Here is the cover of this week’s People Magazine. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are either very lucky or they’re geniuses when it comes to sleight of hand. People is using the photos the Cambridges released of Prince George a week ago, and the story is all about how George is super-cute and la de da beautiful family… and the story came out before anyone knew that William and Kate flew off for yet another secret holiday. Who can complain about Work-Shy Will and Cathy when you’re looking at George’s cute face, right? Here are some highlights from People’s story:
George is becoming more confident: “He’s a little boy now,” a close family friend tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “A proper little chap!”
Preschool: He attends preschool three mornings a week at Westacre Montessori, and he apparently loves it. His classmates just call him “George.”
Kate encourages George to talk to people: During a recent visit to a café in Norfolk near the family’s country home, “Kate said to George, ‘Ask the nice lady what you would like to have,’ ” a local tells People. “George said, ‘Excuse me nice lady, but can I have . . . ‘ and pointed to a cake on the counter. Then George sat down with Kate to eat his cake with a fruit juice,” adds the source about the mum-and-son excursion to Fakenham Garden Centre.
He eats healthy breakfasts & likes to chat with construction workers: Breakfast at home usually consists of cereal with sliced bananas on top. On walks into the village with nanny Maria Turrion Borallo and 15-month-old sister Princess Charlotte, he’s happy to chat with construction workers and even use their digging equipment.
George’s country life might end soon. People Mag says George “will likely be pulled away from the quiet rural life that parents Princess Kate and Prince William wish for him and sister Princess Charlotte, 15 months… it is likely that William and Kate will start to take on an ever-increasing number of royal duties.”
Will & Kate feel like they can barely work right now: The royal parents understand that as long as there are “three generations of royals doing public duties,” as a friend tells PEOPLE, there is less pressure on them. “The difference will come when they have to spend more time in London” as the Queen and her husband Prince Philip, 95, cut back on their public duties, the friend adds.
When Charles becomes king: “The moment that [Prince] Charles becomes king, it is over,” says royal historian Robert Lacey. “William will definitely have to come down to London and Kate too.”
This is what pissed me off: “The royal parents understand that as long as there are ‘three generations of royals doing public duties,’ as a friend tells PEOPLE, there is less pressure on them.” Actually, no. Charles has indicated over the past few years especially that he wants William, Kate and Harry to start taking on more of the Duchy of Cornwall/Prince of Wales-duties so he can act more as the co-regent or shadow king. Charles has a crazy schedule these days because he’s more active than ever in his mother’s work, plus he’s picking up the slack from the Cambridges who are just flitting around Norfolk and various vacation hotspots. And before all of the Cambridge-defenders come in here and say that Will and Kate have the right to raise their kids away from London… sure, they do. And if they choose to continue living this way, then they need to stop taking taxpayer money. They are public figures and, more than that, de facto public servants.
William previously talked around the idea that he might move back to London when his EAAA contract is done (next year), but I seriously doubt it. I doubt the Cambridges will do anything until A) the money spigot it turned off and threats are made and B) the Queen tells them off.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Kensington Palace, People Mag.
Rolling my eyes. If they actually engaged in their work they may be surprised to find it is quite rewarding and personally enriching.
They are so so gross to me. Their only job is to do charity work and they can’t be bothered, meanwhile they live off taxpayer money. If I were British I think I’d be pretty much done with the monarchy.
I had a dream about them last night! That Harry and Kate were caught kissing and in love stateside; that I had found the pictures but ensured them I wouldn’t publish them and they would be destroyed, but that Normal Bill found out and was coming for us and we had to hide! No idea where it came from!
I bet Kate would love to make out with Harry. She lights up around him the same way she does with Sir Ben 😀
Well, I suppose nobody could ever accuse them of age discrimination given that they aren’t trying to shove a 95 year old out of any job duties.
I expect George will be doing appearances of his own soon that will surpass the “efforts” of both parents
hahaha!
They should perform some duties with their children. Not only would that make them more comfortable with photographers and public attention, but give them a taste of their role and future. Other Royal Houses have been doing this for years.
I have to wonder – most kids go through some sort of rebellion stage, even small ones. Is George going to become a workaholic teenager, showing up at events that he doesn’t NEED to go to, and engaging with charities on his personal time? Because that would be great.
Other than that, all I’ve got is that I still can’t get over how freaking cute that kid is.
I have often wondered that about what his rebellious stage will be like.
LOL!
I hope Harry marries a woman with more sense and a strong work ethic. That will make Kate step up her game because she is very competitive, and people will be able to tell the difference between a lazy woman and someone who works and does her duty.
