Harry & Meghan 16

[louisa05]

2 hours ago, Seahorse Wrangler said:

I wouldn't have known about the Invictus Games if several sub-reddits weren't talking about it. As such, given the limited and often short snippets of video material I am not in a position to fairly judge if he does care or not. 

Should William have attended to World Cup final? I'm not sure. Protocol issues aside, i.e. can't go until the king makes his first official tour, IMHO a stupid rule, he was in one of those "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" positions.

Fly commercial or private? Carbon footprint issues given Earthshot trips to New York and Singapore coming up soon.

A better compromise would have been watching in a public space either as a couple or family but I'm not sure if there were anything like this happening at the time.

I feel like that could have been a security nightmare. 
I was in the UK during the 2002 World Cup. Drunk football fans are a security nightmare without a royal in the mix. A naked one got on our tour bus at a stoplight In Liverpool. 

[Jackie3]

2 hours ago, Seahorse Wrangler said:

 

Should William have attended to World Cup final? I'm not sure. Protocol issues aside, i.e. can't go until the king makes his first official tour, IMHO a stupid rule, he was in one of those "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" positions.

Fly commercial or private? Carbon footprint issues given Earthshot trips to New York and Singapore coming up soon.

 

Princess Anne visited several Commonwealth countries this year, countries the king has not yet visited. She even visited Canada twice! That protocol issues was invented by the palace. 

So that settles that "issue." 

There's no carbon footprint issue if he flies commercial--that plane was going to Australia anyway. It's also possible to buy offsets to your carbon footprint.

William let down the women's team. He was president and should have been there. It was the World Cup, after all! Everyone knows he would have been there if the men's team had qualified. When I was in Britain, people were STILL talking about the men's win in 1966. It is a huge deal in England and doesn't happen everyday.

This is William's only job --to be a figurehead-- and he chose not to do it. Didn't feel like it.

[apandaaries]

3 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Drunk football fans are a security nightmare without a royal in the mix. A naked one got on our tour bus at a stoplight In Liverpool. 

Pics or it didn’t happen!

I jest, but what a memory! 😂 

[louisa05]

1 minute ago, apandaaries said:

Pics or it didn’t happen!

I jest, but what a memory! 😂 

It was the Magical Mystery Tour bus—a Beatles themed tour of the city. England had just won a huge game against Argentina and the whole city was off work and drunk. The entire day was crazy. 

[GreenBeans]

On 8/25/2023 at 6:27 PM, Loveday said:

My husband often used this family example in his lessons on genetics in 7th grade science--you just never know which bits of DNA you're going to get! 🥴

We have friends who are a mixed Asian/European couple, with the European part having red hair. Both of their children have red hair and blue eyes, they look ZERO Asian. In their circle of friends, they have many other couples with a similar mixed background, and all the other children favor the Asian parent. Not sure if they just beat the odds, or if red hair genes are particularly dominant.

[Jackie3]

1 hour ago, GreenBeans said:

We have friends who are a mixed Asian/European couple, with the European part having red hair. Both of their children have red hair and blue eyes, they look ZERO Asian. In their circle of friends, they have many other couples with a similar mixed background, and all the other children favor the Asian parent. Not sure if they just beat the odds, or if red hair genes are particularly dominant.

There are 48 countries in Asia. There is a wide disparity in their appearance. Saying someone "looks ZERO Asian" makes no sense.

People in India look different from those in Mongolia or China or Russia. (Yes, some parts of Russia are in Asia). There are even Asians who are naturally blond or redheaded.  In fact, some people think red hair originated in central Asia.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Jackie3

[just_ordinary]

@Seahorse Wrangler I think Wiliam most definitely should have shown up. Not because he is a royal but because he is the current President of the English Football Association. If that is a problem with the air mileage he rakes up with his other jobs he should step down. 
And flying Earthshot all over the world is pretty contradictory. I really think he set his team in overdrive to establish an international scheme quickly to cover up the lack of focused work in the last 15 years on his part. That’s the one thing our favourite ginger in exile has going for him. H could easily stop all his strange side hustles and concentrate on Invictus and Sentebale. That’s two projects, established over years that he can comfortably sit on. His involvement looks genuine thanks to working for over a decade on them. Long term involvement and genuine support and interests is something that W&K and even M lack. M jumps from one hot topic to the next, whatever brings more publicity. W&K look desperate and lack depth. Earthshot kinda works because they put a lot of money into it and there are really cool ideas/concepts/inventions that get supported. Early years isn’t going down well, even with people that like K. Many of the sympathetic people reading on fan blogs are voicing their irritation and criticism with it. All three miss the sincerity H has going for him with his two projects. If only he had realised earlier that these would have made a good main point in his PR. His importance was solely build on him being a royal and more loved than his lazy, stiff and boring brother. By realising how his status had changed with their decision and further building his profile on the golden PR persona he could have carried Megxit into quite a different outcome. 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by just_ordinary

