Rage against the dying of the light

By Julia McKinnell - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Redux

Anger and annoyance are often dirty little secrets for women whose husbands are terminally ill. Sometimes the wife is furious at her husband for smoking and causing his own cancer. At other times she is riled when she has to clean up after him because he won’t wear adult diapers, viewing them as “babyish and feminine.”

In The Caregiving Wife’s Handbook, author and widow Diana Denholm urges wives to write down everything that upsets them as the first step in the process toward fewer fights and more peace.

“Nothing that affects you is off-limits to your list. Whether it is a toilet seat that stays up, disrespectful behaviour, or crumbs in the bed: if it bothers you, it should be on your list.” Denholm, whose partner was diagnosed with colon cancer a month after he proposed to her, illustrates with examples from the women she interviewed. “Cathy” wrote: “What I hate most is when I’m trying to fix him a meal, he gets in my way. Then something falls or spills and he has a fit and he threatens to pack a bag and move out. Sometimes, I wish he would move out!” Later, the same woman writes, “Gee, what am I supposed to do about the smell? His bedroom has such a smell—it makes me sick to go in to help him. Yes, he’s got a colostomy bag, but he has the strength to get up and take care of himself.” On her list, “Fran” wrote: “I pray his death will be peaceful. But I really need to know when he’ll die. Yes, I feel guilty about wanting this to be over. But how much more can I take?”

Continue…

Young, divorced and stigmatized

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Wedding season can be demanding, no matter how great the parties or how happy the couples. For Malik, a 26-year-old from Oshawa, Ont., who attended three weddings this summer, it was especially tough because he was keeping a secret from his friends. At an age when many of them are settling down, he’s in the process of separating from his wife. Soon, he’ll be divorced. “It is really isolating. I still haven’t told everybody,” says Malik, who asked that his real name not be used so friends wouldn’t learn of the split in Maclean’s. “I’m going to a wedding at the end of November for one of my closest friends. I don’t have the heart to tell him, ‘I’m going through a divorce, but congratulations.’ ”

A glut of books, movies and magazine stories suggests Malik’s situation isn’t unique: consider the recent, impossible-to-avoid breakups of stars Zooey Deschanel and Kim Kardashian after two years and 72 days of marriage, respectively. (Kardashian’s divorce attracted nearly as much attention as her over-the-top wedding, minus the televised special.)

But even if the celebrity cycle and the Eat Pray Love juggernaut would suggest that marriages are fizzing out in record numbers, that’s actually far from true. Four in 10 of the Canadian couples who married in 2008 will be divorced by 2035, according to a report from the Vanier Institute of the Family, an Ottawa-based think tank, and the rate has been relatively stable for more than a decade. That year, there were 70,229 divorces across the country, a four per cent drop from the year before—and a full 27 per cent lower than in 1987, the year after amendments to the Divorce Act made breaking up easier, legally speaking.

Continue…

You can’t mandate marriage, even if it’s good for society

By the editors - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 1 Comment

Chris Wattie/CP

Marriage may not matter as much as it once did to young couples. But it matters a lot to society at large.

Married couples are a foundation of the economy. They earn, save and spend more than their unmarried counterparts. They are happier. And a mountain of evidence shows stable two-parent families are good for kids. Children who grow up in a married family are far more likely to succeed in school, find employment and avoid problems later in life than those raised in other situations, however loving.

But despite all this, the future of marriage as a continuing social institution often looks quite grim. This week saw the release of a sobering international report detailing the decline in significance and prevalence of marriage, and the impact this is having on fertility rates, social cohesion and economic growth worldwide.

Continue…

How to stay married

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 19 Comments

Michael Blann/Getty Images

Cynthia is a 68-year-old woman in a 45-year “committed marriage” who has figured out how to keep it that way. Every other month or so she goes out to lunch with her college boyfriend Thomas, who is also married and has no intention of leaving his wife. Usually their outings end in a hot and heavy “petting session” in his Mercedes. Sometimes, he rubs Jean Naté lotion, the scent Cynthia wore in college, onto her legs and compliments her beautiful feet. They’ve never consummated their relationship, nor do they intend to. Being with Thomas is “like a balloon liftoff,” Cynthia reports, one that eases some of the tensions between her and her 74-year-old physics professor husband. “I’m a nicer, more tolerant person because of this affair,” she says.

