Prince William has confirmed he will marry Kate Middleton next year

[phipps]

I wonder if we will get a Bank Holiday for it.

Well at least one that doesn't love hunting down innocent stag/foxes/rabbits - oh anything.

PS I used to see her around as she hung around local pubs, polo grounds etc - she loves swishing her hair about and looked very very middle aged/dull. Bet she'll choose a crap dull dress too.

Bring back Chelsea.

don't know about street parties.

I'll be overseas, probably in Singapore by then, so I won't be dancing in the streets

It's a love story according to one 'royal watcher' dontcha know.

Behead the lot of them, I say (not really) (lie)

Honestybox - maybe they decided they needed to bring some fresh blood into it as they were all starting to look a bit too much like each other?

HonestyBox: 'It's a blood system - you have to be born into it.'

Funnily enough, the two most popular 'royals' in recent years (Princess D and the last queen mother) weren't born into it. I always think that spoils the 'bloodline' argument advanced by monarchists. (Am not suggesting you are one of them, HB: just picking up on that particular sentence.)

(PS Despite my nickname [from a fairy story], I am an unshakeable republican. A la lanterne with the lot of them!)

Just had a pleasing thought. William did the traditional thing and asked Mr M for permission to wed his daughter. Will Mr and Mrs M, as parents of the bride, do the equally traditional thing and pay for the wedding, lock, stock and barrel?

Surely - after all, public finances are fully stretched, so we're told and Mr and Mrs M will want to do the right thing by all of us. Yes? No?

Xpost with Maisie.

And what if Mr M had said no?

maybe he has a few times?

Surely, when/if Prince William becomes King, her title will be Queen? I believe that technically she would be Queen consort, but her title would still be Queen Catherine.

Prince Philip is technically King consort, isn't he? But men are still known as Prince in that situation but women are known as Queen.

sooooo not interested in this none news story

Wish they would get married tomorrow to spare us months of achingly boring coverage of every last aspect of their tedious past and future lives.

exactly....

@strandedatseasonsgreetings the coverage has already been cringe-making! I was stuck at the garage waiting for a repair and it was all on the TV with everyone and his or her dog who ever met her being interviewed. It was embarassing to be in the same room as all that drivel.

How lovely for them.

A day off work would be nice :)

Why are we paying for this/them?

Do you know the coalition has done some dirty deal with Queen Brenda-loooong-to-reign-over-us whereby in exchange for a small cut in the Civil List she takes back the massivley bigger sums from ALL the Crown lands - which DON'T belong to her, really? Apparently this will cost the exchequer billions. But of course dear David is a bower-and-scraper elect.

If one person on the Beeb or off it says how hard they work I will post a photo of my own sick.

So yep, a Parliamentarian - not a Roundhead, though. I'd be fine with them if they'd stop taking taxpayers' money, in ANY form.

She is dull, dull, dull. Guess Wills thinks if she'll hang around for EIGHT years then she won't be a stroppy cow or an inconvenience in the future

I've just turned the telly on and they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The good news for those who like this sort of thing is there is a whole programme on about them tonight. Whoo hoo [bored]

TBH they seem about as dull as each other to me.

People always say he´s like his mum, but he just about seems a clone of his dad to me.

And as for 'living in Wales' - yeah right!

"Surely, when/if Prince William becomes King, her title will be Queen? I believe that technically she would be Queen consort, but her title would still be Queen Catherine."

Technically she would be a Queen Consort, that is to say that she would not inherit the throne on her husbands death. However technically her Husband is known as a King Regent, both are usually just shortened to King and Queen.

Camilla is, allegedly, going to be a Princess Consort so as not to take on the title of "Queen".

Philip is not a King Consort, he's not even a Prince Consort, he's the Duke of Edinburgh. He's never been formally named as anything other than that.

We don't, as a rule, seem to ever have an explicit King Consort. Queen Victoria wanted to name Albert that but Parliament refused it, so he got Prince Consort instead.

"Do you know the coalition has done some dirty deal with Queen Brenda-loooong-to-reign-over-us whereby in exchange for a small cut in the Civil List she takes back the massivley bigger sums from ALL the Crown lands - which DON'T belong to her, really? Apparently this will cost the exchequer billions. But of course dear David is a bower-and-scraper elect."

If you mean the Crown Estates then they "only" generated an income of just over £210 million last year. Substantial, but not "billions".

Where did you hear about the crown getting the income back?

Just looked at BBC website - party leaders queueing up to grovel. Some woman who has made a film about their 'romance' says Kate is 'very modern' and very relevant' - let's hope not representative of modern women, given her choice of idleness and her dullness, already discussed. And relevant to what exactly ??

From the ongoing, live Guardian blog (lovely):
"Among Middleton's ancestors are Northumbrian miners and Kent builders' labourers." So, Kate, hard work, indeed any work, IS in your DNA. No excuses.

Common consent, in spite my earlier posting, that the public will pay for this. If the sums are hushed up, a freedom of information request might yield some interesting information?

How many times have they used the phrase "royal fairytale" so far?

Actually this is going to be a nightmare for us. We'll be home for it and dd2 is desperate to be a princess when she grows up. Once she sees all this she won't believe me when I tell her she'll have to pick another career choice.

They both seem dull (she is a very mumsy dresser). I would be much more interested if it were Harry and Chelsy though.

Pahh, just had to spit my tea out at the idea of me being a monarchist. I'd be happy to see the back of them. I was just emphasizing the fact that we have a 'primogeniture' system so that you can only inherit the position of king or queen by blood. I thought this was why we have Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip but correct me if I'm wrong.