[louisa05]

9 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

@Seahorse Wrangler I think Wiliam most definitely should have shown up. Not because he is a royal but because he is the current President of the English Football Association. If that is a problem with the air mileage he rakes up with his other jobs he should step down. 
And flying Earthshot all over the world is pretty contradictory. I really think he set his team in overdrive to establish an international scheme quickly to cover up the lack of focused work in the last 15 years on his part. That’s the one thing our favourite ginger in exile has going for him. H could easily stop all his strange side hustles and concentrate on Invictus and Sentebale. That’s two projects, established over years that he can comfortably sit on. His involvement looks genuine thanks to working for over a decade on them. Long term involvement and genuine support and interests is something that W&K and even M lack. M jumps from one hot topic to the next, whatever brings more publicity. W&K look desperate and lack depth. Earthshot kinda works because they put a lot of money into it and there are really cool ideas/concepts/inventions that get supported. Early years isn’t going down well, even with people that like K. Many of the sympathetic people reading on fan blogs are voicing their irritation and criticism with it. All three miss the sincerity H has going for him with his two projects. If only he had realised earlier that these would have made a good main point in his PR. His importance was solely build on him being a royal and more loved than his lazy, stiff and boring brother. By realising how his status had changed with their decision and further building his profile on the golden PR persona he could have carried Megxit into quite a different outcome. 

 

Harry standing around looking morose while Meghan poses for cameras in thousands of dollars worth of bad clothes doesn't seem like sincere support. 

William has been closely involved with Centrepoint homeless shelter since he was a teenager and recently launched an intiative for several organizations including them to reduce homelessness in the UK.  He has been involved with another shelter, The Passage, since Diana regularly took him there as a child. He's been patron of Tusk Trust and worked closely with their conservation projects since 2005--long before he was a full time working royal. Their lifetime achievement award for conservation work in Africa is named for him. And that's just highlighting three of his long term projects. 

I've seen no evidence that anyone is upset by the Early Years Foundation work, unless it's Americans who no longer believe in education and child welfare. In that realm, Catherine works with numerous charities quite closely including those advocating for children's mental health, and for foster and emergency care, children's hospice services, and early intervention. 

Both of them have numerous patronages highlighting other areas as well including traditional royal patronages like the military, sports, museums and such. 

If you think none of this is worthwhile or you think it's not real because they're not blasting it on a Netflix documentary or making any of it a personal fashion show as we saw at Invictus this week, that's fine. But that doesn't mean they aren't doing it. Being truly charitable isn't about public relations, PDA and clothes. 

[anjulibai]

So morose....

Spoiler

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Coconut Flan
added spoiler

[Jackie3]

He looks like he's having a wonderful time! So does Meghan. Most importantly, so do the vets. The trip has been a resounding success.

 

20 hours ago, louisa05 said:

Harry standing around looking morose while Meghan poses for cameras in thousands of dollars worth of bad clothes doesn't seem like sincere support. 

At least she paid for those clothes herself. They looked pretty good to me, better than anything I have.  You are pretty lucky that your wardrobe is better and finer!

Edited September 18, 2023 by Jackie3

[prayawaythefundie]

Oh good, we‘re looking at snapshots again to analyse who is on cloud 9 and who is miserable. Because that‘s so reliable.

[just_ordinary]

