The Queen loves her Diamond Jubilee stained glass window

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 6:43 PM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Creating and installing a new work of art into a heritage building usually causes a hiccup or two. The Diamond Jubilee stained glass window officially unveiled today in Ottawa was no exception.

In the colourful window, installed just above the main Senate staircase in Parliament, Queen Victoria—the only other monarch beside Elizabeth to reach year No. 60 on the throne—is depicted looking to the right and catching the gaze of her great-great granddaughter, who looks leftward. Yet that is a view not usually seen of the Queen. Her official portrait always faces to the right on all currency.

The creators needed to ask her permission to flip her image. (She said yes.) They also got Elizabeth’s OK to show both queens wearing the diamond collet necklace and earrings worn by Victoria for her official 60th portrait in 1897, and by the Queen to her coronation in 1953. Their headpieces, however, are different: while Elizabeth II is depicted wearing the imaginary Canadian snowflake-and-maple leaf diadem, Victoria wears the diamond fringe tiara she donned so often during her reign.

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Up a tree a princess, down a Queen

By Patricia Treble - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 3:02 PM - 0 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

I’ve got bad news for you, Prime Minister. The King is dead.—Edward Ford, private secretary to King George VI

Bad news? The worst!—British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

Monday, Feb. 6, 2012 not only marks the 60^th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne; it’s also the anniversary of her beloved father’s sudden death; a tragic event that shocked both Britain and the Empire.

“His Majesty had ruled for 16 years and he was the figurehead for his subjects during one of their homeland’s darkest periods,” the BBC said. “As the news of the King’s death spread, shops, pubs, restaurants, cinemas and theatres closed, and some employers sent their upset workers home.” Nurses at St. Catharines General Hospital in Ontario discovered what happened when they exited the wards to investigate why the hospital was so suddenly quiet—the staff was crying in the corridors. Continue…

What will Kate wear now?

By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Danny Martindale/Getty Images

Royal Ascot has had its fill of the current less-is-best fashions. After years of hemlines creeping ever upward and hats shrinking into little more than feathered pompoms, the taste arbiters at Britain’s grandest racetrack are getting out rulers to enforce more conservative clothing requirements at the five days of racing in June that is Britain’s top social event.

Now fascinators, those tiny head-top confections so beloved by Kate, duchess of Cambridge, are strictly verboten—headpieces have to have at least a 10-cm base to be allowed into the exclusive invitation-only royal enclosure. In addition, all dresses and skirts are to be of “modest length, defined as falling just above the knee or longer.” Even tops and dresses concealed by jackets have new rules: they can’t be strapless, halter-neck or have a strap of less than 2.5 cm. And Ascot’s fashion police will also be casting their critical eyes over the men—cravats are banned, as are coloured bands on top hats and any shoe colour that isn’t black.

A regally busy year

By Patricia Treble - Monday, January 9, 2012 at 5:54 PM - 0 Comments

Ian Gavan/AP Photo

If 2011 sent royal watchers into a frenzy with six glittering weddings, Prince William and Kate’s smash tour of Canada plus a titillating scandal involving a sex club and, allegedly, Sweden’s king, then the events already crowding the 2012 calendar will send monarchists into orbit. Here are the top five happenings of the year:

1. Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee
The year-long celebrations to honour the sovereign’s 60 years on the throne promise to include some must-see events, including a 1,000-boat flotilla on the Thames and the lighting of 2012 beacons from one tip of Britain to the other. The country gets a four-day holiday in June for all the events, which will see millions lining the route to St. Paul’s Cathedral for a service of Thanksgiving. The last time a sovereign hit the big 60 was in 1897. Then Queen Victoria was so fat and unwell she remained seated in her carriage for a blessing at the cathedral. That’s not likely to happen with her über-healthy great-great-granddaughter. However, in a concession to her age—she’ll be 86 this year while Prince Philip will be 91—the regal couple is staying in Britain while the rest of the family will visit every realm country in the world, as well as some big Commonwealth republics.

