins and
the children of Charles and Diana's old friends. But, of course,
they're not like their upper-class cronies, who, for starters, don't
have bodyguards: William has three policemen following him, and Harry
has one.
Then there are the paparazzi, hangers-on and "honey traps"—attractive
young women planted by the tabloids to prey on the brothers when
they're out at night. And, when duty calls—as it has lately with the
deaths this year of the Princes' great-grandmother the Queen Mother
and their great-aunt Princess Margaret—William and Harry must put on
the royal mask and do their job.
"They are very much into being normal," says an aide at St. James's
Palace, Prince Charles' London residence and the young Princes' home
base in the city. "William is William and not Prince William of
Wales. No one bows, and no one curtsies. Yes, it's a normality that
comes with wealth and privilege, but there are many people who are
much richer than they are." The boys, the aide adds, are trying to
savor this moment of freedom. "They don't want royal work or royal
duty thrust upon them yet. There will be a time for that. They have
to go through with their education and becoming their own people
first. Until that time arrives, they won't be forced. The Prince and
Princess of Wales were quite united on that."
There is no doubt that Charles and Diana's divorce and the untimely
death of their mother have shaped the boys' personalities, and many
describe the two as old for their ages. "Wills has got quite a
controlled personality," says a family friend. "He doesn't let it all
hang out emotionally. He saw too much of that in both his parents.
He's very self-regulating and strict with himself. Harry, being
younger, was more affected by the death of his mother. It affected
him much more savagely than it did William. He really misses his mom
when things get tough."
While William, who turns 20 this month, is introverted, sensitive and
well-disciplined—with a tendency to be bossy—17-year-old Harry is
bold and cheeky, with a bit of a mean streak. Insiders say that Harry
likes to tease his older brother. "At Eton, William was taking part
in a cross-country race and was well up with the leaders," says Judy
Wade, one of the longest-serving royal reporters in Britain. "Harry
jumped out from behind a tree and, posing as a fan, pleaded, 'Can I
have your autograph?' William was furious and sent him away with a
few choice phrases." Wade adds that Harry teases William about being
a teen heartthrob. "During a trip to Vancouver, where thousands of
smitten teenage girls turned up everywhere they went, I could hear
Harry saying, 'Go on, William, wave at the girls and make them
scream,' " she says.
In keeping with royal family tradition, both Princes have expressed
interest in military service, but, of the two, Harry is known for
possessing the greater degree of bravado. "It's interesting to see
how Harry looks after William on the polo field," says John Lloyd,
author of The Pimm's Book of Polo. "Wills is quite a shy boy by
nature, and he gets nervous playing, while Harry is more of a
daredevil—he's gutsier and really throws himself into the game." Last
year, the Princes started playing polo with their father on a team
called Highgrove, named for Prince Charles' country estate in
Gloucestershire.
Off the playing field, Harry can be just as reckless, as some of his
recent behavior attests. There was his well-publicized admission that
he drank and smoked pot—to the point where he could hardly stand—with
a group of older friends last summer. Prince Charles dealt with the
matter swiftly, dragging Harry off to a rehab center, where he toured
detox rooms and talked with former drug addicts. ("He's a modern
father: Rather than disciplining with the rod, he gently encourages
his sons in a good direction," says a family friend.) "Harry was
mortified about getting caught," says another friend of the
family. "He feels terribly, terribly guilty about what he did to his
father. Now, everyone is wondering if Harry's going to turn out to be
the Princess Margaret of the family." Indeed, although the minimum
drinking age in U.K. bars is 18, Harry had already begun to develop a
reputation for naughty behavior: He reportedly got drunk and vomited
across the bar at a party given by the Duke of Westminster two years
ago; tipsily threw bottles outside a pub on a holiday in Cornwall;
called the French chef at his former Highgrove pub hangout, the
Rattlebone Inn, a "f---ing frog" and has partied like a fiend
at "Club H"&151;the brothers' basement lair at Highgrove.
But friends say that Harry is loyal and knows the value of family. He
and his brother are devoted to their father and are also close to
their royal grandparents—perhaps surprisingly, given their father's
strained relationship with his parents. "Prince Philip and Queen
Elizabeth are much more relaxed and successful grandparents than they
were parents, and they like spending time with their grown-up
grandchildren," says Robert Lacey, author of Monarch, a new biography
of the Queen. "The boys have loosened up their grandparents' behavior
and even their speech patterns—you can hear it in the cadence of the
Queen's voice. In return, the boys have adapted to their duty and
royal style more than expected."
And, of course, the young Princes adored the Queen Mother. After her
death the brothers gave a rare interview to the Press Association,
talking about how they liked to joke with their great-grandmother and
how interested she was in their world. (They reported that they'd
even taught her to do a wicked impersonation of Ali G, the British
spoof rapper, which she had tried out on the Queen at Christmas
lunch.)
But family isn't everything for the boys, who have a tight circle of
friends and love to socialize. William is said to be very shrewd
about choosing his friends and has a razor-sharp ability to spot a
groupie when he sees one. "William is always skeptical of people's
motivations for wanting to know him, and he's got good antennae,"
says a family friend. "He sees through people quickly. He's been
trained to be like that. Harry's rather more reckless, which is why
he's gotten into trouble." Lacey, however, says that both boys are
better judges of character than their mother was. "It was one of
Diana's blind spots," he says. "She wasn't good at choosing her
friends, and she couldn't keep friends for very long. So far, that
hasn't been the case with the boys."
Among William and Harry's closest friends—whom an insider describes
as "quite a Sloane-y crowd, with nothing grand or jet-set about them"—
are the four van Cutsem brothers, whose parents, Hugh and Emilie,
stood by Charles during his separation from Diana. Twenty-eight-year-
old Edward van Cutsem, the oldest, is said to be a serious-minded and
utterly discreet financial bro