Royals

Ah yes, totally. I'm thinking of Princess Anne! Still, the question remains, is there a woman behind the Queen dressed in military style clothes? And if so, why?

She is. This is Princess Anne, the Queen's only daughter, wearing her uniform...

Anne is the Colonel-in-Chief of several military units and holds other honorary military positions. I don't know which uniform she's wearing, but she has a bunch of them. She wore her Royal Navy uniform for the flotilla.

Princess Anne (who does look shockingly like Princess Margaret in that first photo -- I never noticed the resemblance before!) is Colonel-in-Chief of a number of regiments, and often appears in uniform, like her father and brothers, at events where uniforms are appropriate. She rocks the uniform, imho -- she has that steely look down pat. I mean, look at the photo of her in this post: http://madhattery.royalroundup.com/2012/06/hattery-events-trooping-the-colour-2012/ Awesome.

Prince Phillip is not looking well. I thought the photos of him from Trooping the Colour were most distressing. He is very grey, and obviously not steady on his feet. Hang in there, Phil!

Check out these photos of the Queen's two great-granddaughters and various members of the royal family playing with them. Adorbs. http://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/gallery/201206188355/autumn-phillips-baby-isla-elizabeth/1/#1

ETA: More photos of the royals horsing around (pun intended) at the polo match on the weekend. Including one of Savannah wearing Harry's polo helmet (in the fourth row of photos). So cute! http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=146564615&EditorialProduct=Royalty#

A very happy birthday to Prince William!

I hope he gets to have a birthday free of drama and a quiet party with his wife and close friends. After reading this article I know it's getting harder to keep that "normal life" but I hope he and Kate get to continue that for a few more years. If he asked me (and I know he will...I'm sure that call will be coming any day now) I'd tell him to do another 3 year tour with the RAF. But then, I don't know what kind of pressures he has to endure on a daily basis and what his royal duties include, so it may be too complicated to do that. Either way, he deserves plenty of peace and quiet until it's his turn to take the throne. It'll probably be a mile a minute from that point forward.

One of the best thing about the Olympics is watching various members of different Royal families cheering on their countries. While most of the buzz has been about Wills/Kate/Harry, there are spectacular doses of patriotism and adorableness coming from everywhere. My current faves are Felipe and Letizia, because they are HILARIOUSLY into it, as demonstrated by this photo series (taken from different events, judging by their different-but-coordinating-outfits). Click through the series, there are some fantastic shots here.

I love those. They are like super dorky enthusiastic parents.

eco wrote:One of the best thing about the Olympics is watching various members of different Royal families cheering on their countries. While most of the buzz has been about Wills/Kate/Harry, there are spectacular doses of patriotism and adorableness coming from everywhere. My current faves are Felipe and Letizia, because they are HILARIOUSLY into it, as demonstrated by this photo series (taken from different events, judging by their different-but-coordinating-outfits). Click through the series, there are some fantastic shots here.

I clicked around a bit and landed on the Danish royal family - what can I say, I flove queen Margrethe II. She's made of fierce. And check out those nails!

I love that Queen Margrethe's ID pass just says "Queen of Denmark" under (presumably) the name section.

Who says the British royals don't work for a living? Not the 16 year old girl saved from drowning by Prince William and his Sea King crew!

Prince William saves a drowning girl.

Prince Harry plays strip billiards in Vegas and evidently loses. (Safeish for work - his ass crack has a star superimposed over it).

I think being the spare is way more fun than being the heir.

Oh, Henry Charles Albert David. Yes, I middle triple named you because you are in that much trouble, mister. You just wait until your Grandmother gets home.

I imagine his grandmother will smile fondly at memories of her sister and raise an stern eyebrow at his losing at snooker.

She might make a passing remark about his rockin' tush coming from her side of the family.

Oh, I suspect that the palace is on lockdown and Her Majesty's advisers are in full damage control mode. Harry's getting a trip to the woodshed.

It's rather interesting what is going down media-wise here in England. Discussions about how things have changed since the whole phone-hacking scandal business went down.

Frankly as long as all were consenting adults, party on. Also not a bad looking backside.

Genevieve wrote:Frankly as long as all were consenting adults, party on. Also not a bad looking backside.

Yeah, that's kind of my opinion on the matter, too. All adults? All consenting? All single? No one got hurt, nothing got damaged? He probably really, really wishes he had kept his pants on, but in the grand scheme of things this seems a minor blip to me. Not saying it wasn't dumb. But being dumb's not a crime. And he's done dumber stuff than this.

I have to admit when I saw the pictures, I did shake my head and say "Oh, Harry." I expect his protection officers will be questioned quite thoroughly on why they didn't stop people from taking pictures.

I looked at it less as a pearl clutching moment and more of a "OUR TAXES ARE PAYING FOR THIS" moment. I could totally see that argument made.

Yeah. THAT could be brought up. (taxes do pay for a lot of dumb-assery)
And it is really really tacky to sell photos like that.

On the news earlier on, some royal commentator made the point that it would've been really bad if the pics had come out while Phillip was in hospital last week, which is a fair(ish) point.

That aside, he was on a private trip with friends, not on official business, and if you can't get drunk and naked in Vegas with your buddies (whoever you might be), where the hell else can you do it?

I suspect it comes under the heading of "conduct unbecoming an officer", which covers off-duty time as well.

Hell, his uncle isn't called "Randy Andy" for nothing. As if we all needed reminding, being the spare is so much easier than being the heir. Still, it isn't so much the partying and nakedness, it's the doing it with/around people who wouldn't hesitate to take photos and sell them. Stupid, very stupid.

Prince Harry looking adorable. Nice damage control there.

The thing about Harry is, the adorable-with-kids part seems as genuine as the strip-billiards part. He's like everyone's feckless little brother that you alternately want to shake and hug, and assume will turn out mostly all right.

And damn, that is one sweet picture!

Apparently the kid was going to ask about it, but before he would get it out Prince Harry said "It looks like you're dying to say something but you're worried she'll tell you off. I heard you were on ITV earlier and you said something cheeky -- but lets not talk about that here." Heeee.

Coneycat wrote:The thing about Harry is, the adorable-with-kids part seems as genuine as the strip-billiards part. He's like everyone's feckless little brother that you alternately want to shake and hug, and assume will turn out mostly all right.

And damn, that is one sweet picture!

My earliest memory of Harry was when Princess Beatrice was introduced to the public at the Buckingham balcony. Beatrice was in her mother's arms and Harry ran over and gave her a kiss.