2. Kate, year two
The duchess of Cambridge turns 30 today, a milestone she celebrated in advance on Sunday by attending the London premiere of Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse”–wrapped in a fabulous, floor-length lace gown by Alice Temperley–followed by “low-key and private” celebrations. London’s tabloids were taking turns guessing what William got for his wife. The latest had it being a watch–a very, very nice watch. There were also reports the Queen would give her a family tiara, though that will only be confirmed when she wears it in public. But so far, the royal family has kept everyone guessing.

After a massive debut in 2011—wedding, royal tour etc.—Kate’s expected to keep a much lower profile this year, so as to not overshadow the Queen. Expect a continuation of her ultra-neutral, ultra-simple fashion. As for a baby, the stork isn’t likely to come until after the summer’s Jubilee festivities and the London Olympics.

3. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s Ruby Jubilee
A cousin to most of Europe’s royal families, “Daisy,” as she’s been known since birth, celebrates 40 years on the throne this year. Not only is she beloved—her popularity stands at more than 80 per cent—but so is the monarchy itself, which Margrethe, who turns 72 in April, has done an enviably good job of modernizing. People like royals to act royal, but not too royal, and Denmark’s queen has figured out how to successfully walk that tightrope. Her dynasty is ancient—traced back to Gorm the ?—and the sovereign at times wears a crushing amount of historic jewelry. But she also has an artistic streak–she illustrated a Lord of the Rings edition; sketched sets and costumes for the 2009 film The Wild Swans, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale; and even designs some of her own clothes. And she is often seen doing her own shopping in Copenhagen.

And don’t expect her to abdicate any time soon to plunk her photogenic progeny, Crown Prince Frederik, and his equally glam wife, Mary, on the throne. Margrethe recently told the Danish daily Politiken, “My view has always been that it is an assignment that you have for life.”

4. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden’s upcoming bundle of joy
After a year marked by scandal gossip about her regal father’s alleged frequenting of sex clubs, along with revelations about her mother’s Nazi family secrets, the future queen will likely enjoy this year a lot better. In March she’s due to give birth to her first child, who, under Swedish law, will succeed Victoria on the throne.

5. Spain’s unsexy scandal
If there is a royal family guaranteed to have it rough in 2012, on the other hand, it is Spain’s. On Feb. 25 the king’s son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, the duke of Palma de Mallorca, is slated to appear before a judge over allegations of corruption. The husband of Infanta Cristina is under investigation for misusing fund given to his foundation to organize sporting events. Spanish papers allege he siphoned the money into his private businesses and it’s widely believed he’ll be criminally charged in the affair within months.

Monks with brooms fight in Jesus’ birthplace

By Patricia Treble - Friday, January 6, 2012 at 5:40 PM - 0 Comments

It was a spectacle that should put smiles on women’s faces: dozens of men fighting for the privilege to do housework. Yet in this case, it wasn’t a light-hearted holiday fracas but a religious contretemps, sparked in one of the holiest seasons, in the birthplace of Christ: Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

Some 100 Greek and Armenian Orthodox clerics attacked one another with brooms and fists while cleaning the 1,700-year-old church in the West Bank last week in advance of the Jan. 7 Orthodox Christmas (and after the Western Christmas). While the exact spark of the crisis is unknown, its origin can be traced back to a centuries-old system known as the Status Quo. Promulgated by the Ottoman Turks, who ruled Palestine from the 1500s to the First World War, it was meant to end physical battles over control of all of the area’s holy sites by preserving forever the existing rights of those Christian churches that occupied the buildings. So whoever dusted a particular area of floor, cleaned a specific chandelier or used a particular area on a particular feast day, owned that right forever.

While those rules have reduced the bloodshed, they also resulted in churches fiercely protecting their rights, since letting anyone take over a responsibility, however slight, resulted in the loss of ownership of that right. In 1853, a dispute involving a golden door key and whether Catholics could put a silver star over the manger escalated until several Orthodox monks were killed and Russia had the excuse it needed to start the Crimean War against Turkey. And in 2006, the Greeks were doing their traditional dusting of chandeliers in an Armenian-controlled part of the church when they tried to move their ladder from its mandated spot. “They had to know this was like waving a red rag in front of a bull,” Raymond Cohen, a professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, told Smithsonian magazine. Several clerics landed in hospital.