@louisa05 Wiliam’s involvement with homelessness charities is a good point. Any long term scheme set up 10 years around would most definitely have looked sincere and would be a good fit. Because he has been involved consistently. Saying that you are ending homelessness in the UK in six(?) years is, quite frankly, stupid. That’s a PR disaster waiting to happen. I also don’t necessarily think Earthshot is a bad idea or not worthwhile. Just the fact that it’s relatively new, has had no time to really establish itself BEFORE you branch out and host it all over the world makes it look like a quick vanity project. It works because he pumps massive amounts of money into it. Not because it’s an established long term scheme. It’s a fact that compared to the Prince’s Trust it looks pretty pale and his passion for it remains to be seen. To me it felt as if both thought they quickly needed some big successful set up when they reached forty. 
The Early Years debacle is actually felt more so by her European fans. Maybe because we do believe it’s not just the responsibility of the parents, but if society and the government together. At least that’s where I tend to spend my time with the royals. US “fans” often only started after M came to the scene so when I started they weren’t around. Her point is not wrong. But what came of her “big” initiatives most definitely is. Early years are important. It’s a shame that the work on children/people (care work, teaching…) is the one that’s paid the worst. It’s also a multifaceted field and by now her only contribution was mentioning how important it is to get outside with children. And that is from a woman who takes all school brakes off and has a full time nanny. She does support some charities under this focus which is great but launching yet another think tank/advisory board is not exactly the actions you expect when her own PR team talks about her action as the “biggest impact in this field”. This field is  not barren. There is lots of research and ressources and great ideas already out there. If her idea was to connect parents with ideas and ressources in the present while also changing the mindset of people for the future so that politicians will make the much needed changes and finally put some money into it that’s fantastic. But she should do at least one public thing for it per week all year (an scheduled Instagram post when on holiday- it’s not as if she is typing it herself) every year. Being seen is part of the job.

And a personal note: While I mostly agree with the idea of Early Years, it puts the responsibility for the outcome pretty much on mothers. Again. Not intentional. But it’s still the mothers who mostly do the care work in those years. So it’s yet another field to screw up. And I do have a problem with initiatives that state that screwing this or that up will most like fuck up your child forever. We had a 1000 days nutrition initiative here. Basically saying if your child doesn’t eat a well balanced diet in its first 1000 days  it will probably never eat healthy. The pressure something like this puts on people trying their best is insane. You feel you failed when you put white pasta with tomato sauce out for dinner. Because the ideal would be- no added sugar before 4, whole grain, organic fruit and vegetables, high quality meat. And of course all cooked from scratch. All kindergartens in my town all expect you to pack breakfast with no sugar- so no jam, honey, muffins, chocolate. Fruit is fine of course. Extra points for whole grain bred (not toast or brioche).

The initiative is not wrong per se. But it’s really really putting tons of pressure on the people that already care and on mothers especially. 
Just like Early Years. Yes, being outside is a cheap thing to do. But they failed to mention that you can also make it a habit without your children having to go along with it happily all the time. And in reality, in most families both parents have to work and if someone stays home it’s mostly the mother. Doing all the childcare and housework. And with two working parents money is tight still. The UK is in a real crisis. So loving and involved parents/mothers do feel the pressure. Because time is rare. You are out of the house 9+h, and cleaning, shopping, cooking the right food, eating and sleeping almost swallows up all the rest. It’s a struggle. Fact is, you can’t give 100% in every area. Simultaneously, there are studies showing that, while a loving, supporting etc. home is a great start, it is not a guarantee for a happy life later. Just as coming from an unfortunate past means you will end up unhappy. Resilience is an interesting trait that isn’t necessarily in correlation to how you grow up. Early Years is not wrong. But what cake from it is not what I hoped for. Her children’s hospice work is something I really admire by the way. It’s an incredible uncomfortable topic and obviously doesn’t produce lots of happy PR. It’s a bit of an taboo. I wish she would have rather made this her main focus.

Edited September 18, 2023 by just_ordinary

[Ozlsn]

4 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

Yes, being outside is a cheap thing to do.

You also have to have public outside space to do it, which is often more accessible in some areas than others.

4 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

You feel you failed when you put white pasta with tomato sauce out for dinner. Because the ideal would be- no added sugar before 4, whole grain, organic fruit and vegetables, high quality meat. And of course all cooked from scratch

 I have the child with the incredibly limited diet (white pasta with tomato sauce would be an expansion tbh, especially mixed) who was tube fed for the first nearly 3 years of life... and he's happy, healthy and growing in line with the curve. It's great if you can do it, but it doesn't take into account a whole stack of things, including (as said above) time, resources and individuals.

4 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

Fruit is fine of course

Except dried fruit like sultanas. Ffs here, they come in a box and have fibre as well as sugar! 

[anjulibai]

8 hours ago, prayawaythefundie said:

Oh good, we‘re looking at snapshots again to analyse who is on cloud 9 and who is miserable. Because that‘s so reliable.

I agree with you. The photos I posted just seemed the opposite of morose. I am sure there are pics out there of him at Invictus where he looks serious and could be taken as morose. My guess is that he experienced lots of different emotions throughout the games.

[Jackie3]

16 minutes ago, anjulibai said:

I agree with you. The photos I posted just seemed the opposite of morose. I am sure there are pics out there of him at Invictus where he looks serious and could be taken as morose. My guess is that he experienced lots of different emotions throughout the games.

