Ham pr disasters 62! ….billionaire benefactors and borrowed buildings…..

[jeffgoldblum]

Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush……..

In a similar vein, M (and H) would be astonished that George, Charlotte and Louis help set the table, clear away, wash up and load the dishwasher. As I explained to my DD, these are skills you need, along with others, if you are to make a good account of yourself as a house guest.

People give themselves away by their behaviour. In the 1990s, when I worked in the City, I had a private ranking system for the senior directors. Least respected, tosser category: European CEO (whining to me he didn't know how to find his clean shirts because his wife was away) and UK MD (walking right past the coat stand to his PA's desk, casting his raincoat across her desk and saying 'Hang that up, would you Barbara.' Most respected, human hero category: Group Chairman (returning at 6pm to the office for the birthday celebration of the longstanding corporate floor receptionist, a 60-something working class woman who had joined the company at 16, after he had had a 6am start to brief analysts on the full year results), European Something-Or-Other (having his PA call me to his office to thank me personally for writing a speech for him and asking me, with perfect courtesy, to increase the font size to huge, the only edit; a peer, old money, treated absolutely everyone well without fail).

I would expect M to be below H on my incipient Royal family scale, at the bottom with Andrew.

Very much so. They were given Frogmore Cottage and it was fully renovated for them. I can't remember how long it was from M's arrival to the Freedom Flight but it wasn't long.

It just goes to prove that's it's all about your state of mind not the state of the property you live in. My own DGP's started their married life just after the end of WW2 in rented rooms, sharing a kitchen & bathroom with another couple. They had their first 2 babies there whilst they saved for a deposit for a house. Even though they ended up in a really nice house, they often spoke fondly of those rented rooms and remained friends with the couple they had shared with

Not even true; they could have had paintings and ceramics from the Royal Collection, as W&C did, plus furniture from other houses and from storage. The Gloucesters were downsizing and the Hams were offered their large KP apartment, which they turned down. I'm sure furniture was available.
They were holding out for Windsor Castle.
What dishonest, greedy whingers.

Whilst I would never want to derail this thread from more serious concerns about H&M, what I would really like to know is if H ever returned the two corgi christmas ornaments he took from a christmas tree at Buckingham Palace? (I believe he himself told this story in Spare)

I think Eugenie lives next door in Ivy cottage

He returned two corgis, but not the two he pilfered, because they breed like rabbits.

😂😂😂

They had been earmarked to move into Flat 1 Kensington Palace - a 21 room apartment next door to 1A where W&C live. Renovations started the year they got married,

However HAM decided they wanted to live at Windsor Castle which the Queen refused and offered then Frogmore - although many people think Meghan thought she was getting Frogmore House and not Frogmore cottage

I wonder if they are angling for the now vacant Royal Lodge? Not that William would agree

i’m sure M did not want second-hand furniture that had been used by some old crusty dudes from the past, or old china knick-knacks that were H’s grandma’s. They were bound to smell musty , just like that smelly old church building that was palmed off on her for the wedding.

How did MM go straight to 100 with greed and entitlement. Presumably in Toronto she had to pay her own rent, her own clothes. I can understand the psychology behind someone's greed increasing as they get used to their new-found privilege and then they want more and more. But it doesn't seem like MM ever had a honeymoon period with the royal privilege. She was pretty much straight into property upgrades and 100k dresses?

H’s petty-minded resentfulness met Meghan’s insecurity, jealousy and mischief-making ambition and created the perfect storm.

I think it is highly likely that when the Queen said they could have Frogmore , they expected the house. I doubt they (especially Meghan) even knew of the existence of the cottage. I wonder if they would have deserted if they had got Frogmore House 🤔. I'd have liked to have been a fly on the wall when they found out it would be the cottage, which probably didn't look much back when it was several staff cottages.

I think there are plenty of stories about M in the pre-H days. I read somewhere about her doing a photoshoot whilst she was in Suits - she walked off with a very expensive pair of shoes which she had been modelling but which weren't hers

I think there have been quite a few stories like that

I have a relative like Meghan . Grasping, entitled and rude. Never thinks she should work for anything, just grabs what she can.

https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/luxury/toronto-home-meghan-markle-rented-while-filming-suits-is-for-sale-a116241.html

They could buy this place .. bargain!

wow! #1 KP 😳

A £2.4m refurb is quite something in a series of cottages, giving them five times the space of Nott Cott for two grownups and a bump. But not good enough!

They only lived in Frogmore cottage full time for around 6 months after £2.6 million was spent renovating it to their specifications. They moved in in April 2019 and in October 2019 they went on an extended holiday to a borrowed Russian oligarch's house in Canada and never returned to the UK to live.

Hmm - I wonder if that’s why they’re apparently dragging their feet about buying somewhere - they want to appear pathetically homeless and are hoping for a nice royal residence?

I remember reading that after she got a part on suits, she held a party in Toronto giving away all of her cheap clothes and shoes as she was going to replace them with designer. She called it a sayonara Zara party

How self indulgent and 'look at me'. Surely an anonymous donation to a women's refuge or something like smart works would have been more genuine.

This is the woman who wont go to the opening of an envelope without wearing at least £100k in jewels.

One of the medical secretaries at a practice I used to work at told how when she first started as a medical secretary she was quite young and innocent....She worked for a Forensic Psychiatrist and was writing up his notes from a case involving children who had been inveigled into visiting an old man who lived in a caravan on a caravan park. She wrote "He sat there winking at us".
She wasn't sure it was the intended word but didn't want to take the risk of typing the word she thought she had heard (on the dictaphone) for fear of making a very embarrassing mistake. The Forensic psychiatrist's response when he read it through still caused her embarrassment.

Apparently they wanted the actual castle . W&K could have ugly old Buckingham Palace and they would have Windsor Castle to ponce about in - v impressive for hosting new A-list pals and nice and convenient for Heathrow. Win-win - or rather lose-lose when this plan was presented to HMQ.

Oh yes, that was definitely the plan.

@IdaGlossop increase the font size to huge
😂👏😂

Frogmore cottage was built as one house in 1801 for Queen Charlotte. Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna in exile from her native Russia after the Russian Revolution stayed there in the 1920s. It was subdivided into 5 apartments in the 20th century to be used as employee housing and then converted back to a single home for HAM in 2019