Speaking of royals writing books ...

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

With due apologies for the Mail link - go on, you know you want to - it seems Sarah Duchess of York's done a Mills and Boon novel: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9852775/Sarah-Ferguson-Duchess-York-releases-debut-Mills-Boon-novel.html

Knowing how much MN posters enjoy a good cerebral read I couldn't resist posting it ...

The Royal Lodge is leased to them from the Crown Estate. We aren’t paying for its upkeep and a rent was agreed.

As for living off Andrew, he’s funded privately by the family now he’s not working. That’s their concern not ours. And you’ve just been very rude about her self promotion of her paid work and nest egg so obviously she can’t do right for doing wrong in your eyes.

I love it when Ingrid Seward drops in. Tell me, what ‘agreed’ rent are they paying for this prime property? And how much is the sovereign grant now, compared to the old civil list? Because that is what QE2 is using to fund Andrew, and we pay for the sovereign grant.

At least she isn't sponging off the taxpayer

No. Just heavily supported by her ex who was infamous for doing just that and whose own current sources of income and upkeep remain shrouded in mystery.

As for living off Andrew, he’s funded privately by the family now he’s not working. That’s their concern not ours

All the time they're wheeling and dealing to manipulate tax, expenses and even legislation in their own favour it's entirely our concern.

I knew she had written a few of those awful budgie books. The illustrations were dreadful. Didn't know she had written loads of other children's books. I don't suppose the M & B one can be any worse than the usual M& B stuff.

Sarah Ferguson has written 69 books, she's very prolific!

I looked online and she is very keen on writing books about redheads isn’t she? Misunderstood, lovable redheads. One of them is invited to tea with the Queen and gas to learn the manners of a princess. Such a rich imagination!

HAS to learn, not GAS to learn!

She is promoting her former husband. She was providing a character reference during a chat about her new book which was unnecessary

Sounds to me as if she's keeping a keen eye on where the money comes from - ditto selecting the Queen and even William for praise

There seems a gap though, as unless I've missed it I'm not aware she's picked Charles for saccharine comments?

I don't think she is as scheming as that, quite frankly. She genuinely likes her husband, they have done well bringing up their children together despite divorce and resolved their differences. She always loved William and Harry and they like her as well as being close to her children. However I doubt she would have said anything had she not been asked and she wasn't asked about Charles.

The Budgie children's books aren't bad; anything that gets small children reading and captures their imaginations can only be good.

comma needed after 'her', before 'as well...'.

I don't think she is as scheming as that, quite frankly.

The same way she didn't scheme to sell half a mil's worth of access to Andrew back when he actually was a saleable commodity?

The duchess has been living at his home at the Royal Lodge in Windsor. She told the reporter that she "hadn't got a pot to piss in", and that the money she wanted was "a lick of the spoon".

From the fake sheikh interview.

The same article noted that she’d forgotten to pay some tax bills in the US related to her weight watchers and literary activities so had a decent sized debt to deal with there. The IRS are unlikely to care that she’s associated with the RF!

Demanding a payment of £500,000 to be wired to her HSBC bank account, she told the reporter: "That opens up everything you would ever wish for. I can open any door you want, and I will for you. Look after me and he'll look after you…you'll get it back tenfold."

Also from the fake sheikh interview. Tee hee!

And of course Jeffrey Epstein gave her money

Indeed, quite scheming then.

She is quite money driven I think. And seems to have accepted a number of bail outs over the years.

@Roussette

And of course Jeffrey Epstein gave her money

Apparently there were eighteen numbers listed for her in Epstein's contacts book as opposed to a mere sixteen for Andrew.

Eighteen numbers for Fergie! Cripes! I wonder how much ‘fixing’ she was doing for him?

