Royal style & gossip: Sandringham shots are coming, who will Prince Philip deck in the halls?

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Made sure my autocorrect didn't spoil that title...

As always, let's keep it light and avoid any spite!

Previous thread

Thomas Markle defended Meghan. He says she is polite and would never be rude or unfriendly to staff or anyone else, and didn't believe those stories. He just seemed perplexed that she'd ghosted him since the wedding.

I don't think for a moment Harry would want to move to the US or Canada. He takes being a Royal seriously. It's ingrained in them from birth. Also whatever the papers say, he is very close to William and was close to Kate. He will not want to move to another continent cutting himself off from his family and origins, however much he loves Meghan now. Yes he can fly back regularly, but it isn't the same. Also, all his funding would be cut off I presume. He has inherited money from his mother, but that isn't going to last all his life. She can't realistically go back to acting. Are they just going to sit around living off Harry's inheritance for the rest of their lives? Harry isn't interested in a celebrity life at all, i don't believe. They aren't like the Clooneys at all.

Meghan is going to have to accept the restrictions and protocol of her new position and try to work with it if she wants to make her marriage work. I think she thinks she calls all the shots, but it will cause a lot of friction if she doesn't wise up. Harry will bend over backwards for her whilst they are newly married, but eventually things will have to find a course that works for everyone. Otherwise there will be a lot of unhappiness and conflict in the future.

He also said she was "very controlling". He has never painted a pretty picture of his daughter. He always says she is polite but then there are these barbs like "controlling" "demanding" etc.

So basically the warmest thing he has ever said about her is that she is polite?

It's so passive aggressive. You'd think if he was so intent on repairing a relationship with her that he'd be gushing over her. But he doesn't. He basically bangs on about "fairness" and implies she's polite but hard as nails. Like, golly gee, thanks Dad!

It's all toxic. I don't know how it's going to play out, but that man ain't going away any time soon!!

I don't think he meant it in a nasty way. He genuinely seems to love her, but can't see that he's digging his own grave so to speak. The more he talks about her publicly, the further away she is going to retreat. He strikes me as absolutely desperate to put things right and maybe he's aware he's running out of time. He doesn't look particularly well.

Queen - no, she didn't speak, but I'm not sure she could. She'd come home from the hospital the day before, I think, and I honestly don't think she could have spoken without throwing up!

I am sure he loves his daughter and is sorry for the position they are in. To say she is controlling is perhaps too honest of him.

I don’t mean that Harry & Meghan would give up their Royal status, far from it. Canada is a Commonwealth country & presumably, like Royal tours, the Canadians would fund security for Meghan & Harry.
I think in the post Brexit world, it would be a smart move both economically and politically to base the younger son of the King of England in North America, with his American wife. Rather like a Viceroy type role ( Mountbatten in India ) rather than Governer General ( Duke of Windsor in the Bahamas).
Harry and Meghan would remain the largest fish in the huge North American pond and would remain Royal. Peter Phillips ( I know he is not a working royal) but he lived in Hong Kong for many years and was at most Royal events.
I think it’s no coincidence that Frogmore; Windsor are 15 minutes from Heathrow airport. Harry & Meghan have always been about being on a global stage. They said as much in their engagement interview. I quite like the audaciousness of it all (even if it is only in my head.)
Harry can easily spend time in the UK, he’s not exactly going to slum it in economy class. If he visits Africa, Australia, New Zealand. What difference does it make whether he flies from Canada or the UK?

It may be thathe says she is controlling because she is calling their situation. He doesn’t know anything about royal life and why she had no option but to cut him off. And I have to say as somebody who grew up in the countryside and have had numerous debates over the years about shooting animals ‘for pleasure’ that I understand her stance on bloodspirts entirely!

The context was not that she was controlling this situation, but that she always likes to control things, albeit in a polite way.

I feel sorry for Meghan, her dad isn't helping the situation by constantly going public with things. I think she must be embarrassed by his behaviour but equally, whatever move she makes is going to be scrutinised and maybe she feels he won't stop discussing her so by ignoring him maybe he'll give up and go away.

I think she didn't really understand what she was getting into, she and Harry hadn't known each other very long unlike Kate and William who'd had time to build their relationship before Kate was an official member of the family. It's clear they love each other, and I hope that helps them through until they find their niche in the royal family as it goes forward (and probably modernises somewhat). I imagine Meghan is going through the opposite of a honeymoon period and wondering what on Earth she's let herself in for in many ways!

I notice that her "friends" (her hairstylist and make up artist basically) have pushed back that the reason she sends emails at 5am is because she wants to keep in touch with her friends and mother in california and there is an 8 hour time difference.

So they are tacitly conforming the reports of 5am emails in doing so. I wasn't sure if it was true but now I think it was.

However I'm sure she doesn't do it any more!

Agree Frugal

Just watched the Thomas Markle interview. He just comes across as a slightly bewildered dad who can’t understand why his daughter has blanked him. Piers Morgan used the word controlling because it fits with his narrative. From Thomas description, he said Meghan gets what she wants, which I heard to mean “ focussed” and “go getter”.
Thomas also emphatically said she does not drop people, and she is polite & respectful having been brought up on Hollywood film sets.
Also interesting; Meghan lived with her dad from aged 11 till she went to University. (Where was Doria?)

