Prince Harry | Golden Skate

Prince Harry

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
This guy is getting easier to like by the day. At first he seemed like the screw-up in the family, getting into the kinds of scrapes that would land a guy from the projects into a lot of trouble. But he's really pulling his weight these days. Here's a guy who has actually served in combat, twice. Along with that, he seems to have his mother's gift of paying complete attention to whomever he's talking to, whether children, wounded warriors, or Missy Franklin the swimmer. He puts people at their ease. They showed some raw footage of him with Missy, and some more of him coming into a gym (presumably in Colorado at the Wounded Warrior Games), greeting everyone, and hitting the floor for a seated volleyball game.

I love William and think that he's the right brother to be the heir to the throne, but Harry is doing a great job as a goodwill ambassador (and defender of his country). One of my favorite pictures: Harry with John McCain, another brave guy who can surprise you when your attention is drifting off. May they live long and prosper.
 

gmyers

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
As goodwill ambassador the trip is good and he is a veteran who can support troops and represent Britain as prince but I was initially totally turned off by some coverage which was totally about "hot guy comes to America!!" so who cares about that angle!!
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
The coverage I've seen today has been a lot more respectful and sensible, thank goodness.

(I got a chuckle over "hot guy comes to America." (Hey, reporters, we have our own hot guys.)
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Hooray for skaters! Glad one of our folk made it into the Prince's presence.

I'm sure I'd be giddy if I met him, and I wouldn't be giddy if I encountered, say, Justin Bieber.

Short list of other people who would take my senses away if I met any of them: Kurt Browning (of course), Michael Caine, Michelle Kwan, Daisuke (I think I'd just feel protective about Mao or YuNa, but who knows?), Michael J. Fox, Paul McCartney, Mohammed Yunus, Nelson Mandela. Yunus is the Bangladeshi banker who is the father of microfinancing; he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and I've seen him speak on C-Span. To listen to him is to know that you have the privilege of hope no matter how tough the situation looks, and we all need that. They say that in Nelson Mandela's healthy days, a lot of people who met him would spontaneously burst into tears. I'm sure I would even now, and I'd also cry if I met Yunus. People who don't give up are usually my favorite heroes. That goes for Michael J. Fox as well.
 

FlattFan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
I just got back from London yesterday. When I was there watching his visit on the telly, BBC actually said Prince Harry was at the US parliament house. I thought it was really funny.

Also, Prince William got a lot of flack from common folks in London for marrying Kate Middleclass. Their words, not mine.

For some reason, America likes British royalties more than they do.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Prince William got flack for marrying a woman he's loved and trusted for ten years? There's no pleasing some folk, is there.

I know a lot of Brits look down on Americans for enjoying British royalty, but I rest easy in the knowledge that they wouldn't think any higher of me if I stopped enjoying all the princes and whatnot. They'd still think I was some kind of savage for some other reason. I mispronounce tomato and hold my fork incorrectly.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
everyday heroes abound, Olympia. Harry and Wills grew up all over the world and they should be impressive. Diana has great shoes to fill. Heres hoping Kate is not just a timid clotheshorse. Charles and Camilla are a joke. I far prefer kate middleclass to horsey Camilla who had zero morals, though she does love him...but then so did his first wife.
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
It takes 2 people to make a marriage and Charles and Di were too different to make things work out. However, they both had a hand in the men that Harry and Wills have become.

Neither Charles nor Di were perfect in their marriage. I do believe they thought they loved each other at the beginning. I do think that part of the reason Charles married her was because it was time for him to marry. I think Di had more of a fairy tale image of her role and that royal duties kept them apart too often. Andrew and Fergie clearly love and continue to care for each other, and still couldn't make things work for them.

Kate gets the benefits of all of their collective experiences.

Anyway, my point is that Harry and William are happy for their father and his relationship with Camilla. By all reports, he didn't push Camilla on the boys right after Diana died and didn't marry her without discussing it with them. Diana wasn't perfect either. So, I don't get why others put them down.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I agree, Heyang. I think Charles ended up being the kind of parent Diana would have wanted for the kids. He really came through for them both. For example, I'm sure he stood up to his parents about certain issues of schooling and participation in family duties. One of the sweetest moments in the lead-up to the wedding last year was William talking affectionately about "Carole and Mike," meaning Kate's parents. William obviously had spent a lot of time hanging out with that family, enjoying an easygoing kind of life that Charles never had the chance to take part in, and William had that chance because he wasn't overly constricted by royal protocol. Clearly Charles loves his sons, and I've heard that he gets along very well with his new daughter-in-law.

