Trixie, someone should send Chelsey a copy of The Rules fast! She travels to london b/c ph is too whatever to go see her in leeds?! that is astonishing!

Rman, that ceremony sounds fascinating!

Alsgal, some of the visual images that your posts invoke are hilarious!

otherwise, in defense of ked, i think ked has more inside info than most of us posting on here; so, even at those times when things appear to be going well for km and pw, such as when they were in the seychelles, ked provided info that, even then, appearances may have been deceptive; that was just one example of how things weren’t good even when they superficially appeared good.

otherwise,as Ked is suggesting, it probably does help to sometimes see things from a more historical or structural perspective; the monarchy has its own inherent organizational logic and this imposes constraints on its various members;

but, on the other hand, each member of the monarchy has some free will and autonomy, and can use this to make decisions, even those decisions that go against the preservation of the monarchy as an institution.

my history is weak here, but weren’t there some notorious cases in British history? of members of the royal family who rebelled and went against the grain and rejected the monarchical dicates and instead pursued their own interests? of course to act autonomously requires a certain strength of character or determination or whatever, and it’s not clear pw has that.

otherwise, Rman seems to be arguing that even though the RF never officially or formally acknowledged km’s status as pw’s girlfriend, the mere fact km was invited to certain functions was tantamount to official annoucement and recognition of her formal status.

but, that’s where i tend to agree more with ked; of course everyone would say that, on the face of it, km is pw’s official and formally acknowledged girlfriend, since she was invited to such ceremonies, such as the royal garter ceremony. But that’s where the RF is so sly and tricky.

KM gets invited, and even she thinks this is highly significant; but, in the absence of the formal verbal acknowledgement that she has a real romantic relt’p with pw, things are still very ambiguous. yes, she was invited, but if pressed, the RF can insist she was invited only in the capacity of good friend.

They are all carefully and deliberately creating and nurturing that ambiguity. It serves their interests well. They can use that to defend pw if public opinion turns against his callow treatment of km, by insisting that everyone knew all along that km was just a good friend and no one *ever* said anything differently. It’s all rather ghastly but it’s the monarchy’s way of protecting itself and pw appears willing to cave.

But it will be a very elegant Inauguration and let me tell you, if anyone is planning to visit DC on Jan. 20th — you had better buy yourself a Winnebago to snooze in because all of the hotels are sold out.

Alsgal thought of maybe sleeping in a port-a-potty but once you have rolled down an embankment in one of those babies, it is hard to get back up on that horse (or potty.)