I think there are people who focus on the serious ones because they want him to be unhappy. For some reason.

[AmazonGrace]

Sometimes people read so much into photos although the celebrities in question are well aware that they are being photographed and what we're getting is a public face or a performance... I saw this article about what their clothing choices tell us about their marriage... supposedly if their clothes match it shows unity and cooperation and if they fail to color coordinate it shows they're confident enough in the relationship to be free and independent.   Or some such thing. It was garbage really... I am sure some of these celebrities have stylists to pick out their clothing for them and it tells us less about their mental state and more about the stylist's professionalism. And if you know that the tabloids are going to pay attention to stupidity like this you could project a certain image regardless of whether the spouse is in the doghouse or not.

 

[Jackie3]

6 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Sometimes people read so much into photos although the celebrities in question are well aware that they are being photographed and what we're getting is a public face or a performance... I saw this article about what their clothing choices tell us about their marriage... supposedly if their clothes match it shows unity and cooperation and if they fail to color coordinate it shows they're confident enough in the relationship to be free and independent.   Or some such thing. It was garbage really... I am sure some of these celebrities have stylists to pick out their clothing for them and it tells us less about their mental state and more about the stylist's professionalism. And if you know that the tabloids are going to pay attention to stupidity like this you could project a certain image regardless of whether the spouse is in the doghouse or not.

 

There’s a subset of people who delight in pictures of Harry looking serious. Because that’s proof he is “sad.” And that’s a good thing, for some reason. They want him to be sad and they are happy if a serious photo comes along as “proof.” 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Jackie3

[Seahorse Wrangler]

On 9/16/2023 at 10:16 AM, Jackie3 said:

Princess Anne visited several Commonwealth countries this year, countries the king has not yet visited. She even visited Canada twice! That protocol issues was invented by the palace. 

So that settles that "issue." [quote]

 

And probably only in the last few decades. Since international travel was a long and laborious issue until recently. 

[quote]

There's no carbon footprint issue if he flies commercial--that plane was going to Australia anyway. It's also possible to buy offsets to your carbon footprint.[/quote]

 

You and I know that, but there are plenty who desire to criticize a person or people for the most petty reason.

 

[quote]William let down the women's team. He was president and should have been there. It was the World Cup, after all! Everyone knows he would have been there if the men's team had qualified. [/quote]

Do you have proof of this or are you on the ISB?

 

[quote]When I was in Britain, people were STILL talking about the men's win in 1966. It is a huge deal in England and doesn't happen everyday. [/quote]

Our Glory Days of over 50 years ago!!!! My British based family have managed to find several different conversation points since then. I've heard tell about the Americans landing on the moon and some guy trying to ski-jump in the Olympics.

[quote]This is William's only job --to be a figurehead-- and he chose not to do it. Didn't feel like it.[/quote]

I haven't had William or Catherine phone me to either agree or disagree with you, so I guess I will never know if he didn't feel like it.

[Seahorse Wrangler]

On 9/17/2023 at 5:08 AM, just_ordinary said:

@Seahorse Wrangler I think Wiliam most definitely should have shown up. Not because he is a royal but because he is the current President of the English Football Association. If that is a problem with the air mileage he rakes up with his other jobs he should step down. 
 

 

Then you transfer the air-mileage to some-one else who will be criticized, especially if they are low on the list of working or non-working royals. People are happy to score petty points about another member of the extended BRF unless a new resident for the Women's team isn't royal. Which adds another layer of potential ickyness.

 

[quote]And flying Earthshot all over the world is pretty contradictory. I really think he set his team in overdrive to establish an international scheme quickly to cover up the lack of focused work in the last 15 years on his part. That’s the one thing our favourite ginger in exile has going for him. H could easily stop all his strange side hustles and concentrate on Invictus and Sentebale. That’s two projects, established over years that he can comfortably sit on. His involvement looks genuine thanks to working for over a decade on them. Long term involvement and genuine support and interests is something that W&K and even M lack. [/quote]

 

He's not my favourite ginger in exile, that would be me(smile).  Invictus was originally set up as a joint  venture between the Cambridges and Prince Harry. Sentebale is a joint venture between Princes Harry and Seeiso. I'm not saying that Prince Harry doesn't support these charities but he wasn't always the only driving force behind them.

[quote] M jumps from one hot topic to the next, whatever brings more publicity.[/quote]

And reflects badly on both her and Prince Harry because it reeks of not following through which the senior royals have always plugged away at, even when the causes where unpopular such as in the early days of AIDS.

