How Kate and Will broke the rules

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 9:15 AM - 0 Comments

Andy Clark/Reuters

By the time William and Catherine waved au revoir from Calgary’s airport, they’d set a new standard for royal tours, shredding the fetters of precedent, protocol and stifling formality. From the first event in Ottawa to wheels-up in Calgary nine days later, the duke and duchess signalled that past practices were made to be broken. Let us count the ways:

Royals don’t apologize: That one went by the wayside with the duke of Cambridge’s first credible attempt at speaking French in Ottawa. “It will improve as we go on,” he said, with a self-deprecating grin. In Quebec there was another winning smile: “Thank you for your patience with my accent, and I hope that we will have the chance to get to know each other over the years to come.” The fact that William and Catherine, in her rookie performance as a touring royal, would visit both Montreal and Quebec City, tells you all you need to know about the confidence the palace places in the young couple. The largely positive reception there, while allowing the inevitable anti-monarchist protesters to make their point, also ended the myth that Quebec is a royal pain for the Wales family.

Royals like to watch: Aside from tree plantings and ribbon cutting, touring royals generally limit their activity to bland small talk and limp handshakes. No one expects 85-year-old Queen Elizabeth II to become an action hero, but grandson William and his bride are not above plunging into activities. They donned chef outfits in Montreal and helped prepare their dinner. William skimmed one of Canada’s aging Sea King helicopters atop a lake in Prince Edward Island, where he and Kate also proved adept and competitive as dragon boat racers. Granted, William’s hockey shootout attempt in Yellowknife was lame, but they looked comfortable and strong paddling a canoe across choppy Blachford Lake in the territory. In Alberta they stole away to rustic Skoki Lodge above Lake Louise to hike the high alpine. The next day they donned cowboy duds for a preview of events at the Calgary Stampede, with William clambering up the rails of the metal chute for a perilously close look at a massive, snorting rodeo bull.

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‘This place is what Canada is all about’

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 12:35 PM - 1 Comment

Phil Noble/Reuters

What drew Yellowknife Mayor Gordon Van Tighem to the Northwest Territories 20 years ago, after years in Calgary and Toronto, are some of the same experiences Prince William and Catherine were able to sample during their 40-hour visit to the territorial capital and the wilderness beyond. “You’re on the edge of some of the little remaining, but accessible, wilderness in the world,” says the mayor. “Twenty minutes in any direction you won’t be finding any cigarette packages or Tim Hortons cups, and you can get lost.”

There was little risk of William and Catherine going astray during their whirlwind visit to what the BBC breathlessly described as “the remote settlement of Yellowknife.” The description amused rather than offended the mayor. With almost 20,000 people, representing 120 ethnic groups—and “two McDonald’s”—the mayor considers Yellowknife “a little-big city.” But he couldn’t have been more delighted with William’s glowing description of life above the 60th parallel. “This place is what Canada is all about,” the duke of Cambridge told a cheering crowd of about 3,000 at the civic plaza beside city hall, “vast, open beauty, tough, resilient, friendly peoples. True nature. True humanity.” Behind him were the glistening waters of Frame Lake. Beside him and Catherine on stage were territorial leader Floyd Roland and Aboriginal dancers and drummers. William earned an even bigger roar of approval when he closed his brief remarks by adding his thanks in the languages of the Dene and the north coast Inuvialuit. After opening with a few words of French, the duke looked pleased at acing what may have been his first-ever quadrilingual speech.

The couple, having travelled almost 3,700 km from Charlottetown through three time zones, was allowed a late start Tuesday, and looked the fresher for it. Yellowknife, this time of year, is murder for the sleep deprived. The sun pulls 20-hour days, and the city is bathed in twilight for the remainder of what passes for night. Once up, the couple had a full agenda, “the full meal deal,” as the mayor put it. After opening remarks at the plaza, they watched demonstrations of Dene hand games (a form of gambling) and Inuvialuit high kicks. They also were presented with red Canadian Olympic hockey jerseys with “Cambridge” written across the back. They watched a brief but spirited game of street hockey with a group of young people. William picked up a stick, but failed at three shoot-out attempts to get past goalie Calvin Lowmen, despite the duke’s joking plea that “You’ve got to let one in!”