I always thought that Diana was wronged by the way her marriage took place, because as you say, Charles married partly out of duty. To be delicate about it, they needed a woman with "a history but no past," so they picked a teenager. But Diana was also not an easy person, and she seems to have come with her own baggage. Clearly she was what is called high maintenance, and I don't think anyone in the royal family seems to be emotionally demonstrative enough to have filled her needs. From the outside, it looks as if the situation would have been so easy to fix! Beautiful, charming, charismatic woman, man who needed his own cheering section in a family where everyone else lived by obligation. They could have been each other's best support system, but they just couldn't make the leap across their boundaries. But they each in their way set their kids free.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
I read all the books. It is clear Di loved Charles til she died. If Camilla had stayed away, and also Lady Kanga, Diana would have had a chance at his heart. Amazing woman who came very far, very fast. RIP.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
I always thought that Diana was wronged by the way her marriage took place, because as you say, Charles married partly out of duty. To be delicate about it, they needed a woman with "a history but no past," so they picked a teenager. But Diana was also not an easy person, and she seems to have come with her own baggage. Clearly she was what is called high maintenance, and I don't think anyone in the royal family seems to be emotionally demonstrative enough to have filled her needs. From the outside, it looks as if the situation would have been so easy to fix! Beautiful, charming, charismatic woman, man who needed his own cheering section in a family where everyone else lived by obligation. They could have been each other's best support system, but they just couldn't make the leap across their boundaries. But they each in their way set their kids free.

I think they were incompatible at their cores, though. They simply never shared interests or preferences. And she was so very young. It is easy to forget (especially for those of us who were children when they married) that Diana was only 19 years old when they were engaged and married. Who here could have grasped that decision and the life she was signing up for at 19? I really don't think she did at all. And, unlike Kate, she did not have the luxury of being eased into it. It was full steam ahead the moment they were home from the honeymoon.

In the end, Camilla is a better match for Charles in temperament, life experience, interests, preferences...the whole of what makes a marriage compatible. And it seems wrong to begrudge him or anyone that.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I remember that everyone was fussing about her age, and she rather huffily said that she wouldn't be a teenager for the actual wedding. (I think she turned 20 before the day itself.) And she was pregnant almost immediately, which couldn't have helped with the transition from ordinary person to denizen of goldfish bowl. She wasn't prepared for the Windsors, and in their defense, they had no way of being prepared for her.

Diana's biggest asset was in some ways also her biggest liability: right from the get-go, she was one of the most charismatic people in the Northern Hemisphere. People couldn't take their eyes off her. So she never really knew privacy again. That couldn't have made for an easy life.

I remember the first time I saw her photo. She was so unusual, from her short hair to that little feline smile to her height to her fresh-scrubbed look. She sure didn't look like any of the overbred porcelain aristocrats we'd seen in photos of English nobility up to then. Years later someone said to me that Diana was "just an invention of the mass media." My first and forever reaction: they should be so lucky. She was natural-born lightning in a bottle, and the evidence of that is there's never been another one. Certainly Kate isn't. She is fresh and wonderful and clearly the ideal mate for William: sensible, understanding, loyal, poised, upbeat. But if she weren't standing next to him, she wouldn't stand out beyond the perception that she's probably a really nice person. In every photo I've seen of her, she has almost exactly the same expression. Diana was no prettier than Kate in absolute aesthetic terms, but she was about a hundred times more glamorous, seemingly without effort. She was a human magnet. That can't have been any easier for her than it was for the people around her. Surely Charles felt a bit overshadowed. Surely Diana felt a bit overwhelmed. It's terrible that she didn't get a chance to mature. She was so vital that it's as if she's still around in the world somewhere, and I'm sure that people are still doing good in her name. Her sons certainly are.

You're right that Camilla is better suited to Charles. Horses, gardening, old clothes, doesn't care if her age shows on her face, not interested in speaking up in public. It's a lovely outcome, and it's given him an easygoing charm that I don't think he ever really had before. I'm glad they've both found peace.
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I agree that Diana definitely had charisma to spare.