Cynthia’s story is one of more than 60 confessionals from long-time wives that punctuate Iris Krasnow’s new book The Secret Lives of Wives: Women Share What It Really Takes to Stay Married. And what their stories reveal is that marital longevity requires wives to establish strong, separate identities from their husbands through creative coping mechanisms, some of them covert. Krasnow spoke with more than 200 women, married between 15 and 70 years, who report taking separate holidays, embarking on new careers, establishing a tight circle of female friends, dabbling in Same Time, Next Year-style liaisons and adulterous affairs, and having “boyfriends with boundaries.” Yoga and white wine also feature predominately.

The 58-year-old Krasnow, an author and journalism professor at American University, writes she was “stunned by the secrets and shenanigans” in her journalistic journey through American marriages. She comes to the subject from the vantage point of her own 23-year marriage to an architect she loves but admits to “loathing” occasionally. She credits summers spent apart, separate hobbies and her close relationships with male buddies for some of their marital stability.

Continue…

The war on snoring heats up

By Kate Lunau - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 3 Comments

Getty Images, Corbis, Fotolia, iStock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

We’re often told that celebrities are just like us, and in some respects, that’s true: a great number of them snore in their sleep. Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter don’t just have separate bedrooms; they live in separate (but adjoining) London homes, partly because of Burton’s noisy sleeping. “Tim does snore, and that’s an element,” she told the U.K. Radio Times about their arrangement. Judge Judy has a separate room built off the master suite of her Connecticut mansion that’s just for snorers—a “snoratorium,” although she insists that it’s not just for her husband, and that she snores as well. Tom Cruise reportedly has a snoratorium too, where wife Katie Holmes can stow him when he’s keeping her awake.

Special snoring rooms are actually becoming de rigueur in many upscale homes. Jim Toy, principal at False Creek Design Group Ltd. in Vancouver, says his firm has designed a number of homes with adjacent sleeping quarters, or smaller retreat areas built off the main bedroom, that clients request “for, among other things, the snoring issue.” Some even ask that these rooms be lined with acoustic insulation and “literally be soundproofed,” he says. In a 2007 survey from the U.S. National Association of Home Builders, experts predicted that over 60 per cent of new upscale homes would have dual master bedrooms by 2015. Those expectations dipped after the recession, but on the “upper end of the scale,” Toy says, clients are still keen on having an extra snoring room. “It used to be his-and-hers bathrooms, his-and-hers closets, and his-and-hers offices,” designer Tom Scheerer recently told House Beautiful. “Now, everyone wants a snoratorium.”

Snoring is extraordinarily common. It tends to get worse as we age, partly because of weight gain, says Dr. Charles Samuels, medical director of the Centre for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary. Given the fact that our population is getting older—and heavier, too, as obesity rates rise—snoring could soon reach epidemic proportions. In a recent survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 48 per cent of people said they snored. (Of course, some people don’t realize they do, or will deny it when confronted.) About 858,900 adult Canadians say they’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea, a more serious problem in which a person’s breathing briefly pauses, disturbing sleep until they start breathing normally again; people with sleep apnea almost always snore. Marketers are clearly aware of these numbers, evidenced by the growing range of products that claim to “cure” snoring—from nasal sprays to chin straps, special pillows and everything in between.

Continue…

Good news, bad news: May 5-12, 2011

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Frederick Breedon/Getty Images

Some justice at last

It’s been over three years since Robert Dziekanski died at the Vancouver airport after RCMP used Tasers to subdue him. Now B.C.’s attorney general has laid perjury charges against the four officers involved for allegedly giving misleading testimony during the exhaustive Braidwood inquiry. While some, including Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, are disappointed the charges don’t relate to the tasering itself, Cisowski still applauded the move. The wheels of the law may be slow, but they do keep moving, and in this sad case the charges offer at least some measure of justice.

Harnessing hot air

Energy sources such as wind and solar could provide 80 per cent of the world’s power supply within four decades if governments provide the cash and policies to make it happen. That is the landmark conclusion of a UN panel that says it’s not too late to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a “safe” level. In the meantime, farmers are enjoying the heat. According to separate research, Canadian crops have been largely spared from the scourge of climate change—and our historically hard-luck farmers are profiting from increased demand.

Prize catch

When the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year’s Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, it was a blow to China’s human rights record. But the big winner may be Scottish fish farmers. In a fit of pique, China has stopped buying salmon from Norway—its biggest supplier—and signed a deal with Scotland. Perhaps that contributed to the unprecedented majority won by Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party in the May 5 elections. Good news for nationalist politicians, not so much for fish.

