Diamond Jubliee

I've lived in California for more years than I care to admit to and most of the time I think of myself as American. But this weekend I've been one hundred percent British. I have watched all the Diamond Jubilee festivities religiously on the telly. I have even stood and sung Land of Hope and Glory along with the crowd.  And secretly I've been glad that I didn't have to personally stand out in that rain. I love my native country dearly but not the weather. It was why I left in the first place.

The Brits were so good about standing outside in that awful weather,weren't they? The queen in her light outfit on the Thames. Those singers standing on their barge while rain cascaded down their faces. All those people on the Mall waving their flags, little children sitting on shoulders cheering. My hats off to them all.

I thought the queen was marvelous. She's 86 and she didn't flag, didn't need to sit down all that while on the Thames and went through a whole concert looking interested while obviously she was worrying about her husband in hospital.

The only disturbing factor to me was that she took Charles and Camilla, Wills Harry and Kate everywhere with her, but no sign of her other children or grandchildren. I glimpsed Anne once, sitting in the audience, but what happened to Andrew and Edward and their offspring? Why didn't they get a chance to wave from the balcony? If I'd been them, I'd have been miffed that Camilla, of all people, got to be in the spotlight, up close and cozy whispering to the queen, while they were shut out. Has there been anything about this in the British papers?

One thing was clear--the Brits really know how to put on a good show. I'm going to be there for the Olympics and I'm looking forward to more of the same, and to an umbrella with the Union Jack on it!
By the way, did I ever mention that I had tea with the queen when I was a girl?
I'll tell you more about it in my next post.

Are the Royals worth it?

As the author of the Royal Spyness series, I've been doing royal gossip Mondays on my blog. Today I'm going to be a little more serious, because the news of Prince William's brave and daring rescue last week made me want to counter all those people who complain that the royal family are not worth keeping around.

There is a small but vocal minority in Britain that thinks we should do away with the royals and make Britain into an efficient republic like America (pause to chuckle here).  These people think the royals sit around idly doing nothing in their expensive palaces and sip tea while receiving vast amounts of money from the working poor.

This may have been true in the days of King Charles Ist but the modern royals have a work schedule not many of us could emulate. I go on a book tour for about two weeks each year. Two weeks of waking early, flying to a new city, touring bookstores all day, sometimes doing some radio or TV interviews, then speaking at an evening event before collapsing exausted into a hotel bed. At the end of two weeks I am whacked. However the queen has been doing this every day of her life. Every day of making speeches, meeting new people, eating three meals a day with strangers watching and the press ready to jump if you make a false move. Let me tell you that it requires stamina.

And the other members of her family do similar amounts of goodwill and charity work. Princess Anne is the real family workhorse. Prince Charles was mocked twenty years ago when he started an organic farm. Now it seems he was way ahead of his time and his methods are being copied all over the world. And now Prince William is serving as an RAF search and rescue pilot and proved last week that this is not a grace and favor position but he is indeed walking the walk. I watched the video of him holding the helicopter steady a few feet above a raging ocean while his fellow officer rapelled down to pluck men from a sinking cargo ship. And his brother was fighting in Afghanistan until his presence was leaked to the press and he had to be whisked out for his own safety.

As the new Duchess of Cambridge (I refuse to call her Kate Middleton as the press still does) will find out, she won't have a life of leisure ahead. And I bet she'll perform splendidly.

So three cheers for the hardworking royals. Oh, and by the way.... they cost less than President Obama!

Royal Gossip Mondays Resume

Now I can breathe again after all the promo for Naughty in Nice, I'm going back to my Royal Gossip Mondays, sharing little snippets about the royals from recent news or things I've uncovered from royal history.

Last week the big news was that the Line of Succession is to be debated and reconsidered. Until now a son always took precedence over a daughter. Elizabeth only became queen because there was no son. Now I believe the plan is to overturn that three hundred year old statute and replace it with one that gives a female child equal right to the throne.

So if Will and Kate have a girl first, there will be another queen in our future. Makes sense, doesn't it? I think a queen has more press appeal and glamor and one has to admit that the whole royal thing is great for tourism. Also she is not as likely to have sexual flings as princes seem to be.. and thus disgrace the royal name.

This whole tradition of the heir and the spare seems strange now, but birth order and sex really made a huge difference to lives in the past. Remember Pride and Prejudice--Mr. Collins was going to get the family home because the Bennetts had no son. My husband's grandfather was a second son--the spare. Thus he was sent out to the colonies and when he returned late in life and in ill health, he lived fairly simply in a rented house (okay it was a big rented house and I'm sure there were plenty of servants) BUT his older brother got the property, the money, the title, EVERYTHING.

Today that seems so unfair, doesn't it. My brother-in-law has inherited a large family property. They have eight children and I believe a trust has been set up so that they will all inherit the property equally. How that will work, I'm not sure. Open to squabbling.

The most interesting speculation about the line of succession at the moment will be whether Charles will step aside in favor of his more popular son?