Let us not forget that dear old hardworking Fergie, who emphatically does not sponge off her royal connections, tried to sue the fake sheikh and News International for £40m, five years after the expose she deeply regretted (at the time) for her lack of judgment. She later claimed that the £40m was her loss of earnings as a consequence of being tricked - tricked! - by the fake sheikh. The rotter! He manipulated her into asking for £500k (a mere ‘lick of the spoon’!) in exchange for her ‘opening doors’.

She said the damage to her reputation had lost her £25 million in earnings – raised to more than £40 million two years later – from projects such as films, speaking engagements, books and celebrity endorsements.

We lost out on a series of books that sound intriguing. Madame Pantaloon! I wonder whether she would have been a lovable redhead prone to getting into scrapes? We will never know.

They included a cartoon called Fergie’s Farm, a planned lifestyle brand ‘House of Ferguson’ and a series of books to be entitled ‘Madame Pantaloon’. But she has dropped her demands against Rupert Murdoch’s company

I very much regret not being able to buy sheets and towels from the House of Ferguson, and I am sure that many broadcasters would have been avid to show the Fergie’s Farm cartoon.

@Viviennemary

She is quite money driven I think. And seems to have accepted a number of bail outs over the years.

Fergie is useless with money by all accounts. However we've heard nothing about her financial troubles for a while, hopefully they are in the past. She is 61 now after all and people do become more responsible with age (sometimes).

Let's wish her well instead of doing her down. She hasn't hurt any of us and whatever any thinks of her, she certainly tries to do her best.

(I used to be a spendthrift when I was younger, had to be bailed out a couple of times. I learned.)

She was in £4m of debt before she took on the Weightwatchers job I remember reading. Quite how she could build up that much debt is a little puzzling.

It's beyond my imagination.

I remember being £4,000 in debt as a younger person and that seemed insurmountable. I used to over stretch myself, imagining that all would be well (deluded). Thankfully those days are over but I still have to watch myself, the tendency to be extravagant is still there (though never ostentatious).

It always struck me with Fergie that the more she had, the more she spent and was totally unrealistic about money.

However she is trying to earn a crust. I hope her days of debt are over. It's a great pity that everything she does is made public, it makes things so much worse. We're no better off for knowing about it.

Where is the video?

There was nothing to stop her training g for a proper job and buying her own house years ago. I’m sure she got a massive settlement on her divorce. It’s just easier to freeload and continue to spend ridiculously.

To be fair to her, (and I really am not a fan) she was given a pretty paltry divorce settlement.

It was massive in normal people's eyes, but given her spending habit and what she was used to, probably not. £15,000 a year, lump sums for the kids, a lump sum for her, cash for a house etc. It totalled £3m but she was incapable of living within her means.
She then did a telling autoiography which earned her millions as it talked of the establishment and life in the RF. Then came TV, interviews, Wedgewood, Weight Watchers and selling Andrew for cash. That was a low point.

However, what has always puzzled me is ... given that she obviously has a very strong relationship with her divorced husband, they are best friends etc... why on earth the marriage didn't last longer than six years?? It just seems like she (or indeed he) didn't give it a chance. She blames his absence whilst in the Navy, couples go through far worse ... what a waste of expensive wedding, money, houses, pay offs. It just seems like they never tried to make it work.

There was rumours of course that after PP died they would remarry. I can't see that happening. This suits the both of them with the best of single life and both living off the taxpayer at the massive refurbished pile Royal Lodge, with Eugenie at Frogmore cottage and Beatrice at St James Palace.
Andrew certainly has all his family sorted!

I don't understand lots of things. Why did the notoriously stuck-up Andrew marry someone he probably thinks is his social inferior? If he really loved/loves her, why did the marriage fall apart (and as @Rousette says, so quickly).

What is it with Sarah F and money - what does she actually spend all the millions on? Why did she agree to such a shit divorce settlement?

How did Andrew and his ever-present superiority complex feel about the fact that his own father couldn't stand her? And why was that?

I think it's a much, much odder marriage and relationship than any of the other royal matches, especially when you add in the yuck of the Epstein factor.