Wills, 26, is set to drink through a straw from a toilet filled with beer — as buckets of icy water are tipped over his head.
Harry, 24, faces the Naked Runway Challenge — stripping off to run the length of the landing strip at RAF Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire.
The japes are traditional rituals at bases where the princes are training to become helicopter pilots.
Wills is expected to undergo his initiation next month when he joins his new training squadron at RAF Shawbury, Shrops.
An RAF source said: “No one is forced to take part but I don’t know a single person who has chickened out. I’m sure William will be keen to prove he is one of the boys.”
“Harry’s test will be different. The runway is long, and freezing at this time of year. It’s always a relief when you have passed the initiation and earned your drinking wings.” (via The Sun)
- sall: #54 “Kate is right to shut them up.”By them I guess you mean her...
- Rmans: Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World Hacks Continue to Harass the...
- Rmans: She is very beautiful. I do agree Wm4King. It’s also good to hear her...
- Wm4King.: Princess Madeleine in Cape Town to honour the World Childhood...
- Rmans: Prince Harry faces animal cruelty claim over polo pony’s stab wound...
- Rmans: Well, I do agree with being very careful with the media. I do understand...
- Lisa: Well they managed to make themselves millionaires before Kate ever met...
- Rmans: Sometimes promting your business involves talking to the media about it. I...
- Lisa: Well it’s good to know that Kate is keeping her eye on what her...
- Rmans: Well, I think Pippa just went over things with her sister who also work at...
Maddie, I hope you and your family are alright? Only the last time we heard from you I think you said they’re were tornado’s where you lived.
As for the article above, can one obtain tickets for this event?
i thinked its awful experience i see a lot of girls people screaming at them. oh by the way when will these event happen?
If this event is open to the press, there is no way William’s going to do it.
And even if it’s closed to the press, there will be tremendous pressure on everyone at the air field to sell photos of the event. It would be so easy to take pictures from a cellphone and sell them for a small fortune. So my guess is that William will bow out, saying it’s too much pressure on his fellow workers at the military base.
As this is a family forum, I believe it is inappropriate to post a picture of PW holding what is obviously some sort of sexual device that Alsgal is thinking KM must have procured from her friend Emma the Killing Kitten. Prince William needs to understand that what he and Kate do behind closed doors is between two consenting adults, and is frankly, none of our business.
Well, it looks like a giant drinking straw to me. What it is used for I have no idea!
Shame Kate isn’t joining it would be great fun to see her run down the runway naked. She’s one hot bird.
Hale, Thank you! My family and I are well. We have been helping others who were not as fortunate. I haven’t had much time but then again news is slow regarding Kate and Will. It is nice to see Victoria of Sweden is engaged. Talk to you soon.
Alsgal, you are probably right about the contraption being from kittens. Have you taken a look at that site? It is rather shocking IMO and does not seem a whole lot different than what I would expect of the notorious Heidi Fleiss madame. Like you said this is a family web site, but I hope KM association w/ES is just that.
Here is the video of Princes Harry and William signing the Condolence book for Australian bush fires.
http://tinyurl.com/bb4ts9
Alsgal…your posts are always so witty and hilarious!
you should have your own column….m.d. look out!
Ummm, guys? It’s just a giant red and white striped drinking straw. A giant, bendable drinking straw.
You know…. for when Wills is supposed to drink the beer out of the toilet?
And since it’s an initiation, it won’t be open to the public. Initiations are only for the people involved, they’re supposed to exclusive. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be initiations!
Good to hear from you Maddie. Hope everything works out for all the families your helping, including for yourself. Careful not to overdue it, don’t make yourself ill.
Rman thank you so much for that video. Can’t help but think although I see some of Diana in William, it strikes me as he gelt older the Windsor genes are kicking in.
The key words here being “bendable” and “giant” — sorry, but Alsgal’s just not buying it.
Admirer, hot birds are the last thing a pilot wants to see on a runway — please see “Sullenberger, Capt. Sully” under “Unscheduled Water Evacuations, Hudson.”
alsgal
I join the call for Alsgal to get her own column. Always hilarious. And some of her comments definitely make you do a doubletake.
Ditto. We should have Alsgal do either a daily or weekly comment on anything she chooses.
Mapleleaf,
Happy you see a drinking straw as well. I like the description of exactly what the giant drinking straw will be used for.
I wish Wills and Harry would have a little more dignity. These initiations are just for fun but they’re so tacky – my God, if Charles or his brothers had done this, all heck would have broken loose. It’s just stupid! I can’t take William seriously anymore.