Meghan lived with her dad from aged 11 till she went to University. (Where was Doria?)

Many have wondered the same ...

Thomas Markle appears to be emotionally unstable . i feel sorry for him.

i fail to understand few things , MM lived all her teen years with her father where was Doria? the letters she sent him spoke of a close relationship, but i think MM prefers to emphasize on Doria . the single, free spirt mother raising a daughter sounds better.

are M&H & KP are only upset about the staged photos? i don't think Thomas Markle is the only person to blame here. what he did was stupid but i think he is really desperate for money.

personally i think the whole thing was badly handled from the start by H&M and KP.There should have been some sort of contact with TM months in advance. Maybe sign some sort of confidentiality agreement or simply familiarize him with the perplexity of it all.
maybe they wanted to curate a certain Image of MM but with such a messed up dysfunctional family its not possible. you can't just cut them off and expect them to simply go away.

I'm not sure why 5am emails are so deserving of criticism. They're not like phone calls, which would actually disturb people. If I'm awake at odd hours I often use the time to catch up life admin, including email, which is much easier to get done without toddlers hanging out of me.

What Cel982 said. In my world emails get written and sent at all hours of the day and night. Nobody expects an instant reply.

It's the faux naivety that sticks in my craw with him to be honest.

"I'm just a father who loves his daughter, hopes to meet his grandchild and a generally nice man who has been dreadfully treated"

No, mate, fuck off

Your daughter WAS a very minor celeb but you are behaving as though she has married a major celeb and therefore you should be entitled to cash in on offers that come your way

She has not married a celebrity, she has married a member of the British Royal Family who has a State role and now so does she

Her job is on a level with Jill Biden or Karen Pence to Kate's/ Camilla's Melania or Michelle

You are causing her and the institution continuous embarrassment and you have made a notoriously dysfunctional family look like the fucking Waltons

You must recognise for all your woe is me, ever so humble caper, that the jig was up as soon as you started selling stories

And seeing as it is, why not sell another ? It's coming on Christmas and you need a bit of cash

You must know she will never speak to you again.

The average UK citizen has a higher probability of meeting that child as it grows up than you do.

If you had just behaved properly 7 months ago, shown up, suited up and shut up you wouldn't be here bleating on morning television.

It is all your own doing.

You must know that you are actively hurting your daughter both privately and in terms of public opinion every time you do this and so you must actively want to hurt her.

No one should give anything you say the time of day you absolute ghoul

I don’t watch morning television but like many I think this situation with MM and her family is dreadful.

The RF must be spitting feathers about it although they must have known that ostrich syndrome was never going to work. They cannot ignore this as they appear to be pretty much doing.

MM should have the decency to deal with it properly, like an adult, instead of behaving like a child and sticking her fingers in her ears to block out the sounds of the discord all around her. She is an adult and should behave like one. This is a situation which has embroiled the RF and it need not have if she had behaved properly.

I feel sorry for her family - particularly her father. Ironically, her mother who was absent for chunks of her life - allegedly even in jail - is welcomed by her and the RF. it is batshit, the whole sorry mess.

PH made a mistake in getting involved with MM and her considerable baggage. No wonder his brother was sufficiently alarmed to have strong words with him. He should be alarmed too,as should the RF. This is not going to go away.

I am baffled by the issue with the emails as well. If I'm up early or during the night and need to catch up on things like emails, I do so. I certainly don't expect anyone to answer them during the night or early morning. It's possible she figured that she'd get the emails done while she was up if she's an early riser, so that they would be waiting for the recipient when they got in to work later in the morning - just being organised and efficient.

Regardless of who raised her when, I suppose the RF is happy to welcome her mother because she is not talking with the press/media and is not creating further problems.

I have a Do Not Disturb on my phone till 7am. However there's been lots of threads on here debating the manners of it. There's was one last week where the OP sent a WhatsApp at 7.40 and a friend rebuked her and flounced out of the WhatsApp group entirely.

So whilst some of us don't mind/have Do Not Distturbs, others keep their notifications on for emergencies and really get woken up.

I have to say, I've seen enough people arguing the other side of the debate to generally wait till working hours to send anything. Tbh if it's not an emergency it can wait anyway.

Back to the 5 am emails are they 🙈 yes there are people on both sides of it some see it as rude some see it as a good was to deal with modern life. So Meghan got it wrong and broke some palace rule about contacting staff. All it should have taken was a quiet word about they way things are done. How can anyone be expected to know things without being told.

As for her family does it matter who she grew up with? She had chosen to stay close to Doria and cut off her father! We will never know the ins and outs of it but she's and adult and she's the only one that grew up in that family so I think she has the right decide what is right for her.

@CrookedMe - "alliterate" as in alliteration - her initials being the same letter - MM - Meghan Markle. Not as in "illiterate" - can't read.

Ah that makes sense!! Alliterative. Got it.