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Drinks with the duke and duchess

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 3 Comments

Paul Darrow/Reuters

The invitation, issued by the press secretary of “TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” was impossible to decline: a 7:10 p.m. drinks reception with the royal couple immediately after their arrival in Charlottetown on Sunday night. Just 200 or so journalists and provincial organizers for 40 minutes. The setting was shockingly intimate, given that royal tour coverage dictates the royals are always at least a three-metre remove from the ink- and digitally stained wretches. Following the couple around feels like being embedded in a military mission without any proximity: journalists wait hours in a slightly more privileged position than the hoi polloi for a glimpse of the couple, and are forever on the lookout for colourful crumbs with which to pad out reports.

The soiree had rules. It was to be casual, no cameras—which is like asking hunters who’ve been tracking big, exotic game to come face to face with their quarry stripped of their weapons.

The gathering was held on the second-storey deck of a casual restaurant overlooking the harbour. The night was gorgeous. Drinks flowed. Oysters were shucked, lobster rolls served and a fiddle band played. Before the newlyweds arrived, journalists were herded inside and divided by media type—Canadian, print, etc. Then the royals worked the reception line separately, each led by handlers. The prince came through first, shaking hands in a dark suit with a Canada flag pin, carrying a drink that looked like Coke, though he joked about wanting to have a couple of them. He’s an old pro at this—engaged, leaning in, making eye contact, quick to joke in a self-deprecating manner. Yet if you look closely, his jaw clenches; there’s tension there.

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The royal visit: So much more than a photo op

By John Fraser - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:25 AM - 0 Comments

John Stillwell/Getty Images

Amongst the unbelievers of the Crown in Canada, you could almost touch the chagrin, from sea to sea, as the extraordinarily successful 2011 royal tour unfolded last week. William and Kate, the newly minted duke and duchess of Cambridge, the future king and queen of Canada, didn’t just come and see and conquer: they vamped us. They did it with warmth and charm and youthful sexiness, then topped it all with a reminder, unambiguous and impossible to ignore, that the ties that bound us “from days of yore” still have the power to renew something very important in our history.

“Will and Kate” are now part of the Canadian story. A big part. Those monarchists who have tried over the years, like Queen Elizabeth II herself, not to be “fair-weather friends” were almost as stunned as the unbelievers as they watched this beautiful and caring young couple walk into our tale and hearts with such aplomb and grace that they seem to have started a whole new chapter.

It was more than just a gesture that, on Canada Day, Catherine wore the maple-leaf-shaped diamond pin the Queen wears so often when she comes to Canada and that had been loaned to the future queen for this trip, the first great adventure in the couple’s married lives after their storybook wedding. The brooch was also a kind of talisman of the past joining them to the future.

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Who says Quebecers don’t love the royals?

By Anne Kingston - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

Mathieu Belanger/Reuters

If Ottawa provided the Kodachrome picture-postcard royal welcome, Quebec offered William and Catherine a more complex cinéma vérité depiction of the country they claim to want to know. Canada’s two solitudes collided during the couple’s two-day, two-city Quebec sojourn as separatist and anti-monarchist protesters, though in the minority, determined the agenda. Fear of a repeat of Prince Charles’s 2009 visit to Montreal, when eggs were hurled at his car, prompted organizers of William and Kate’s tour to not schedule walkabouts in the cities. Their concerns appeared founded, as several dozen protesters from pro-independence group Réseau de Résistance du Québécois appeared at Ste-Justine Hospital, the first stop of the couple’s eight-hour swing through Montreal. Chants of “Will and Kate, Will and Kate” vied with “royals go home” in French and English. And a few eggs were thrown, one landing on the back of an older woman who had waited hours in the sweltering heat.

Clearly forewarned, the duke and duchess exited their car briskly upon arrival, barely acknowledging the crowd. After an hour touring the neonatal, high-risk pregnancy and cancer wards, they exited under heavy security as black SUVs blocked the crowd of some 500—much to the crowd’s disappointment, including 11-year old Victoria Sicurello, who had hoped to hand Kate roses and a handmade card.

A similar 10-to-one well-wisher-to-protester ratio was evident at their next destination, the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec, where they took part in a cooking lesson with students and dined on Brome Lake duck, Charlevoix lamb and an Îles-de-la-Madeleine lobster soufflé.