It’s all relative

A NASA study has confirmed two of the “most profound predictions” about Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity: that space and time are both warped and pulled by Earth’s gravity. Astrophysicists say the results, based on data measured by an orbiting space probe, will have implications “beyond our planet.” In other physics news: engineers have developed a golf ball that won’t slice. Now there’s a breakthrough we can relate to.

Bad news

Parivartan Sharma/Reuters

Revolution relapse

In the post-Mubarak era, Egypt is transitioning, but to what? Christians and Muslims clashed in Cairo, leaving 12 dead and two churches in smoldering ruins, amid signs Islamist hard-liners are asserting their power. At the same time, Syria continued its crackdown against anti-government protesters, killing scores of people and injuring hundreds, while in Libya, forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi hammered rebels. Clearly the fight is far from over for the pro-democracy movement across the Middle East.

Retirement blues

Tens of thousands more baby boomers will face retirement without a company pension plan, Statistics Canada reported this week. Since the recession, membership in private sector plans has fallen below that of the public sector for the first time ever. Which is why Canadians should be cheering the Canada Pension Plan’s tripling of its 2009 investment in Internet-calling-company Skype, recently purchased by Microsoft for US$8.5 billion. Unless you work for the civil service or at a university, the CPP may be all the help you will get.

Red carded

Lord Triesman, the chair of England’s failed bid for the 2018 World Cup of soccer, is alleging at least four FIFA members demanded bribes for their votes, including a knighthood for Paraguay’s representative. Trinidad’s football head wanted $2.5 million cash for an “educational centre.” London’s Sunday Times reports two West African delegates were paid $1.5 million to support Qatar’s winning bid. And in France, the national team is embroiled in scandal after it emerged officials considered quotas to limit the number of African and Arab-born players on their development squads. The ugly side to the beautiful game.

Unholy bonds

A good marriage isn’t necessarily built on love or even physical attraction, suggests new research in the Journal of Politics. Among the strongest shared traits between U.S. spouses is their political attitudes, the study found. The political bond forms early in marriages, but it’s not always enough to keep them together. Just ask political power-couple Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, who separated this week.

My wife didn't make that quilt. I did.

By Josh Dehaas - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 11:14 AM - 36 Comments

Photograph By Chris Bolin

Al Heslop spent his life travelling to far-away places taking measurements from oil wells and then analyzing the data using the computer programs he wrote. As he watched the violence in Libya unfold on television, the retired petro-physicist from Airdrie, Alta., was able to spot a few of “his old stomping grounds.” It was an adventurous career.

That’s why it seems strange that the 76-year-old’s new avocation involves carefully matching his fabrics to his threads and then meticulously piecing them together with needles and a Singer. Al Heslop is a proud quilter. And no, it was not his wife’s idea.

It was the other way around. Heslop dragged his spouse to the quilt shop to pick out their very first patterns, one day about five years ago. When he got home and opened up that first set of instructions he realized he’d chosen an advanced quilt by mistake. But the pattern that might have taken an advanced hobbyist months to finish was ready to hang two weeks later—just in time for him to enter it at the county fair where his daughter lives, in Kennewick, Wash.

Continue…

Cross-border love

By Julia Belluz and Erica Alini - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 10:13 AM - 10 Comments

Photograph by Christopher Wahl

Gemma and Brent Charlton remember the moment they agreed that, against borders and distance, they were going to stay together. It was October 2006, and they were holding hands on a busy Hong Kong street. “There were buses going by, people everywhere,” Brent, 24, remembers. “But we decided it would be just us. We would see what happens.”

The pair was on a study abroad program—she from outside Manchester, U.K., he from Springfield, Ont. They had spent six months exploring Hong Kong, travelling in China. That night, they promised their relationship wouldn’t end with the university exchange. They didn’t realize, though, how much of their life together would hinge on unromantic things like the demands of the labour market, immigration policy—and sheer luck.

For nearly two years, Gemma and Brent kept in touch, mostly over Skype or “the occasional text,” says Gemma, who is 25. “I would have to wait up until 11, 12 at night, for Brent to come home from work so we could talk.” Phone calls were rushed, sometimes exhausting. Brent jokes, “It definitely was not the honeymoon stage.” They saw each other three times before Gemma decided, in 2008, to move to Canada.