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Happy first royal Christmas holiday, Kate

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 7:21 AM - 0 Comments

(Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo)

For weeks leading up to Dec. 25, London’s papers have reported every little detail—real or imagined—about Kate’s first Christmas as a member of the royal family. For one, she had to pack a lot of luggage while staying at the Queen’s huge private estate in Norfolk. Katie Nicholl of the Mail on Sunday said the duchess of Cambridge “will need a casual outfit for breakfast, a smart outfit and a hat for the morning church service, a dress for lunch, a cocktail dress for early evening drinks and a full-length dress for the evening meal.” Then there was the debate on whether or not she’d take part in the annual shooting parties that are prominent, must-attend features on the royal holiday schedule. (The jury’s still out on whether she handled a gun or not.) Apparently her sister Pippa—who’s very sporty when she’s not wearing derrière enhancing bridesmaids dresses—was invited to keep Kate from getting too homesick for her family’s usual Christmas traditions.

Yet, in the end, the pressure on the newest royal was lifted in part due to the oldest member of the family: Prince Philip. When he was rushed to hospital on Dec. 23 with a blocked coronary artery, the media immediately swung its focus to the ailing 90-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Peter Sissons, the former BBC anchorman, told the Telegraph that the news sent the network into a tizzy, dusting off obits and black mourning outfits as “those who were working over this year’s holiday period lived in fear that the Duke might pop off on their shift.” Sissons should know. He was lambasted for not wearing a black tie when he announced the Queen Mother’s death in 2002.

As for Philip, the irascible consort put up with four nights in a hospital bed before being allowed back to Sandringham and the familiar routines of royal life. And if Kate got a break from all the attention, she also got a lesson in one inescapable fact of being a member of the house of Windsor: They never retire, but just keep going–and going and going.

Juan Carlos’s bad year

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

EPA/Keystone Press

This hasn’t been King Juan Carlos’s year. Since June, the Spanish monarch has had his right knee replaced, had surgery on his left Achilles, and suffered a black eye and injured nose after colliding with a door. However, all those health problems pale in comparison to an intensifying corruption scandal centred on his son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, that threatens to damage the monarchy itself.

Urdangarin is under investigation for allegedly siphoning millions from his non-profit foundation, the Nóos Institute, into private companies under his control. An Olympic handball player before being elevated to duke of Palma when he married the king’s younger daughter Infanta Cristina in 1997, Urdangarin headed the foundation from 2004 to 2006. As well, leaks from the prosecutor’s office in Palma, the capital of the Balearic Islands, state the institute charged inflated fees and prices on big public contracts to organize events in the region. Police have raided Urdangarin’s offices and removed documents. He’s expected to be named a formal suspect within weeks, with charges coming later.

Urdangarin broke his silence this week, telling the news agency EFE, “I deeply regret that [the accusations] are causing serious damage to the image of my family and the house of his majesty the king, who have nothing to do with my private activities.” His lawyer says “he is fully innocent.”

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Sexism and the Israeli military

By Patricia Treble - Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Israel’s defence minister and military chief of staff are in trouble for chauvinistic comments that were caught on tape. Last Tuesday, Ehud Barak and Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz were watching an army exercise when Barak jokingly asked where the “girls” were. Gantz responded the female soldiers were on break, that “they sing during their break”—meaning they don’t do it on duty. The comments touched a nerve because they were making light of an incident in September when religious male soldiers—who want more gender segregation in the military—walked out of a ceremony rather than listen to female soldiers sing.

Adding to the alarm was Gantz’s reaction when he realized the comments were recorded. He warned the journalists not to air the comments, cautioning Nir Dvori of Channel 2 that “otherwise this will be your last story.” Soon, however, the online news site Ynet broke the story. Gantz later apologized.

While the two Israelis thought their gaffes might stay secret, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera had no such luck at a conference in Mexico where he “joked” that “when a lady says ‘No,’ she means ‘Maybe,’ when she says ‘Maybe,’ she means ‘Yes,’ and if she says ‘Yes,’ she’s not a lady.’”