Warning: Unfunny post
I am with Jade on this one. I cannot think, with all the negative publicity about the Royals, that this is a “good idea”
The bad news about binge drinking is all over the news. Less reported but even worse are the problem behaviors on military bases that are tied to binging: fights, insubordination, vandalism, and sexual assaults.
These initiations are not funny. But then again, a friend of mine died in one.
I’m with you guys, after seeing iniciations at Cambridge and Oxford Uni…hells bells, they should be more geeky and nerdy.
Truthfully.
An initiation is a rite of passage. If Wills and Harry don’t take part, they could never truly be ‘one of the guys’.
More than likely, the initiation wasn’t something that the public is supposed to know anything about in the first place. I strongly and seriously doubt if it’s open to be witnessed by anyone other than those taking part and those who have already been through the initiation.
I’ve been through an initiation before. It is what it is, and if that’s what it takes to become a part of a specific Fraternity or Sorority or whatever the group is that you want to be a part of, then you go through the initiation. It’s as simple as that.
IMO it sounds like they’re going to have fun, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going to hurt them.
You only live once, sometimes you have to hold your breath and dive into stuff. I blame whoever broke the story in the media for telling secrets that weren’t theirs to tell.
IMO we shouldn’t even know about the initiation, it isn’t any of our business. Some things should remain private and known only to the people who are involved.
They can take part in initiations, but William and Harry will never be truly “one of the guys.”
Personally I wouldn’t like to see them naked anyway. Spare us!
How nice. Prince William and Harry are such a stunning example for the young people who look up to them and continue to make their country proud. Honestly, these two are an absolute shame. To everyone talking about how cute this is and how much fun they are going to have, stop seeing this from your perspective and see it from the fact that these two are world representatives and symbolic symbols of their country and are supposed to be living lives of service and commitment. What exactly have they been doing all this time?! The future of the monarchy absolutely will be nonexistant by their term, and it will be because they didn’t take their public roles and responsibilities seriously and clearly didn’t care. Whether it’s Prince Harry’s hateful comments or Prince William peeing on on a fence, these two certainly haven’t gotten the memo that they represent England to the world, whether they like it or not. They are supposed to act like gentleman and do royal duties and ensure the survival of the lineage, not go out drinking and partying constantly and acting like frat boys. Imagine if the Queen had behaved like this where the monarchy would be now. If I had a dying out several thousand year old tradition resting on my shoulders and it was my job to see it last another generation, I would certainly not be going about it like this. Maybe they want the monarchy abolished seeing as they want to be regular guys. If that’s the case, stop wasting people’s time and get on with it already. They are getting paid massive amounts of money to do their jobs, and what are they doing exactly? The public should stop funding this and contributing to these two people that obviously don’t have a care in the world as to carrying out the only responsibilities they are supposed to have.
They can never be one of the guys but over the years their mum wanted them to be and their dad didn’t. so now they can’t be can they
Zoe, the things you describe are not reality, they are exaggerations of the truth. The truth is that William and Harry DON’T go out drinking constantly, nor do they go club-hopping on a regular basis.
What they’ve been doing everyday is training to become pilots. They take time away from their training duties when their Royal Duty requires it, but otherwise we hear very little about William and Harry, and see even less of them.
If they actually lived the way you claim, we would hear about it on a daily or weekly basis.
And Prince William wasn’t ‘peeing’ on a fence, he was going behind a bush, and someone who had no business doing so caught him on camera.
He was in the African bush at the time, and there were no bathrooms handy. What should’ve happened is that he should’ve been given the proper privacy that any human being is entitled to when they’re doing something personal like that.
As for Harry’s comments, they were not meant to be hateful, that’s very obvious in the video. Even Ahmed, the soldier Harry was referring to, said that himself.
Ahmed stated that he was still friends with Harry, and that he felt that as no offense was meant, he didn’t take offense.
As for the initiation causing the downfall of the Monarchy, rubbish. Prince Charles and Prince Phillip and Prince Andrew also went through some sort of initiation, it’s a normal thing in the military. What ISN’T normal is for it to be spoken about in the press.
A boundary was crossed when the existence of the initiation was written up in the news. The press today has a lot less respect and reverence for privacy than they did 25 years ago.
I meant to add this last part:
I was quoting my Mom and Dad when I said that about the press. They remember when Charles and Diana got married, and my mother has often said that the press is 1000 times more rabid and disrespectful now than they were back then.
She said that things that never would’ve seen the light of day in the press during the 80′s are all over the media now, especially information regarding the Royal Family.
I think the intrusiveness of the media leads the public to believe they’re entitled to know every tiny little aspect of William and Harry’s lives, but they aren’t.
