Shouldn't we expect just a little bit more of the Duchess of Cambridge.

[sweetgrape]

Never turned up for one single memorial service for the armed forces, but there at Center Court, Wimbledon, rubbing shoulders with a load of celebs,and entertaining Brad and Angelina Pitt at Kensington Palace. Is this what her royal life boils down to.

The whole point of having a Royal patron for your charity is surely for publicity. If you have just stuck your name down on numerous charities and then what is the point of doing stuff 'behind the scenes'? What would you be doing? And actually isn't Royal Family worshipping worse than 'celebrity worshipping'? OK, the TOWIE lot and their reality TV ilk are quite useless and sell their lives, but actors, singers, sports celebrities work incredibly hard to get to the top of their professions. If my children had a talent, I could point them out and say ' If you stick to this you could do what they do'. What would I say about Kate Middleton? ' If you hang around rich men, you may fall in love with one and live happily ever after and not really have to do much but look pretty and be inoffensive all your life'. I don't think so!

Oh yes the QM and her Nazi salute. Plenty of people knew how evil the Nazis were even in 1933, there ARE no excuses.

That is absolute hogwash. Nobody had any idea how appalling things were going to get with the Nazis as illustrated by the fact they were still seen as people who could be negotiated with and trusted to an extent during the appeasement period up to 1939.

Even Churchill described Hitler as a 'great contemporary' in the 1930s. Time Magazine named him man of the year in 1938. The England football team gave the Nazi salute at the 1938 Olympics.

It didn't have the stigma and connotations it has attached now. My Grandma remembers that children used to copy it in games in the streets pretending to be baddies or just mucking about because it was comical in the way 'The Ministry of Silly Walks' is.

Even people who were opposed to Nazism wouldn't have had the same reaction to seeing a Nazi salute being used in, for example, a game of charades, play or mucking about as we do these days.

To suggest the Nazi salute had the same symbolism in 1933 that it did now is nonsense.

My son is in the Scouts and we've never seen her down the local hut tying a reef knot. Nor even at one of those conventions. All we get is Bear in the Air with Bear Grylls.

I too have met Prince Andrew.

At the risk of being put in the Tower, I'd say that the depictions in The Royals are entirely accurate. Liz makes an excellent [REDACTED].

I never expect anything from someone who got her job by sleeping with someone.

Has served me in good stead throughout my professional life.

I knew someone who knew Sophie W and apparently allegedly they BOTH went to Paris together with MARRIED MEN. I was all for selling the story at the time (before she met Prince E) but my friend said no, and wouldn't give me any more details. Sorry.

Sophie Wessex is the patron of a charity near here.
She brings in the press and the money.
When the press have got their pics and gone she settles in for as long as is feasible in her diary and is just brilliant at making everybody around her feel valued.

She is a cash cow.
She knows it.
Her history is as it is
But she is much appreciated by those who deal with her.

La Cambridge is at a different stage because she is
(a) sprogging with great difficulty
(b) producing the heir to the heir to the heir - knowing that they may be playing a 70 year waiting game

Do you think any of them (the Royals) come on here?
She's a mum. It's possible. She could be commenting on this very thread for all we know

I wonder what their 'mumsnet names' would be?

She regularly contributes to threads with the nickname CatCam.

does that mean that brendablackhead is actually the Queen?

Prince Phillip could be BrianfromHull

Actually, she's me. I mean, I'm me. Or is that Onesme?

Or Onesie?

Dougie

Oneisme!

I'd log out and name change and log in again, only I'd be banned for trolling myself

I think MNHQ should get Kate in for a web chat.

What makes me cringe is that we have decades more of this to put up with. Snobbish social climbers lording it over the rest of us - they love it and it's all they've always wanted, money and priveledge

People are so snobbish about 'social climbers' . I see the class system is alive and well in that people should 'know their place and stay there.'

These threads really bring out the best in MN!

Hilarious!

I love it! That is why I keep reading and MN is addictive.
I had no idea that people, republicans especially, are so obsessed by the royal family and can tell me lots of things that I didn't know. However I can't really see why I want to know them.

I like having royalty. At the moment I think the Queen does a great job. After that I may change my mind- time will tell.

I think that William is perfectly pleasant with a sense of duty. He has managed to marry someone he loves - which is an improvement on history.
They appear to be doing a good job seeing that they might not get to the throne until they are over 60yrs- if there still is one.
They are quite normal and boring which is just what we want IMO. If the worst you can say is that she went to the tennis and not a memorial service and you don't like her eye make up- they can't be very controversial!

I like the fact that the royal family have taken in someone with a humble background- someone who simply wouldn't have been allowed when Charles married. I can't see why the Midddletons are reviled for 'social climbing' apart from jealousy. Most families are probably thankful that their ancestors improved themselves and 'social climbing' was very positive. Maybe they have just climbed too high and there should be a top ceiling in some people's eyes.

They are very young to me and have plenty of time to make their mark.
I have started to do a lot now that I am over 60yrs- before that I was just too busy working and bringing up children.

I find this thread hilarious too. We've moved from Kate to her family now!

I too think it's very refreshing that William wasn't fobbed off/encouraged to marry some minor european royal but he is going to spend the rest of his life with someone he met at Uni and fell in love with. Just like others on MN!

Should the Middleton's have told their daughter "no, no, you can't marry William, he is royalty and we Middletons know our place". AFAIC they as a family haven't put a foot wrong. So Carol M sits in a royal carriage smiling - what a crime! Some people just can't stand others being in a more unique or privileged position than others - that's all I can take from it because I genuinely have no idea why KM's family should attract vitriol. How can they be labelled snobbish social climbers, do people on here know them? They just happen to have a daughter who fell in love with someone in the Royal Family. They didn't make it happen! I just think there are far far worse people around.

Signed "Totally Baffled of Wilmslow"

Everyone remembers Diana as someone who did good for charities. Initially, she was just Charles wife, and a fashion icon. She didn't do much charity work initially.

Later, she also,had affairs, but people seemed to have forgotten this. Everyone blames Charles, but Diana wasn't faultless.

Catherine is still fairly new married and with two young children. There's plenty of time to get more involved with charity work.

Ahh.. You're over 60. That generation. The generation where support for the RF is at its highest.
Opinions are deemed to be relevant depending on what generation we are now then... is that it?

Anne was a young princess in a different time. Before the internet, before sleb worship, before such a focus on what someone wore. Sarah and Di were both closely scrutinised for their outfits, it was relentless.

I knew it! You are so predicable. I hesitated to put my age because I knew I would be 'an old lady' who loves royalty and knits matinee jackets for royal babies!
We are people with the same range of views as everyone else. My mother is over 90yrs - of sound mind- and you can't just stereotype her views. I have a letter written by my grandfather written in 1917 wishing them all at the bottom of the sea!

Nothing irritates me more than being dismissed as not counting because age dictates that I must be a lover of the RF. That is sheer, lazy, stereotyping.

I am over 60 but dread the thought of Alex Salmond or David Cameron representing the country.

Or would it be a free for all Presidential Election - anyone can stand? Nicola Sturgeon would do well in some quarters, Boris, Simon Cowell? Richard Branson?