‘Downton Abbey’ makes a scene

By Patricia Treble - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Nick briggs

It’s a cultural touchstone in Britain and a ratings hit in the United States, yet the socially stratified, angst-ridden world that is Downton Abbey nearly didn’t make it to air. In 2007, a project that executive producer Gareth Neame was working on with writer Julian Fellowes had stalled. But Neame had another idea: “a new episodic TV series set above and below stairs in an English country house in the Edwardian era with a big cast of characters.”

However, the writer was reluctant to sign on because he had used a similar “upstairs-downstairs” concept in the movie Gosford Park (2001), won an Oscar for the screenplay and didn’t think lightning would strike twice. Neame, who has a reputation for successfully rethinking old TV concepts, didn’t believe anyone else “would write it with such affection and confidence.”

Fortunately Fellowes was reading a book about rich American girls who married poor Victorian aristocrats. He spent the next few weeks turning that concept into a series.

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Canada’s most dangerous city: Prince George

By Ken MacQueen and Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 5:58 AM - 0 Comments

Most days, after Doug Leslie is back from work at the molybdenum mine in tiny Fraser Lake, B.C., he sits at his computer and writes a chatty little note to his 15-year-old daughter Loren. It’s a catch-up on the day, and maybe a bleat about those times he pulls the night shift, or about the cold of a northern B.C. winter, or about how quickly days fly by now that he shoulders the destiny Loren has inspired. “Loren, can you do anything about this weather?” he asked her recently. “It’s snowing and I hate winter, it’s cold and damp, and you are not here to warm up the room.” Invariably, he tells Loren how much he misses her, before signing off, “Love Dad.”

The notes grew increasingly plaintive as Nov. 27 approached. The pills weren’t helping him sleep, and the gulf separating father from daughter seemed impossibly wide, although he’d like to believe she reads every one of his messages. “That has been my sanity,” he says of his missives to a daughter who will forever be 15. Nov. 27 was the first anniversary of her murder.

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Lingua Franca

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:10 PM - 0 Comments

Bunga bunga: The nickname for wild sex parties hosted by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi at his villa.

CarmagedDon: A traffic jam of Biblical proportions predicted for Los Angeles when a crucial stretch of the 405 highway closed for roadwork.

Clouds: Where IT is parking its applications and storing data and backup files. Now software, like Word, isn’t loaded onto each computer but is accessible to all via the Internet. Lovely, until the connection goes down.

Glitter bombing: Protesters like throwing glitter on GOP candidates such as Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann because it’s a snap to conceal, easy to handle and difficult to remove.

SlutWalk: After a Toronto cop said “women should avoid dressing like sluts” in order not to be attacked, rallies sprang up around the world protesting the “blame the victim” message.

Tiger mom: Yale law professor and author Amy Chua’s term for her strict parenting style: no complaints, no grades less than A, no TV, no play dates.

The tail end of the news

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 5:40 PM - 0 Comments

Neil Sands/AFP/Getty Images

The scenic route

An emperor penguin with a serious lack of direction ended up 3,000 km off course in New Zealand. After recovering from eating beach sand—mistaken for snow—Happy Feet was returned to the ocean 700 km south of New Zealand. “Once he hit the water,” vet Lisa Argilla said, “he spared no time in diving off away from the boat and all those ‘aliens’ who have been looking after him.”

Unbearably cute

A month after Knut died in a German zoo, the “adorable polar bear” title was awarded to a three-month-old found wandering alone by Alaskan oil workers. After gaining weight and a cute name—Qannik, which means “snowflake” in the local Inupiat language—the bear was flown to a zoo in Louisville, Ky., for a future of fish and photo ops.

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Entrances: Pippa Middleton

By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

(Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

It seemed like the world collectively gasped when they got their first peek of Pippa Middleton as she arrived to her sister Kate’s wedding to Prince William at Westminster Abbey. First there was the plunging neckline in the front of her maid-of-honour dress, an Alexander MacQueen couture creation. Then she turned around.

The ultra-slim fitting gown was positively jaw-dropping from behind, at least for the male half of the species, as a row of covered buttons ended provocatively exactly at her perfectedly proportioned derriere. Every sashay—ordinary steps were impossible—and each graceful stoop to pick up Kate’s train guaranteed Pippa a place in tabloid immortality.