Very possible but given how Kate and ghe Middletons play dirty her name will be blackened in press via the Fail – a Middleton friend tabloid. Am pretty sure the they were behind some of the negative stories on Chelsy and Cressida, both of whom put Kate to shame in many ways
There is only so long they can pull that crap before it backfires or someone in the BRF puts their foot down and puts a stop to it. They cannot keep trashing their future sister-in-law forever, and the fact is, most of the public is wise to it now, and frankly not so “keen” on Normal Bill and Kathy, so if they try to shame Harry’s future wife for actually working, that will backfire BIG TIME.
Izzy: She may not be the best example, but they did it to Fergie.
Many editors have admitted that they deliberately created the terrible Fergie image, using the most unfortunate pictures and language possible.
By the time Fergie did something to truly deserve her bad reputation, the damage was done. It was fertile ground already prepped.
That attitude clouds any public reception of her where anything she does can never be given benefit of doubt.
My own comment here starts with an acknowledgement that asks for a fair hearing before i start on my example because Fergie has been cemented in the public consciousness as a terribly worthless individual.
Ditto her daughters. Who do work, don’t do anything to offend the public, but articles are always written coached in very negative language no matter what the girls do. The public responds in kind.
“It is likely that William and Kate will start to take on an ever-increasing number of royal duties.” *dies laughing*
This has been said for the past 5 years. It is always their PR saying “they will someday” and someday never comes.
Laugh of the day!
@ Ann : Yes, that one got me too!
In what century?
People Magazine covered all bases for Prince George: polite, but approachable, talking to his future subjects, preferably the mere construction workers, nothing snobby (will come later perhaps). He is going to be better than his parents, the new hope I guess.
I still remember the times the same subjects wanted to skip Prince Charles and give the crown to William.
George looks like a cute little boy but it’s too early to say how he’ll turn out. I think his father was brought up to be polite too and that helped him only up to a point.
Yes, have to wonder if they have been reading all the good press about Sweden’s Princess Estelle. She doesn’t seem afraid of the public and has been seen to shake hands on walkabouts.
J’adore Estelle.
At least they are learning; this time they hid their insult of working parents under cute anecdotes about George
+1
I have to admit that “Excuse me nice lady” got me!! But, yeah, they’re useless.
haha – poor Jason learned from that one.
Cute kid.
Monarchies are useless and unnecessary.
Instead of voting for Brexit and shoving their economy through the toilet even further Brits should have focused their efforts on abolishing the royal family.
Maybe Will and Kate will be even more useless and clueless in the coming years and people will finally come to their senses.
Great suggestion, but the Brits are too dumb to do it…
Yeah, those dumb Brits, Swedes, Belgians, Spaniards, Norwegians, Danes, Japanese,Thais, Jordanians…they need to get a grip and do it your way. *eye roll*
Monarchies are the last remaining relic of the shameful pasts of every single country you mentioned.
They’re more trouble than they’re worth and they promote inequality.
Much more could be said but alas a Saturday with my family awaits.
It reads like another “Pity W&K” article. Their poor children, pulled away from the quiet rural life (and holidays in French ski resorts and Biarritz) by the evil royal family. The one that W&K insist support their decision to be the laziest royals on record. All the BRF have country homes where they live quietly with their kids. This hasn’t stopped the rest of them working 3-5 times the engagements of W&K.
I don’t expect them to move to London until Fall 2017 earliest. Or I can see them not enrolling him at Wetherby, but choosing a private school near Anmer instead.
Charles has taken on the managing of Balmoral and Sandringham from his father, plus things from his mother. I cannot see either Camilla or KM taking over estate management as Prince Philip has done for decades.
We’ve seen evidence of Harry working for The Duchy even though it is William’s job. For PR reasons, Harry cannot have higher engagement numbers than William. As long as William refuses to work more, Harry’s work will be artificially limited.
Harry is his own man. His work is not controlled by William as clearly evidenced by Invitus and Sentebale.
Nota is referring to official royal duties.
Megan, what gets in to the CC and the final numbers in the CC are completely controlled by the BRF. This is why they started monkeying with KM’s numbers, counting meetings that don’t count for anyone else, because the CC numbers are watched and hers were so low.
If Harry had more official engagements in the CC tally than William, there would be PR hell to pay. Harry gets flack for having lower engagement numbers, but his numbers will always be officially lower than William’s. Cover the heir’s bum again.
Harry works rings around his older brother, official or private work, but it doesn’t show up in the media or in the CC. As LAK said, that’s “official royal duties”. Invictus is mostly private (although the event itself might have counted as “1” in the CC), MOD volunteering is private, Sentebale is private. If everything he does for those was counted, he’d be 2×3 times William’s numbers easy.