Continue…

The formula for who should do the dishes

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 2:53 PM - 4 Comments

Photographs by Jessica Darmanin; Photo Illustration by Bradley Reinhardt

What happens when you apply cold economic principles to heated marital problems? According to the authors of Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes, you get logical solutions that work for everything from resolving quarrels in the kitchen to a lack of activity in the bedroom. “Spousonomics doesn’t require you to keep an anger log, a courage journal, or a feelings calendar,” write the authors, Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, who have covered financial meltdowns and interviewed economic heavyweights like Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Spousonomics, they say, is about using time-tested theories like Adam Smith’s idea that businesses thrive when employees have specialized tasks, and then applying that to fight-prone areas of marriage such as housekeeping and tending to the kids. But how should a couple decide who is best suited to the tasks of laundry and vacuuming? For answers on that, the authors turned to British economist David Ricardo’s theory of “comparative advantage,” which, as the authors explain it, suggests “it’s not efficient for you to take on every single task you’re good at, only those tasks you’re relatively better at compared to other tasks.”

To show how it works at home, the authors present Eric and Nancy, “a case study in how a bad division of labour can harm an otherwise well-matched couple.” It used to be that Eric and Nancy split household chores strictly 50-50, and not according to who did which job best. If Eric cooked dinner one night, Nancy cooked the next night. The trouble was, “everything was a debate,” says Nancy. If Eric was chopping onions for the lamb tajine, for instance, he’d boil over at seeing Nancy sitting watching Law & Order. “Wait a minute,” he’d think, “why am I spending all this time on a fancy meal when all she ever makes is mac and cheese?”

Continue…

Why the 'price of sex' is at an all-time low

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 12:15 PM - 35 Comments

When it comes to having a career and education, women have more opportunity than ever. But their chances of finding a stable, long-term relationship have actually declined, argues Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin. In his new book, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying (co-authored with Jeremy Uecker), he says that the “price of sex” is at an all-time low.

Q: What do you mean by the “price of sex”?

A: Sex is, at bottom, an exchange between a man and a woman. One can use this exchange in [homosexual] relationships, but I didn’t go there; it would double the size of the book. It’s not a simple pleasure-for-pleasure exchange: men and women tend to seek different things from the act of sex. They often mean different things by it. This isn’t to suggest that women don’t like sex or that they don’t gain pleasure from it. We know that they do, but there’s more to it than that. Women tend to prefer sex that comes with commitment, attention, conversation, love and, sometimes, material gifts. As the price of sex diminishes, that commitment becomes harder to get.

Q: What’s driving down the price of sex?

A: Part of the story is women’s success: they make up the majority of college students today. When you look at the college campus, 57 per cent of American college students are women. In Canada, it’s comparable. And that’s a big imbalance.

Q: You argue that when women outnumber men on campus, it gives men more power to dictate the terms of sex. Your book notes that virginity, for example, is more common on campuses where men outnumber women.

A: Isn’t that interesting? When men outnumber women, women tend to get more commitment in exchange for sex. And women tend to like to marry someone of a comparable education status. But I don’t know how that’s going to happen 10 or 15 years from now. If the college imbalance remains stable, there will be a large oversupply of college-educated women interested in marriage, and there won’t be enough college-educated men. So they’ll have to marry down, and I know some who have. It’s not that it can’t work, but it is a little bit different.

Continue…

Dear John, I love Jane

By Julia McKinnell - Monday, December 6, 2010 at 1:20 PM - 37 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

In a new collection of true stories about straight women turning lesbian, all of the women are, and were, married to extraordinarily kind, supportive husbands. Laura Andre, co-editor of Dear John, I Love Jane, points out that these women are “living proof that sexuality can change over time, often against our will. The women in this book didn’t set out to dismantle their marriages and relationships; the last thing they wanted was to hurt their husbands or boyfriends.”

One woman writes that her husband thought it was “cool” at first that she was attracted to women. “I wasn’t the jealous type so it never bothered me if my husband said another woman was sexy or beautiful. In fact, sometimes I would agree, and I spoke freely about different women I found attractive. He thought he had the coolest wife ever,” writes Crystal Hooper. “We always said that nothing and no one could ever come between us. Then along came Zoe.”

Continue…

Why should polygamy be a crime?

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 306 Comments

Joe Sales/CP

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m against polygamy. I think it’s wrong, and harmful, for all the usual reasons: that it devalues women, impairs the trust on which marriage and family life depends, upsets the sexual balance in society at large, and is broadly incompatible with the egalitarian, individual-based political values of Western civilization.