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Letting their guard down

By Anne Kingston - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 0 Comments

Better luck next time: Will gives Kate, a far more experienced paddler, a hug after the race

Prince Edward Island is famously known as the cradle of Canadian Confederation. Now, after William and Catherine’s action-packed 24 hours in the country’s smallest province, it can also lay claim to being the incubator of a new, far more informal royal protocol. In the space of a few hours, the world watched the newlyweds competing fervently against one another in a dragon boat race, hugging affectionately after, then even more shockingly for anyone schooled in monarchical mores, eating in public, heretofore a no-no.

The island’s laid-back mood was clearly contagious. Even under a light drizzle, the couple appeared relaxed at their first official duty at Province House, the provincial legislature and site of the 1864 Charlottetown conference. The duchess was less formally attired than previously during the tour, wearing a cream knit dress with a sailor’s bow and navy stripes, nautical details that paid homage to the Maritime setting.

After signing the Province House guest book, handshaking and posing for photos, the duke and duchess greeted an enthusiastic crowd filled with “I [heart] Will and Kate” signs and T-shirts. “What are you doing standing in the rain?” Kate asked one speechless teenage boy who looked as if he’d faint.

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Capital charmed

By Patricia Treble - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mark Large/Getty Images

It’s been called a royal tour and a media event, but for Prince William and Kate, it was surely something else: a nine-day “intro to Canada” crash course. The start was to be relatively slow and sombre: some mandatory basics in Ottawa, before peeling off to the regions for the fun stuff, like dragon boat racing and street hockey.

However, while the itinerary in the capital was predictable, the size of the crowds and the couple’s determination to interact with them were not. The mania for Will and Kate started in earnest at the very first event: laying a wreath and a bouquet of flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After that sombre occasion, the pair spent an unexpectedly long time mingling, talking to scores of veterans and ordinary citizens. (Some 25,000 were there.) The timetable went out the window—the Governor General was left waiting patiently at Rideau Hall—as the couple mixed with the crowds.

And this, it soon became clear, was not an isolated incident but a precedent. The usual rules of royal etiquette were abandoned for the entire Ottawa visit, not only by touchy-feely throngs determined to get face time with William and Kate, but also by the couple, who signalled their approval of the casual exchanges by shaking so many hands that British commentators speculated about the potentially hazardous consequences for the royal digits. No gesture, however casual, was ignored by the 1,300 accredited journalists confined to “media pens.” When William was offered sunglasses by a spectator on the Hill, he laughed, popped them on for a photo op—wild excitement amongst the TV cameramen—then returned them to their owner. It wasn’t just ordinary mortals who succumbed to the fever: two lines of RCMP officers were needed to hold back rows of invited Canada Day VIPs who had morphed into a squealing mob of Bieber-esque groupies.

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William and Kate’s great Canadian honeymoon

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Phil Noble/Reuters

A royal visit is a lot like the lobster soufflé the duke and duchess of Cambridge whipped up during their 40-minute cooking class in Montreal. It’s a high risk-reward proposition: a miscue in the preparation, a sudden shock, and it flops like a spent party balloon. Ah, but done well, it is spun gold: savoury or sweet as the occasion demands, fluffy without being insubstantial.

As the nine-day visit of William and Catherine nears its close, the newlyweds have hardly set a foot wrong. They’ve enthusiastically embraced pursuits from dragon boat racing to road hockey with the same ease they’ve managed the traditional dinners, tree plantings and hospital visits. They’ve chucked out the schedule, and the strictures of protocol, to mix with those who’ve lined the route—as comfortable with the crowds as they seem with each other.

They travelled by frigate, helicopter and float plane; by motorcade, landau and dragon boat. In this, Catherine’s first visit to “the honeymoon capital of the Commonwealth,” as Governor General David Johnston put it, she’s experienced a concert by Great Big Sea, a Canada Day on Parliament Hill, and a citizenship ceremony. All Canadians should be as lucky.

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The compelling pathos of being a prince

By John Geddes - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 12:54 PM - 43 Comments

I’ve never much liked the atmosphere surrounding royal visits. The anxiety many Canadians seem to feel about putting on a good show for titled foreigners and the press following them always strikes me as pathetic.

But by the end of Will and Kate’s tour, something else was at play. To me, it felt like our main concern had ceased to be about how Canada would come off, and shifted to being about how the young duke and duchess would perform. For instance, live news coverage yesterday left no doubt that everybody was rooting for William to speak well in his good-bye remarks in Calgary.