If it had not been a royal marriage to the heir, I think they likely would've divorced earlier. So many protocols to consider, etc.

Even with how badly their marriage turned out and ended, they somehow managed to both be parents to the boys.

I think Diana is partly an image of mass media and her people also knew how to use that image. However, I do think she contributed awareness of the real world to the royal family and England and the World - in addition to her sons, that should be her legacy. One should look back on the good parts of life vs the bad. Holding grudges is just too exhausting for me.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Yeah, Diana had an astonishing sense of the lives and needs of real people, and not just the nice, ordinary ones but the messy, broken ones as well. It's hard to remember a time when people would not stay in a room with someone who had AIDS, but it wasn't very long ago. The AIDS epidemic started just about at the moment when Diana came along. When she met people with AIDS, she touched them, and what's more, she even hugged them. That's a generosity of spirit that can't be taught. And certainly if it could be taught, it wasn't taught by the royal family. They never touched anyone. Remember the fuss when just a few years ago, Michelle Obama instinctively put her hand on the Queen's shoulder? Shock and scandal! And that was thirty years after Diana showed up. Empathy was one of the great things about Diana. The other great thing was that she tried to instill it in her kids. It appears as if she succeeded, doesn't it.
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
In every photo I've seen of her, she has almost exactly the same expression..

I'm thinking you haven't seen many photos of Kate then. She does smile easily and frequently, but I think that is because she has an extroverted personality (perceived charisma aside, Diana was likely the opposite) and she is confident in her role in a way her late MiL really never was. There is nothing wrong with that and her life will be made easier by both qualities. Diana's "charisma" in many ways was born of the fact that she was a deeply wounded young woman from a family that made the way Charles was raised look functional. People related to that woundedness. Kate is likely to (quite literally) survive this life precisely because she lacks both the dysfunctional background and the wounded girl persona that attracts people.

And without all of that, she still does not lack for expression:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images...20/1363806926794/Duchess-of-Cambridge-010.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...012/08/kate-middleton-synchro-swimming-RS.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images...54117208245/Duchess-Of-Cambridge-at-t-008.jpg

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/ima...able-tennis-duchess-of-cambridge-joins-co.jpg
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I knew the minute I posted that statement that it would look critical or condescending, and I didn't mean it that way at all. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, and I'm glad you called me on it.

What I meant to convey was the fact that Kate is not as mercurial as Diana. The good effect of that is that Kate gives the impression of someone who is completely comfortable in her own skin and steady as a rock. You're right that she's probably an extrovert and at ease in any situation. But she's not starving for attention, which gives her a relaxed air. I was thrilled when William chose such a loyal, mature life partner and gave the relationship a chance to grow in the bargain. One thing Kate brings to the marriage, and this can't be underestimated, is the healthy strength that comes from a happy childhood with a nurturing family. In addition to the warmth she brings William from that background, I'm guessing that William himself was adopted by the Middletons on sight, much as Laurie was taken in by the March family in Little Women. A previous poster quoted some British wiseguys as calling her Kate Middleclass, and I think that's a badge of honor. She comes from a family, not an alliance. My goodness, she and Prince Charles even go off together to the opera or the ballet or whatever because they're the only two who like it. This is a woman who knows how to live.

In terms of charisma and glamor, Diana has far more than Kate, but I think there are aspects of that situation that were a liability for Diana. It came at a high cost. One of her greatest accomplishments, though, was to raise a son who was ready to open himself to what looks like a warm, heartfelt relationship. You know, if you're suffering and absorbed in your own suffering, you can really wreck your kids, but by a combination of instinct and miracle, Diana avoided that. Charles had something to do with that good outcome as well.
 

heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
. And certainly if it could be taught, it wasn't taught by the royal family. They never touched anyone. Remember the fuss when just a few years ago, Michelle Obama instinctively put her hand on the Queen's shoulder? Shock and scandal! And that was thirty years after Diana showed up. Empathy was one of the great things about Diana. The other great thing was that she tried to instill it in her kids. It appears as if she succeeded, doesn't it.