Christened the new “it girl” and instantly recognizable by just her first name, Pippa has been under the media microscope ever since that day in April. Every day photographers waited to snap her picture as she walked to work—Pippa edits an online magazine for her family’s party goods business and holds down a part-time job as an event planner in London—or went out to one of the many social events that populate her busy calendar.

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MACLEANS’ OTHER NEWSMAKERS OF 2011

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The (other) royal weddings of 2011

By Patricia Treble - Friday, December 2, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Acapulco: where inmates run the prison

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments

Prisoners at Acapulco’s penitentiary didn’t have time to clean house when more than 500 Mexican police officers paid their residence an unannounced pre-dawn visit last week in order to move 60 inmates to other correctional facilities. In addition to 100 plasma TVs, video games and two bags stuffed with marijuana, the officials also discovered 19 prostitutes, two peacocks and six female inmates in the men’s section. As if the place wasn’t crowded enough, more than 100 cockerels, used for popular cockfights, were found on the premises, as well as two peacocks—described as “pets” by Guerrero state spokesman Arturo Martinez.

Acapulco is in the midst of a violent crime wave as rival drug gangs battle for control of the area. Recently, a human rights commission accused the prison, along with others in the state, of being controlled by inmates. It isn’t alone. In July, detainees in the Cereso Hermosillo jail in Sonora state were caught selling $15 raffle tickets for a one-in-200 chance of using a cell fitted out with air conditioning, a full kitchen including appliances, as well as a comfortable bed and even a private toilet.

Pippa’s got the look

By Patricia Treble - Friday, November 18, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

SAV/FilmMagic/GETTY

Every day that Pippa Middleton goes to her office in London, she runs a gauntlet of photographers eager to snap her picture. Because her older sister Kate, a.k.a. HRH the duchess of Cambridge, is often secluded on a rainy Welsh island with her husband or behind palace walls getting a private introduction to royal life, it is Pippa who bears the brunt of tabloid fascination, something she does with the trademark Middleton silence and polite smile.

While the public is curious about her love life (the latest rumour has her breaking up with boyfriend Alex Loudon) and her work in the party planning sector (reports are swirling that a publisher wants to hand her $1.5 million for a book on the subject), those areas are dwarfed by interest in her clothes. That hasn’t diminished since she wore that plunging, form-fitting bridesmaid dress at her sister’s wedding to Prince William.

Interestingly, while big sister mixes the occasional inexpensive outfit—such as a $300 Reiss dress to chat with the Obamas at Buckingham Palace—into her increasingly high-end fashion rotation, Pippa eschews couture houses and instead buys the bulk of her daywear in the affordable retail stores that dot the main streets and malls of almost every country in the world, including Zara, French Connection and H&M.

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REVIEW: Catherine The Great

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

She wasn’t Russian and never expected to be monarch of a vast, northern empire. Yet Catherine oversaw Russia’s golden age, a time of strategic conquests and cultural blossoming. Her generals captured Crimea and opened up the Black Sea to Russian shipping. She bought so many Old Masters that she built the Hermitage to house them. She read voraciously, and corresponded with the likes of Voltaire and Diderot. And she had time for affairs of the heart, churning through a string of lovers.

Massie has written a biography as captivating as its subject. Born Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729, the daughter of a minor German prince, she was sent east at 14, converted to the Orthodox religion, had her name changed to Catherine, and was wed to the heir to the Russian throne. It was a disaster. Husband Peter’s early upbringing in Germany had been so violent that he grew up to be “fearful, deceitful, antagonistic, boastful, cowardly, duplicitous and cruel.” He loathed Catherine. The couple never had sex. All of her children were fathered by lovers.

While Peter loved all things German and hated everything Russian, Catherine fell in love with her adopted land, and, in turn, the insular nation fell in love with her. That affection was crucial after Peter acceded to the throne in 1762. He so alienated Russia’s elite that there was no resistance when Catherine and her lover Gregory Orlov masterminded a coup. During her 34-year reign she turned Russia into a great power. Yet she hated anyone calling her by that adjective. In 1788 she wrote to a friend: “I beg you no longer to call me Catherine the Great, because . . . my name is Catherine II.”