Good point about the country homes. Edward and Sophie don’t live in London but manage to do their duties. William and Harry as kids lived at both Kensington Palace and Highgrove. But Will and Kate deliberately picked Anmer for remoteness and to serve as their leave-us-alone Anglesey part deux hideaway, maybe they should have picked somewhere more convenient to London?
Notasugarhere – really great points. I wondered why Harry’s weekly visits to veterans wasn’t counted, thought it had to do with the press not being invited for privacy. But I think you are onto the real reason, he can’t upstage/outnumber W&K engagements . Ugh. So glad he presses on anyway.
‘chat with construction workers and even use their digging equipment.’ Seriously?
IKR. I bet the *workers* really look forward to Little Lord Fauntleroy stopping by their site every day just to chat and play with their equipment. Their parents need to just STAHP with using this kid as their promotional tool while they’re so busy NOT working.
Dollars to doughnuts there will be a workplace safety investigation as to his proximity to the work site and what the hell is meant by he’s using their digging equipment. Someone’s going to get sh*t for the latter.
I wonder if there’s a little bit of exaggeration with this claim, especially playing with the work equipment. This is not Lego Construction Land.
This is so beautiful! Wee George will be “pulled away” from this quiet, idyllic life because evil forces demand that his parents work for a living.
What a horrific fate.
pulled away from his quiet rural life? he is three years old. he is not going to notice the difference…
My take away was the eyeroll inducing confirmation that his classmates call him George. What are they supposed to call him? Is it surprising that they aren’t grovelling and HRH-ing him? Was that truly an expectation worthy of a mention?
Mine too!
I predict they will spin it out in Norfolk until it’s time for prep proper when George is 7. Then it’ll be back to London, where they will STILL be trying to avoid all things dutiful. Can’t imagine what form the excuses might take but excuses there will be.
I’m thinking at least one more baby will provide the excuse to stay in Norfolk until George is 7. Then Kate will be a busy mom of three … we’re all familiar with their excuses.
You have more faith (ha!) Than i do on timeframes.
I’ve always predicted that they will stay away from royal duties until the last child is of boarding school age aka 7/8yrs. And in the service of avoiding duties, that means staying in Norfolk because they are too easily monitored by the Palace and Public in London.
If Kate has the predicted 3rd child before G and C are boarding school age, they’ll extend their stay until that child nears boarding school age.
Either way, they won’t start ‘working’ until early 40s unless something major forces them to work.
That said, by the time thry start working, they will have created an expectation of not working and so will carry on with that policy until they abdicate early because it’s all been so so hard and how dare we expect someone 50yrs old and older to work.
They’ll abdicate on grounds of Middle age abuse – any one who thinks they’ll work into OAP territory is deluded because they won’t work that long.
This is all presuming that the monarchy lasts. With any luck – as well as common sense, and the volatile nature of the world – the House of Windsor will be retired. One third of a billion pounds each and every year can be directed to the well being of UK people rather than to one family. William and Kate can live out their useless days in Norfolk and keep cadging freebies from whoever is silly enough to provide them.
I laughed out loud at that, too! Like should they call him “Your Majesty”?
And poor Will and Kate – they must feel so left out because the 90 and 95 year olds want to do 400 events a year between them!!!
I’m not buying it. After a recent visit to the Queen, Kate did a few events with her hair up and skirt down. I think if Philip dies before the Queen, she’s going to mostly retire and that will make them have to do more. But there will just be more excuses then.
I mean, can you imagine the Queen going out to work as a widowed 90 something, while Will and Kate chill in Norfolk or on vacation because they want to be “normal.” There’s something genuinely not psychologically right about them to be that selfish while two 90 something year olds continue to work.
I could see if they were absolute monarchy like Jordan,Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Lesotho hell but even they have to do government and charity work then they could be lazy bitches but they don’t have so get ass up and go to work . If I were British this would be the end of the monarchy!!!! Rant over
William and Kate are the only people I’ve heard of who can’t handle parenting and holding down a job at the same time.
Cue the pregnancy so they can drag it out another five or so years. It seems painfully obvious that William would prefer his life the way it is so why not step aside and let Harry take the role. I actually think it would be better for everyone involved. Harry is better suited to interact with the public.
But Harry does not want to be King.
So doen’t Will.
I think instead that Harry finds becoming king rather tempting, but he’ s aware he can’ t unless his brother decides himself to step aside.
IMO Harry won’ t ever admit publically he wants to be king because of the respect he has towards his brother.
Yet Harry is much more fit for the role than these useless two
Your right @lily, I think he will be King in the future. Maybe it was his destiny all along like Queen Elizabeth II’s destiny to be Queen.
There ARE several historical precedents where the 2nd born ascends the throne. More than you may think.