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Royal couple launches Calgary Stampede

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 12:16 PM - 0 Comments

Prince William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, officially launched the 2011 Calgary Stampede on Friday, the final day of their Canadian tour. The couple joined Prime Minister Stephen Harper and parade marshal Rick Hansen to kick off the event after they travelled to the parade route in a motorcade. In a speech Thursday evening, Prince William said their Canadian visit “far surpassed all that we were promised.” Later Friday, there will be a departure ceremony in honour of the royal couple, complete with an inspection of the guard by William and a 21-gun salute. Will and Kate will then head south to California to start their visit to the U.S.

CBC News

We showed them, and the world, a wonderful time

By the editors - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Baz Ratner/Reuters

They just might be the most redundant pictures ever taken. While the national and international media lavished attention on Prince William as he repeatedly practised a water landing in a Canadian Forces Sea King helicopter in Prince Edward Island this week, his wife, Catherine, insisted on snapping some pictures of her own.

Getting a few shots for the family scrapbook is the sort of thing a young couple might do on holiday. But during an official state visit it seems delightfully out of place. All of which suggests a royal tour—and a royal couple—that’s refreshingly different and new.

The event at Dalvay by the Sea this past Monday saw William, the duke of Cambridge instructed in “waterbirding,” a unique Canadian emergency technique in which a helicopter pilot lands on water during an engine failure. Prince William specifically requested this personal tutorial, given that he flies helicopters at his day job as a Royal Air Force search and rescue pilot based in Anglesey, Wales.

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We’re all in the royal family

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 224 Comments

George Pimentel/WireImage/Getty Images

Even before Prince William and his bride Kate had arrived in Canada—before they had visited their first cancer patient, or listened to their first war vet, before they had thrilled hundreds of thousands in Ottawa or talked with street kids in Quebec or surveyed the efforts to rebuild Slave Lake, Alta.—the nation’s newspaper columnists were sounding the alarm at the invasion. When, they sighed, would Canada grow up? Wasn’t it time to slough off these last vestiges of colonial rule? Of all the irrational, outmoded ideas: to choose a head of state on the basis of heredity.

As the trip wore on—as the prince greeted crowds in English and French and Dene and Inuvialuktun, visited the cradle of Confederation in Charlottetown, played road hockey in Yellowknife—the pundits’ mood only seemed to grow sourer. These hicks waving happily at the couple as they passed: was it not obvious they were simply in the thrall of celebrity? Could they not see the prince and his glamorous consort for the foreigners they are?

Nothing new here. The same party-poopers write the same diatribes every time royalty comes to town. But they have seldom seemed quite so out of step with the times, so…dated. In truth it is not the monarchy that is outmoded, it is the critics, invariably of a certain age, who seem unable to escape a time when asserting the country’s identity meant rejecting not only monarchy, but a long list of things that were supposedly holding us back. Perhaps what we are discovering on this tour is that the country has grown out of such adolescent insecurities. Perhaps we’re growing into the monarchy.

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Entertaining Will and Kate

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 8, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 16 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

From 2003 to 2006, Fox Television carried a strange TV comedy called Arrested Development. It featured a story arc involving a failed actor named Tobias Fünke who auditions for the theatre troupe Blue Man Group because he thinks it’s a support group for depressed men. For several episodes, Fünke wears blue body paint, which comes in handy when he realizes he can blend in with the blue parts of outdoor billboards, allowing him to spy on the rest of his family.

For a while, on July 1, I wondered whether Kate Middleton was inspired by Tobias Fünke when she decided to show up at the big Canada Day celebration on Parliament Hill dressed as a Canadian flag.

In a release to the Ottawa press rabble, “the Press Secretary to TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge” described Kate’s outfit as “a cream dress by Reiss, with The Queen’s Maple Leaf brooch and a hat by Sylvia Fletcher at Lock and Co.” From any distance, however, the most striking thing about Kate’s outfit was that it was red at both ends—hat and pumps—and whitish through the middle, except for the reddish purse where the maple leaf would be if she were flapping sideways from a mast, not that I would ever advocate such a course of action.