The German Pirate Party’s flagging sails

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Carsten Rehder/AFP/Getty Images

No one expected Germany’s Pirate Party to win representation in Berlin’s state parliament. Yet their campaign, which included a platform advocating a quixotic mix of data protection, a guaranteed minimum income and legalized marijuana, appealed to disillusioned voters who rewarded it with nine per cent of the vote.

Now, however, the past activities of some members are casting shadows over the Pirate Party’s move onto the national political stage. At least two members, including a regional chairman, have been ID’d as former members of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which has been labelled by German intelligence as a “racist, anti-Semitic” entity that wants to create a Fourth Reich. (One later resigned.)

In addition, women complain that the party, which claims to be “post-gender,” is overwhelmingly populated by men. So far, party officials have shrugged off all the criticisms. As leader Sebastian Nerz told Der Spiegel, “We grew out of the Internet scene, and that happens to be dominated by men.”

Bombs on the beach

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Nudists should watch where they sunbathe on the Isle of Sheppey, off the south coast of England. After local officials discovered 26 munitions, such as an anti-submarine depth charge, on the naturist beach, bomb disposal experts of the Royal Navy were called in to sweep the area in October for other hidden explosives. In two days they pulled another 61 bombs, including high-explosive mortar shells, from the beach, which certainly lived up to its nickname of Shellness.

The area near the beach was a bombing range until 1937, and then an aircraft gunnery range during the Second World War, reports the local Sheppey Gazette. While the size of the haul caught officials off guard, bombs wash onto British beaches with regularity. Centuries of naval battles and ship sinkings have left the nation’s coastal waters so littered with unexploded munitions that Royal Navy disposal teams are on duty 365 days of the year. They’re likely to be back to the Isle of Sheppey. Though none of the recent haul of bombs is believed to come from the SS Richard Montgomery, which sank nearby during the Second World War, the wreck is still a threat. The munitions ship was carrying 1,400 tonnes of explosives.

The disappearing Duchess

By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 13 Comments

Danny Martindale/FilmMagic/Getty Images

William and Kate’s appearance last Thursday at the Royal Marsden hospital was the most ordinary of royal engagements. The duke and duchess of Cambridge opened a new children’s cancer centre. It’s the sort of duty that royalty undertake every day. Yet the visit was accorded superstar treatment by the world’s media, largely because it was just the second public engagement for the couple since completing their tour of Canada and America on July 10.

So an event that lasted a few hours generated stories well past the weekend—he’d pulled a 24-hour shift as a search and rescue pilot in Wales before rushing to the Surrey hospital, her engagement ring vanished during the visit! (She’d removed it and washed her hands before meeting patients with low immunity.) WhatKateWore.com, a site devoted to Kate’s fashion, saw its visitors on Thursday jump from an average of 8,000 a day to more than 20,000.

While gossips postulate Kate’s seclusion is because she’s either pregnant with twins or depressed because she’s too thin to conceive, the reason is more prosaic: it’s a long-term strategy by the royal household to ease her into a life of duty and unceasing attention by a curious world. Earlier this year, Judy Wade, the royal editor of Hello!, said, “We were told she’s not going to do much in the way of official engagements at all in the first few years because they want the marriage to work and they want her to have a gentle introduction into royal life.” (The recent royal tour is seen as a one-off variation from that plan.)

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The rehabilitation of Wallis Simpson

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 3 Comments

John Rawlings/Conde Nast Archive/Corbis; EOne Films

What a difference a year makes. At last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Wallis Simpson was portrayed in The King’s Speech as a vulgar Yankee huntress who’d so bewitched Edward VIII that the handsome king chucked everything to be with her. This year another film about those pivotal events in 1936 was centre stage at TIFF, but this time, in Madonna’s W.E., the twice-divorced American is a vulnerable woman whose love for Edward sparked only jealousy and outrage from his family. The new Wallis-friendly attitude is a sea change for a woman reviled to mythic extremes for decades—she was a Nazi! A lesbian! A man! A prostitute! In The King’s Speech, the monarch’s fascination for her is attributed to “certain skills, acquired in an establishment in Shanghai.” It was “a terrible portrayal,” recalls Hugo Vickers, a historical adviser on the Oscar-winning movie. (Obviously, some of his suggestions were ignored.)