So when it came to opening statements in the landmark British Columbia Supreme Court reference on the issue, the government lawyer had all the best arguments, in my view. And yet I found myself agreeing with the conclusions of the amicus curiae, the lawyer hired by the court to represent the other side of the case.

The specific question the court is being asked to answer is whether the Criminal Code ban on polygamy is in violation of the Charter of Rights. But at bottom the issue is the role of the criminal law in regulating conduct. If the reference helps to clarify our thinking on that, it will have served a much broader purpose.

Continue…

The gown dilemma

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 1 Comment

Anders Wiklund/Hulton Archive/Anthony Harvey/Getty Images

For Kate Middleton, the big fashion test comes when she walks down the aisle. The wedding is the true coming out party for every royal bride. In the past, Middleton’s taste has meant clean, simple flowing gowns, all very form fitting while not revealing too much skin. So although she’s got Diana’s engagement ring on her left hand, she’s unlikely to mimic the late princess of Wales’s crumpled meringue of wedding dress.

In her choice of a designer and a dress, Middleton could draw inspiration from the dresses of previous royal weddings both in Britain and in Europe. The simplicity of Princess Alexandra of Kent’s dress from 1963 is a standout, with its one long unbroken line. Mette-Marit of Norway’s stark white gown (2001) and that of Princess Margaret’s daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones (1994), are masterpieces of soft draping, something Middleton favours. On the other hand, if the bride wants a gown with more structure, then the silk examples of Victoria of Sweden and Letizia of Spain are standouts.

The ring's cycle

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP; David Levinson/Corbis

On Friday, Feb. 6, 1981, on the grounds of Windsor Castle, Prince Charles proposed to Diana—sans ring. It came two weeks later on Feb. 22, when he and Diana were having an intimate evening with the Queen. Diana described being presented with a choice of potential gems in Andrew Morton’s 1992 book Diana: Her True Story. “A briefcase comes along on the pretext that Andrew is getting a signet ring for his 21st birthday and along come these sapphires. I mean nuggets! I suppose I chose it, we all chipped in. The Queen paid for it.”

The ring in question was a large oval sapphire surrounded by 14 round diamonds and set in 18-karat white gold, worth $67,000 and made by jeweller Garrard & Co., the official crown jewellers at the time.

Just two days later, on Feb. 24, following a private lunch with the Queen, Lady Diana Spencer and Charles officially announced their engagement. On the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the future princess of Wales posed for photographers awkwardly, placing her hand across her body assuming an uncomfortable, defensive position. Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles, wrote that her department-store outfit, picked days before off a rack at Harrods, was “air-stewardess blue with a matronly print blouse tied by a large pussycat bow that made her look like a zaftig Sloane on the frontispiece of Country Life.”

Continue…

A common occurrence

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 1 Comment

bigpicturesphoto.com

She’s tall and graceful, with glossy dark hair and a beaming smile. She’s known for her taste in fashion, including the posh hats that British high society prefers. But despite her elegant bearing and movie star looks, the most remarkable thing about Kate Middleton—Prince William’s bride-to-be—might be how very normal she seems. She’s from a small village outside London. Her solidly middle-class parents (neither royal nor aristocratic) run a party-supply business. She’s known for her self-deprecating sense of humour. And now, the prototypical girl next door—and the first commoner in modern times to marry a future British king—is engaged to the most eligible bachelor alive.

It might sound like a fairy tale, but Prince William isn’t the only royal settling down with a so-called commoner. The fact is that royals just don’t marry royals anymore. In Europe, eight monarchies remain (10 if the statelets of Monaco and Liechtenstein are included), but the continent hasn’t seen an heir or king marry a princess since the 1960s, when Greek King Constantine II married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, and Spain’s Prince Juan Carlos married Princess Sophia of Greece. These days, the royals often don’t even marry into the upper classes—instead, increasingly, they marry for love. While some argue it degrades the monarchy, others believe it makes out-of-touch royal families more accessible. And besides, what child doesn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a princess, or a prince?

Continue…

PHOTOS: The pageantry of the past

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 1 Comment

Learning from past mistakes

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Diana and Charles had a whirlwind courtship and seemed awkward in public | Tim Graham/Getty Images

Now that Prince William and Kate Middleton have finally announced their engagement, British bookies can begin to assign odds on the next inevitable speculatory salvos about the couple. Wedding date? First due date? And, of course, in a nation where the royal family routinely contributes to divorce statistics, how long the marriage will last.