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A gift fit for a king

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 9 Comments

All in all, it does make a charming souvenir gift. Just ask the Prime Minister. A copy of Maclean’s May 15, 1939, souvenir edition of the 27-day royal visit made by King George VI and his consort Queen Elizabeth—Prince William’s great-grandparents—formed part of a personal gift from Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, to the prince and his wife, Kate, on the occasion of their current visit to Canada. (The gift also included a copy of Chatelaine of similar vintage.) The 1939 royal tour of Canada, the first ever visit of a reigning monarch to the Crown’s senior dominion, was like no other royal visit before it, and Maclean’s, naturally, treated it as such.

In many ways the souvenir issue, with the king’s portrait on its cover, set the template for the magazine’s coverage of royal visits ever since. That included printing the Queen’s portrait first, on the cover of the otherwise business-as-usual May 1 issue: early recognition that the royal women, whether as rulers or consorts, from Elizabeth II to Diana, princess of Wales to Catherine, duchess of Cambridge, have always been the stars of the show. Photos were a huge part of the special edition, including a shot of the two royal children, who had been left at home for this arduous cross-continental odyssey: princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, seated at a piano.

But it wasn’t just that George VI was a reigning king that infused his arrival with historical significance, but rather how—by what right—he was reigning over us. In 1937, King George, the first monarch crowned since the 1931 Statute of Westminster established the full independence of the self-governing dominions, was also the first to swear in his coronation oath to govern Canada by its own laws and customs. The monarchy was now the final institutional glue holding the Empire (soon to be Commonwealth) together. Although not yet formally king of Canada—that legal change in title didn’t occur until his daughter’s reign—George was very much coming to his dominion in that capacity. The tour marked another step, both real and symbolic, on the long road to equality between motherland and former colony that had, so far, stretched from the Canadian Corps’ victory at Vimy Ridge in 1917 through Canada’s seat at the Versailles peace treaty negotiations two years later and the Westminster statute and the coronation oath.

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Fake Kate has a real following on Twitter

By Rosemary Counter - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

On May 18th, @DuchessKateM published her first tweet. “Thanks for this Sweet Welcome. It’s my Official Twitter and I’m really happy to be here with you,” she wrote. Just five days later, @DukeWilliam1 was appeared on the social media site. Before long, @middletonpippa was talking fashion (“Green Dress for you? xx”) and @PrinceHarryofW was missing his mum. It’s a rare occurrence to see royal reality as such, and like most reality entertainment, it’s fake.

But like the so-called Duchess’ more than 13,000 other followers, I don’t care. For weeks I’d been enthusiastically following the (unofficial) “Real Twitter Account of The Duchess Catherine Elizabeth Middleton” and hanging off every tweet: “I really love the royal family. It’s a really good family” or “Thanks for Visit UK @BarackObama!” I even eavesdropped on a royal birthday wish to her handsome hubby (“Happy Birthday to my Husband !! You are the best of my life !! Our first birthday together after the wedding !! I Love you, Catherine xx”). Avid voyeurs rejoiced.

It’s a far cry and welcome relief from how we usually see royalty. “With the monarchy, it’s official this and official that,” says Tom Vassos, social media expert at the University of Toronto. “But people want more than that, people want the personal touch, and someone will provide it.”

Enter the many online incarnations of Catherine Middleton: Continue…

Slave Lake residents greet Will and Kate

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 4:05 PM - 1 Comment

Citizens of an Alberta town devastated by wildfires seven weeks ago say a visit from the royal couple helped bring the community together. Slave Lake residents began staking out their spots to see the royal couple early Wednesday morning. The couple toured the town and viewed much of the devastated areas. The wildfire that burned through Slave Lake in May was the second-most costly insured disaster in Canadian history, with more than $700 million in damages. After Will and Kate wrap up their visit, they will fly to a secret retreat before heading to Calgary for the Stampede.

Edmonton Journal

Will and Kate tour Yellowknife, Blatchford Lake

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 12:03 PM - 1 Comment

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are on the northern leg of their royal visit after having landed in Yellowknife on Monday night. Their visit to the Northwest Territories is being labeled as on opportunity to focus on the relationship between the Royal Family and Canada’s aboriginal peoples. A spokesman for the territorial government told the CBC that between 3,000 and 5,000 people are expected to greet Will and Kate Tuesday at Yellowknife’s Somba K’e Civic Plaza. There they will see aboriginal dancing, musical performances and a street hockey game featuring local youth. Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo has said the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the Royal Family is “sacred.”

CBC News

A royal pain or a PR coup for the PM?