I think the Michele Obama touch was more blown up by the media vs the Royals themselves. I'm sure that no touch policy is based upon 100's of years of protocol. You don't even see the Queen and Prince Philip walk arm-in-arm since she became Queen - there ares picture prior to her crowning where they do. At formal functions, Camilla and Kate enter a couple of paces behind Charles and William.
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
I don't hold a grudge since I don't know these people, but Diana's divorce was "the worst day of her life" surely after the day her Mum left. It was a crazy idea-those two fairytale. Charles fell in love easily and often. But what people forget was that they took vows and Charles is the future King of England and Leader of the Church which may only really matter anymore to the Queen. The kids all divorced but one, affairs were the rule, not the exception.

As for Kate, she is beautiful, every inch the clotheshorse they expect over there and as thin as anyone could want. She would be skewered like poor Fergie if she were not thin. A royal biographer has written much about Kate and tthe need to have these perfect royals who exist to be looked at and it is true. The pact is, look stunning, since Diana made glamour a rule, dress to the nines with fab hats, deliver an heir and spare, and live the poshest life imaginable. It's quite a gig they have. Only the Queen really buys into the Monarchy and clearly believes in the God of the Church of England When she passes, two vey flawed and spoiled people will have to act like they care, when they don't. It's all about entertainment for the masses. Many feel they are all worth the money. I feel they are hyocrites with Sarah Ferguson. Really, they should give her a break. How many women did the queen have to suffer with her greek husband?

Anyway, I think Kate is beautiful in the classic, natural way, and model thin. Diana went through many looks and her expressions were so real. Heartbreaking at times. She struggled but she did adore her boys, and I know Charles has been a good father to these boys who are much more like him than Diana. William has an arrogance as heir that Harry does not. They are all very entertaining. I think The Princess Royal (Anne) was very smart to forgo royal titles for her kids. They still get to be moneyed and ride Olympic level horses, but avoid the expectations. Zara Philips still married with a Diamond Tiara, but she gets to live like regular folk if she wants. Charles generation will likely be the last royals Britain will tolerate. I don't think anyone expects huge things from Wills and Kate. They are so rich and do as they please. As long as they reproduce, the public that supports monarchy is happy. Things have changed so much since Charles and Diana. She was really a nice girl with much emotional baggage who became an almost unwilling superstar. Besides yachts she did care about common folk, and there lies the difference between her and the freeloaders in that clan. Fergie was not so bad, and she was just skewered for being heavy and her affairs. It is interesting, as this royal family is far more watchable than most others. Even the once ubiquitous Grimaldis of Monaco have faded away despite lovely young rich princesses.

We Americans will always be fascinated with them. I adored England. London is so wonderful, and it is incredible to see the crown jewels. The history is so much fun to learn. It is quite a cast.

I hope kate and Wills survive their roles and that he does not cheat like all his relatives. Kate seems to be so smitten with him. I cannot imagine she wants to be Queen. I think the monarchy will be abolished by then with global poverty the norm. Or maybe we in our impoverished future will need royalty more than ever. It seems we need our own reality stars here in America. Queen Kim Kardasian? Too funny. Their royal babe is born!
 

louisa05

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Honestly, William seems to very much lack any arrogance. He and Kate have no household staff in Anglesey, shop for their own groceries, do their own cooking and cleaning...other than security, they live very normally there. They only have minimal staff at Kensington and that has only been added since her pregnancy. If you read about and look at photos of their public events, they are both very down to earth and relate very normally to the people they meet. It is widely reported that he prefers to be called William in social situations and asks people to skip the honorifics of titles. At university, he lived in a rental house with other students.

As for Kate...really not a clothes horse. She routinely wears outfits and accessories multiple times (something her late mother-in-law never did). She buys from retail stores like Whistles, Zara and Topshop (I assume Diana never saw the inside of stores like that--certainly never appeared in their clothing) and has been spotted multiple times shopping at a designer outlet where items are discounted. At her first solo appearance, she wore a dress borrowed from her mother. And the girl keeps clothes for YEARS. Go peruse the What Kate Wore site and you'll see that it is not uncommon (obviously not at the moment due to pregnancy) for her to wear something she appeared in five or six years ago. At last year's Olympics, she wore a white denim skirt she had previously been photographed wearing in 2007. The fashionistas are irritated that she wears the same pair of LK Bennett pumps constantly and want to see new shoes. None of that really qualifies as a glamorous clothes horse. It seems to me that she dresses for the job and nothing more. And, yes, sometimes the job calls for glamor, but sometimes you can borrow your mom's dress and wear your favorite pair of go-to-heels.
 
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