Based on the couple’s first media appearance this week, however, they appear to be in it for the long haul—and decidedly on their own terms. That was evident with the surprising news that the prince had given his fiancée the much-knocked-off sapphire-diamond engagement ring his father, Prince Charles, gave his mother, Lady Diana Spencer, some 30 years ago. Some might balk at passing on a ring symbolizing a union that would come to be fractured beyond repair, but it was a masterstroke that felled the elephant in the room. The gesture elegantly, yet defiantly, salvaged family tradition. It recycled an heirloom, a nod to his father’s concern for the environment, while paying tribute to his beloved mother. “It was my way of making sure my mother didn’t miss out on today and the excitement and the fact we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together,” Prince William told a press scrum as a collective “whoosh” of the melting hearts of women over 50 echoed throughout the land.

Continue…

Date nights

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Johnny Green/PA; M Neilson/Getty Images; Davidson/O'Neill/Rex Features

Sept. 2001: Prince William and Kate Middleton enrol at the University of St. Andrews where they both study art history. William learns art isn’t his calling. Later that year, when he “wobbles” academically, Kate convinces him to stay in school, but in geography instead.

March 2002: William reportedly pays $450 for a front-row seat to a cheeky charity fashion show where Kate walks the runway wearing little more than her underwear. Reports say he leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away.

Sept. 2002: The pair move into a four-bedroom house together, along with two friends. Rumours of their relationship emerge, but Kate is still dating someone else.

June 2003: Rumours swirl that William is dating the heiress of a wealthy family in Kenya, but his friend Kate attends his 21st birthday at Windsor Castle. Prince Charles tells the media that, to his knowledge, his son is single.

Sept. 2003: The couple, along with two friends, move into a country cottage near St. Andrews “on two acres of wild grassland hidden behind a six-foot stone wall,” according to author Katie Nicholl.

Continue…

A man in uniform

By Erica Alini, Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Fame Pictures/ Anwar Hussein/Wire Image/Getty Images

He may be facing “the ultimate dilemma of modern masculinity,” as the Daily Telegraph refers to his balding pate, but when it’s time to say “I do,” William will still look like prince charming—courtesy of the RAF wings and the military uniform Kate Middleton says makes him look “so sexy.”

Though Kate’s wedding dress will be the subject of acres of debate and speculation among the fashion pundits, William’s own wedding suit is almost certain to be a military uniform, the customary attire for British royals who have served in the military. William has been in all three branches of the armed forces—the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force—as tradition demands of future monarchs who will one day inherit the throne and with it the responsibility of heading the military. But for all the uniform-related photo ops and headlines, the prince’s military deeds can’t yet be called heroic in the traditional sense. Even though he’s chosen the most dangerous job available to him—search-and-rescue helicopter pilot—he’ll never face enemy fire.

Continue…

The call of the aisle

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Adrian Dennis/WPA/Getty Images, Andy Williams/Zuma/Keystone Press, Dan Kitwood/Getty Images | Charles and Di chose St. Paul’s Cathedral; generations of Windsors have said ‘I do’ at Westminster Abbey or St. George’s Chapel

When you’re the future king of Britain, and your options for a wedding venue are haunted by a minefield of failed family marriages, choosing a church is no simple task. Following the announcement by Prince William and Kate Middleton that their nuptials will “take place in London” next year, betting began on the site of the royal ceremony.

The historic central London venues, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral, came in as favourites. The latter, a baroque cathedral inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, is steeped in enough British history to befit a future sovereign. It was the site of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and the 80th and 100th birthdays of the queen mother. On a practical note, the dome-topped church is known for its excellent acoustics and dramatically long procession route.

Continue…

A great and important moment for Canada as well

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment

Stephen Lock/Rex Features/CP

It was surely one of the best-kept secrets in the modern history of British royalty. Prince William proposed to his long-time girlfriend while on vacation in Kenya last month, but the news only came to light this week in an official announcement by his father, Prince Charles. The wedding between Prince William, second-in-line to the British throne, and his fiancée, Kate Middleton, will take place in the spring or summer of 2011.

Royal weddings are significant signposts in history. And this one is no exception. British Prime Minister David Cameron called the engagement between William and Kate “a great day for the country.” It should be considered a great and important day for Canada as well.