By Martin Patriquin - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Jackson/Getty Images

For the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois, Prince William and Kate’s visit to Quebec is a salt-in-the-wounds reminder that the province is still firmly under the thumb of the monarchy. And the group is telling the world via YouTube what it plans to do when the couple arrives on Quebec soil.

Over a soundtrack of stirring strings, the slickly produced video shows close-ups of men hewing wood and hammering nails to make protest signs. “For centuries the British monarchy has ruled over our people,” reads the copy. “Quebec will­ protest for democracy, for dignity, for independence.”

Hyperbole or not, the RRQ’s message presents a very real headache for organizers of the couple’s first royal tour, and it’s a reminder of how Quebec remains a thorny issue for the monarchy some 60 years after the Queen first visited the province. With the potential for embarrassment at the hands of well-organized Quebec nationalists—and with poll after poll indicating Quebecers’ collective indifference to the Canadian Crown—it begs the question: why bring the young couple to Quebec at all?

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Stuff Kate Middleton is thrilled about in Canada

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 5:54 PM - 4 Comments

Canada may have been “too boring for the Queen” (thank you, Gawker), but Kate Middleton appears exceptionally thrilled to be here. She’s practically euphoric. Click on a thumbnail to see for yourself.

Will and Kate take on P.E.I.

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

The Duke and Duchess greeted thousands on historic Great George St. in Charlottetown P.E.I. Monday, one of many stops on their royal tour this month. William made a bilingual speech highlighting Charlottetown’s importance as the birthplace of Canadian federation. Scores of maritimers showed up to the event, many waving the Union Jack. Premier Robert Ghiz made a speech announcing a legacy fund for scholarship and grants in the couple’s name.

Toronto Star

Cocktails with Kate and Will

By Anne Kingston - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 1 Comment

The invitation, issued by the press secretary to “TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” was impossible to decline: a 7:10 p.m. drinks reception with the royal couple immediately after their arrival in Charlottetown Sunday night. Just 200 or so journalists and provincial organizers for 40 minutes. The setting was shockingly intimate given royal-tour coverage dictates the royals are always at least a three-metre remove from the ink- and digitally-stained wretches. Following the couple around feels like being embedded in a military mission without any proximity: journalists wait hours in a slightly more privileged position than the hoi polloi for a glimpse of the couple, and are forever on the lookout for colourful crumbs to pad out reports.

The soiree had rules. It was to be casual, off-the-record, no cameras—which is like asking hunters who’ve been tracking big, exotic game to come face to face with their quarry stripped of their weapons.

The gathering was held on the second storey deck of a casual restaurant overlooking the harbour. The night was gorgeous. Drinks flowed. Oysters were shucked, lobster rolls served and a fiddle band played. Continue…

This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Winnipeggers celebrate news that their NHL team will carry the Jets name.

A royal welcome

When William and Kate arrive in Canada this week, those planning to greet the royal couple will find them pleasantly open to interacting with the common folk. Stuffy etiquette rules have relaxed so much of late that even the official royal website says curtsies and bows are optional. Now it’s all about simple courtesy: handshakes and chit-chat are fine. In fact, even cellphone photos are appropriate. The couple, meanwhile, are reportedly looking forward to attending the Calgary Stampede undeterred by animal rights activists who’ve been trying to deter them from attending.

Out with the evil

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi, stating there is reason to believe he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians during protests this year. Libya’s future now clearly lies with the rebels, who this week received a visit from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Canada has played a leading role in NATO raids in Libya, and Baird’s trip shows Canada remains committed to seeing a stable democracy replace Gadhafi’s regime.

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What does Prince William have in common with John Galliano?

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 1, 2011 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Some of the personal accoutrements of royal life—consider the jewellery—invoke envious admiration in lesser mortals; others—those hats—tend more to incite sympathy or, to be honest, outright derision. Clearly royalty has more sartorial obligations than privileges. It’s impossible to say what Prince William might choose to don if he had a choice, but his look, it seems, is not without its fans. Consider John Galliano, once PM to two royal houses of haute couture, Givenchy and Christian Dior. Before his recent disgrace—the designer is defending himself against hate-speech charges after alleged drunken anti-Semitic rants—Galliano often wore outfits that could be labeled Xtreme Wales.

The royal tour in pictures: William and Kate arrive in Ottawa

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 4:42 PM - 1 Comment