W.E., for which Vickers also gave advice, isn’t alone in re-evaluating “that woman” as the 75th anniversary (in December) of the abdication approaches. Two new biographies, including Behind Closed Doors by Vickers, present Simpson in a sympathetic light. The new tone can be partly explained by the fact that the passage of time, and decades of royal scandals, have softened once harsh attitudes. New interviews and documents have also cast her motives and actions in a more favourable light. “I can’t believe that such a thing could have happened to two people who got along so well,” she wrote plaintively to her second husband, Ernest, about their marriage shortly after the abdication, in a previously unpublished letter. Far from an uncaring woman who’d flung off her spouse, she was in fact full of regret: “It never should have been like it is now.”

The abdication story still fascinates, largely because it is so unique. “No man ever gave up so much for one woman,” says Vickers, who’s written about the couple for nearly four decades. “And we don’t understand why. These things don’t happen normally.” Simpson was and still is “a very provocative character,” Madonna said at TIFF. “She is also a mysterious and enigmatic creature, not conventionally beautiful, not young, twice divorced.”

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Leave home—or we’ll sue

By Patricia Treble - Monday, October 3, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 0 Comments

Shooing adult kids out of the family nest can be stressful for parents. One Venetian couple is so frustrated by their freeloading 41-year-old son that they’ve taken the unusual step of siccing a lawyer on him. “We can no longer go on like this,” the unnamed father complained to Andrea Campi, their lawyer from a local consumers’ right association, who then told Italian media. “He has a good job but still lives at home. He demands that his clothes be washed and ironed and his meals prepared. He really has no intention of leaving.” Life has gotten so desperate, the father said, “my wife is suffering from stress and had to be hospitalized.”

The son has been served with a legal letter telling him to move pronto—otherwise the parents will go to court. He isn’t alone in being reluctant to leave home. Italy’s National Institute of Statistics reports that nearly half of all adult offspring under the age of 40 still live with their parents. It’s partly because many work on short-term contracts and can’t find permanent positions, but also fussing mothers have raised a generation of mammone (mummy’s boys), dependent on such dedicated, and free, 24/7 housekeeping service. Even a cabinet minister, Renato Brunetta, admits his mother made his bed until he was 30.

Calling all geishas

By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 8:35 AM - 0 Comments

Sankei/Getty Images

Shimoda wants more geishas. Three decades ago, the seaside tourist resort had 200 working in its tea houses. Now only five part-time professionals remain. Worried that the traditional art was in peril, the Japanese city, located around 130 km southwest of Tokyo, is spending around $70,000 worth of government employment subsidies to recruit and train three new geishas. They want to bolster tourism as well as ensure the centuries-old skills are passed down to another generation. “I am grateful for the support,” Tsuyako Kashiwaya, a spokesperson for the city’s geisha management office, told Asahi.com. “I hope the project will contribute to Shimoda’s revitalization.”

The successful applicants will be paid around $400 a week for six months to sing epic songs and learn classic dances, how to play musical instruments, and the delicate art of conversation. Tourists will even be allowed to observe the five-day-a-week lessons, which will take place in a historic building. After all the lessons are complete the geishas will perform regional dances and songs at cultural events. Asahi.com reports that a local favourite is Tojin Okichi (Okichi, mistress of a foreigner).

Giving up to a U.S. invader in France

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

John Lawrence/The Travel Library/CP

The canopy of plane trees that guard the banks of France’s Canal du Midi have created such scenic vistas that UNESCO calls it a “work of art.” Now that beauty is under threat by an invasive fungus in what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls “a great tragedy.”

For five years, officials have tried to contain Ceratocystis platani—believed to have arrived on wooden American ammunition boxes during the Second World War—by cutting and burning diseased trees plus the surrounding healthy ones. But the disease kept spreading along the historic canal, a 360-km network of waterways built in the 17th century to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic.

Now France has admitted defeat. It will fell all 40,000 trees. The chopping and replanting with resistant varieties, costing an estimated $300 million, will be carried out gradually to avoid leaving bald spots on the waterway’s banks. However, it will be decades, if not centuries, before the new trees are mature enough to recreate the magical views.