Queen Elizabeth II has been Canada’s head of state since 1952. Governor General David Johnston, recall, is merely her representative in this country. While such an arrangement strikes some as antiquated or unnecessary, it has proven to be a great benefit to this country. Her Majesty’s presence, both substantive and symbolic, provides political stability and reliability, and is an important reminder of our antecedents. Besides, popular approval of this system is always in ample supply, as witnessed by the outpouring of affection during the Queen’s well-received tour of Canada earlier this year.

Continue…

The business of marriage

By Jason Kirby and Chris Sorensen - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 3 Comments

Jeff Moore/Keystone Press, Reuters

No sooner had the royal engagement been announced on Tuesday than Steven Jackson’s phone in Nottinghamshire began to ring. When it comes to memorabilia about the royals, Jackson, the 70-year-old secretary of the Commemorative Collectors Society, knows more than perhaps anybody about the assorted cups, plates, vases, scarves, jigsaw puzzles and souvenir books that manufacturers invariably crank out whenever royals get hitched. Now those companies are eager to know what Charles and Diana memorabilia sold best before, and which William and Kate designs will be most successful now. At stake: a potential windfall worth billions of dollars. Royal weddings may be public celebrations, but there’s no denying they are also economies unto themselves.

In 1981, Charles and Diana’s marriage gave Britain a badly needed economic lift amid a punishing recession. It generated vast sums in souvenir sales and hotel bills, and proved a ratings bonanza. Now many industries appear to be counting on a repeat performance, with hopes that next year’s big event will provide yet another boost for an ailing economy. But while anticipation is building, the fact is the royal wedding will happen in a very different environment. The royals are not the draw they once were, and with Britain reeling from austerity measures, resentment against a lavish royal party is a real risk. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made.

Continue…

'Something very special'

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

David Davies/PA; Michael Dunlea/Daily Mail; UK Press/Keystone Press

There was nothing stately or demure about Kate Middleton that night in March 2002. Barely clothed, the lithe brunette sashayed down a dimly lit catwalk toward Prince William, who—sporting a wide grin and dark suit—appeared every bit an aristocratic frat boy. Having secured himself a front-row seat at the charity fashion show for $450, William now saw Kate, heretofore his friendly roommate, in a whole new way: stone-faced. Sexy. Hand on hip. Her straight hair twirled into tight ringlets and laced with yellow ribbons. And wearing nothing but a black band across her breasts, a bikini bottom, and—in the spirit of peekaboo flirting—a sheer, turquoise-trimmed wrap around her long torso. That’s when, it’s been said, William first saw in her his future queen consort.

That image, of course, couldn’t be more different from recent pictures of the newly engaged couple at St. James’s Palace on the day their forthcoming nuptials were announced in a 104-word press release by Clarence House, the Prince of Wales’s private residence. Arm in arm, William and Kate, both 28, stood and smiled elegantly for the requisite “photocall” to appease the press and the public’s increasingly voracious interest in their relationship status. Her royal blue dress—discreet yet celebratory—perfectly complemented the giant sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring that William gave her after proposing during a 10-day safari in Kenya in October. It had belonged to his late mother Diana.

Continue…

The royal engagement: do we still care?

By John Fraser - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 12 Comments

Harper, unlike recent predecessors, followed the Queen and Prince Philip almost everywhere on their recent trip. That famous pirouette: Trudeau did it behind the Queen’s back. | John Stillwell/Getty Images; Doug Ball/CP

So the inevitable is now official. The announcement of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton—the actual proposal came last month when the two were in Kenya—has set off the predictable cascade of nutty media inanity in Britain, a chorus of “so whats” from anti-monarchists here and there, and deep satisfaction from royalists.

In Canada, the news that the second in line to the throne had done the deed and asked for the hand of the girlfriend of almost eight years standing—minus some time off to check out the field and also contemplate all the constraints that crowd his absurdly scrutinized life—was taken the way much royal news is taken in Canada these days: with a tolerant shrug. It also comes when the issue of the Crown in Canada is probably more assured than it has been in years.

The engagement itself was sealed, apparently, when William offered a ring of his mother’s to Kate, thus putting the metaphorical seal of approval of Diana, princess of Wales, to a future marriage all monarchists in Queen Elizabeth II’s 16 realms fervently pray will end up better than hers with Prince Charles. William and Kate do not need to have a “fairy-tale” marriage. They just need one that works.

Continue…