 

[quote]W&K look desperate and lack depth. Earthshot kinda works because they put a lot of money into it and there are really cool ideas/concepts/inventions that get supported. Early years isn’t going down well, even with people that like K. Many of the sympathetic people reading on fan blogs are voicing their irritation and criticism with it.[/quote]

That's not I've been reading . Perhaps you could enlighten me on this.

 

[quote]All three miss the sincerity H has going for him with his two projects. If only he had realised earlier that these would have made a good main point in his PR.[/quote]

And yet, they were still not projects he lead from the start. They are valuable concerns but if he's doing them purely for PR then it's a hit and a miss. 

 

[quote]His importance was solely build on him being a royal and more loved than his lazy, stiff and boring brother. [/quote]

Nope, no, nah and LMAOROTF.  Prince Harry is certainly not more "loved" than William. 

 

[quote] By realising how his status had changed with their decision and further building his profile on the golden PR persona he could have carried Megxit into quite a different outcome. [/quote]

 

If only some-one could have guided Prince Harry and his Duchess with regards to how they would have been seen once they cast off the shackles of the BRF, they could have done some real good in the world. But he never had a Golden Persona in the UK, Commonwealth nor do I believe in the rest of the world. 

 

 

On 9/18/2023 at 11:05 AM, anjulibai said:

I agree with you. The photos I posted just seemed the opposite of morose. I am sure there are pics out there of him at Invictus where he looks serious and could be taken as morose. My guess is that he experienced lots of different emotions throughout the games.

The tabloids in both the UK, US and the rest of the world are guilty of that. As are the gossip blogs and forums like Free Jinger or reddit. An isolated frame from a video is eagerly pawed over to fit the narrative that one or more people desire to see without regards for what is happening in real time in the real world.

[Jackie3]

8 minutes ago, Seahorse Wrangler said:

Invictus was originally set up as a joint  venture between the Cambridges and Prince Harry.

The Cambridges didn't show up in Germany, in that case.

9 minutes ago, Seahorse Wrangler said:

And reflects badly on both her and Prince Harry because it reeks of not following through which the senior royals have always plugged away at, even when the causes where unpopular such as in the early days of AIDS.

 

Harry may have learned that from his brother. William promised to solve the Middle East problem a few years back, then. . . nothing. Catherine has spent ten years on her Early Years program, which has done next to nothing--except telling us that under 5s need love and attention.

Harry, OTOH, has shown up for Invictus and received a rousing, warm welcome from the people there. He's getting a ton of great press and, more importnatly, made a huge difference in the lives of wounded vets. 

William, meanwhile, is trying unsuccessfully to get an invite to the UN. He lacks his brother's charisma.

[viii]

1 hour ago, Seahorse Wrangler said:

Nope, no, nah and LMAOROTF.  Prince Harry is certainly not more "loved" than William. 

She spoke in past tense, and she wasn’t wrong. Until Harry stepped back as a senior royal, he was the second most popular royal, following only after the Queen. 

[Jackie3]

21 hours ago, viii said:

She spoke in past tense, and she wasn’t wrong. Until Harry stepped back as a senior royal, he was the second most popular royal, following only after the Queen. 

It must be a huge relief for Harry, not to have to worry about who is the most popular. That's a reason alone for leaving. I can't imagine competing among my siblings and parents for public popularity.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Jackie3

[prayawaythefundie]

On 9/20/2023 at 12:45 AM, Jackie3 said:

There’s a subset of people who delight in pictures of Harry looking serious. Because that’s proof he is “sad.” And that’s a good thing, for some reason. They want him to be sad and they are happy if a serious photo comes along as “proof.” 

Don‘t you realise you are describing your very own behaviour when it comes to pictures of the Wales family?

Edited September 21, 2023 by prayawaythefundie

[prayawaythefundie]

On 9/20/2023 at 5:47 AM, viii said:

She spoke in past tense, and she wasn’t wrong. Until Harry stepped back as a senior royal, he was the second most popular royal, following only after the Queen. 

Why is he so upset then about Camilla allegedly gaining popularity at his expense or William allegedly being much more protected, If he was that popular?

[viii]

I don’t know why he’s so upset. Let me call him up and ask him?? 

I don’t think it matters how much the public loves you - if your family is throwing you to the wolves to protect another family member, it’s going to hurt. The outside world doesn’t know Harry but his family does and they chose to protect William over him. That’s going to sting for anyone. That’s my theory, anyway.