Wills and Harry are Royals but they’re also humans, and they are entitled to the same sorts of human, personal privacy that the rest of us are entitled to. If we didn’t know so much about their personal business, we’d have a lot less to comment on.
ML I agree with this-
“What they’ve been doing everyday is training to become pilots. They take time away from their training duties when their Royal Duty requires it, but otherwise we hear very little about William and Harry, and see even less of them.”
But I think that is the major problem here. I don’t think the media nor public expected to see less of them at their ages. I think people thought that William was going to do more engagements and support The Queen more. The less we see him is not really that good and that’s why I understand where James Whitaker is coming from. Although I think it’s good that William & Harry are training to become pilots and I’m happy to see them doing so well but the plan has it’s downside.
That’s also true, their privacy must be respected.
Mapleleaf,
I actually agree with your post.
Zoe, The Prince’s do not receive any money from the government. They are supported by the Duchy of Cornwall and that is private money.
My parents don’t talk about Royalty at all, so I can’t know for sure, but maybe the difference is this: people in the 80′s did not expect Princes to behave “like one of the guys.”
I thought the whole point of royalty in a democratic state is being/having people who live by different standards that the rest of us. They get to keep their land, their castles and can now marry who they choose. We only ask them to provide the pomp and circumstance that we might not want to do ourselves, but enjoy watching.
But maybe I could be confused. Its been known to happen :~/
I meant to say “grace, dignity, pomp and circumstance that we might not want to have to take care of ourselves”
You see, I have the goof stuff covered; don’t need others to do that for me
Prince Charles is the one that’s supposed to support the Queen, because he’s the one that’s the next in line for the throne. Wills is next in line behind the next in line.
(Not directed towards you Rman, just a general observation)
The media likes to compare Wills to Charles at the same age, but the situation isn’t the same at all. Charles is the Queen’s son, Wills is just her grandson.
Remember all of the things that Charles was doing when he was William’s age? Well he’s still doing them! Charles hasn’t moved on to doing other things just because William and Harry are adults. As long as the Queen is alive, Prince Charles will continue to do the same things today that he was doing 25 to 35 years ago.
Charles still lives and the Queen still lives. That means that Charles and his brothers and sister ALL continue to do the things they were doing 25 to 35 years ago.
There are things for Wills and Harry to do, but it’s not like things are going begging, waiting for a new Royal to show up. There are Royal Family members a-plenty who do things every day.
In addition to the immediate Royal Family members there are the Queen’s Royal cousins like Princess Alexandra, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Gloucester, and Prince Michael for starters.
Wills and Harry aren’t needed the way Charles and Andrew and Anne and Edward and Sophie are needed, because Charles and Andrew and Anne and Edward and Sophie are still doing the same old jobs they’ve been doing.
That’s why this 5 year stint with the RAF SAR is such a great idea IMO. It gives Wills something very useful to do, and the best thing of all is that it combines military service with saving lives and helping others.
It’s a position that’s almost tailor-made for a Royal prince who has lots of years to wait until he can be really relevant.
This way, St. James Palace can legitimately say that William is serving his Queen and his country and rescuing people from death at the same time.
I’d say it’s a brilliant, clever idea. If Wills thought this up all on his own, then he’s a heck of a lot more clever than people have been giving him credit for being.
The situation is made even better because he is able to spend time with his girlfriend with no-one being the wiser regarding their movements and activities. His rented house is safely on base, and the paps can’t sit outside and wait for pics, the military won’t permit it. Kate can come and go as she pleases, and no one except the military will know the how and when, and
they’re not telling.
IMO Wills must’ve had a TRUE stroke of genius when he decided to become a Royal Air Force Search and Rescue Pilot.
ML,you hit the bullseye with this post. Watching William in public gives me little doubt that unless something unforseen happens,it will be a long time before he takes on a fulltime public role. He is just not ready for it,IMO. Nor does he want it. This situation allows Will and Kate to have their cake and eat it too. The only thing I see happening for them that is less then positive is that people will begin to say they are hiding behind the military(started already,actually) to avoid public life. Funny how some people think Kate is so hot for that ring and that title. I am thinking completely the opposite. She has lived in Wills world for the better part of a decade now, she sees the ups and the downs and is in no rush to be placed in that spotlight any further then she is now. JMO.
I understand your point too ML. I think if these two get married while he’s in the S&R, they will have a great deal of privacy at the house on the base and will able to have a nice peaceful married life.
Kate knows the ends and outs of royal life because William has exposed her to it and now she’s use to it. I think they are ready for married life just not ready to be full time royals just yet. I think we are looking at a military couple here.
Mapleleaf,
Another good post! : )
I hope someone gets a good video of Harry on the runway! The Queen will die, but the ‘queens’ will sigh!