QE II being the beneficiary of the most recent instance.
Heck, Victoria was 6th in line. Both the Queen’s father and grandfather were 2nd sons.
I am uncomfortable with a small child being on the cover of a tabloid telling us about all the “details” of his time in preschool. Really weird to me.
I understand however I presume you didn’t live through Diana-mania and the coverage of William and Harry’s childhood. You see, by comparison there is much less info from the Cambridges which is fine by me since I hope the British Monarchy ends with the death of HM.
I had, like several others, much hope and goodwill towards W&K upon the engagement announcement back in 2010 and I tried to be forgiving of Charles and Camilla, but it all just seems too much, especially in a world where govts across the globe are increasingly cold and in some cases, completely out of control with regard to corruption. HM should be known as the last and Best British Monarch of all time and rightly so.
They do not sell themselves based on talent or merit. They sell themselves or a version of themselves. In order for that to succeed, they have to create an emotional connection with the public.
These little anecdotes are designed to do just that. He can’t show up as an unknown 18yr old ( personality-wise) and hope to persuade the public that royalty is a good thing and that he is the best option in his role. It’s a lifelong trick every monarch uses on the public to keep the entire edifice going.
I understand your point LAK and as far as George’s personality as an adult I hope he’s much like his grandfather Mike Middleton (he already looks much like him IMO), if as I suspect, the British Monarchy will survive Charles and William though Charles Spencer doesn’t believe it will survive another 100 years.
In any event, I find Mike Middleton to be the least offensive of the Middletons. He’s intelligent, hard working, charismatic and good looking.
I find him a cipher. He’s either cowed by his domineering wife or fully on-board with their shenanigans. Neither is a good look.
I agree, notasugarhere. I believe he as complicit, if not more so, than his reptilian wife. The Middleton family is a united phalanx. I am suspicious of Michael. I am suspicious of their alleged business expertise too.
If the main people in that “Firm” who’s opinion mean anything had a problem with Will and Kate’s schedule then it would be changed. I pay taxes in my country as well and it doesn’t mean I get to dictate how the President of my country and his wife raise THEIR kids.
It seems to me that if anything William and Kate are benefiting from the mistakes made before them. The Queen wasn’t in a position (or perhaps didn’t consider it a priority) to be a hands on parent) being she became Queen at an early age. Most future Kings snd Queens main complaint is usually having had absentee parents or being raised mostly by nannies. So I have no issue with them wanting to spend as much time raising and being around their own kids, especially from Kates point of view. You don’t get those years back. They have the whole rest of their lives to take on more royal work.
EXCUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll bet the taxpaying working parents appreciate the idea that they should be away from their kids working hard to support these two lazies, because W&K are too precious to both work and raise kids. According to W&K’s PR (and you?), working parents are evil.
All of the other royal parents have managed to raise kids, be engaged and active parents, live in the country, and work rings around W&K. “Full-time” royal week is still less than 20 hours per week with 3 months of vacation. Any stories to the contrary is PR from W&K who are busy bashing working parents while pretending to be SAHP.
If W&K cannot figure out how to work 20 hours a week and be engaged parents, they are free to walk away, leave all the perks behind, get out of the line, and go live like normal private people. As long as they take massive perks for working royals, they have to be working royals NOW.
The royals have stated, and their staff have, that royals all set their own schedules. Many of them have also stated that the Queen let’s you make your own mistakes. You’re supposed to try, figure it out, and she’s there for you when you need help or counsel.
Philip put out a public plea to be able to slow down in an interview. William’s response was to get a job at EAAA. HM has recently let out public stories and video about how she was a loving and connected mother. They fight these ridiculous stories from W&K’s camp their own way. But HM is an ostrich. She doesn’t act until things are beyond the point of no return. The recent forcing of an air force patronage onto KM is an example of HM finally getting fed up and doing something.
Wow, and until then they continue to live high on the hog, courtesy of the tax payers, and a lot of folks can’t afford to turn the lights on much less the heat during the winter !!! sooner rather than later the Brits are gonna rebel, only look at their french neighbors with Marie A, they are lucky they would never chop off their heads, but threaten to take away their perks,and they might straighten up !!!!!
He won’t care as long as he is with mummy and daddy.
He won’t care as long as he is with Nanny Maria.
Correct!
“Kate encourages George to talk to people” Yes, very funny. The blind leads blind. She sat 10 years at home, doesn’t have any friends, she is trying to do as less as possible now. And George acts absolutely like his parents, all the time bored, at park, at that aviashow, too much photo where he has aggressive or not interested look. What Kate may teach, of cause- tell what you WANT, GIVE IT TO ME FOR FREE, I’m YOUR PRINCE! Something like that. Yes she can.