f13.net

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11765422


Grats, but God we are going to have months of this and then the entire country will shut down for a week when it happens. 

Daily Mail is already on the case with bikini pics.

Is this the new People's Princess? How confident Kate Middleton compares to 'Shy Di' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1330165/Kate-Middleton-Prince-William-engaged-Is-new-Peoples-Princess.html)

That's going to be a freaking scene when it happens.  :drill:

I love that article.  It stops just shy of suggesting that Kate may too meet her end smeared all over the walls of a tunnel in France with a wogs cock in her mouth.

 :ye_gods:

Yeah, I tuned into BBC World News, saw that, and immediately changed the channel.  The Beeb usually is a good place to get honest journalism that actually pays attention to the rest of the world when Americans aren't directly involved, but it's going to be all Royal Wedding crap from now until a week after the event.

--Dave

I'm glad that in the US our royals are retarded rich kids and ephemeral celebrities. Just like yours, but we have more of them so they're easier to discard when past the fresh date.

Oh great. From now on its gonna be "yeah heres some bad news on the economy... BUT HERE'S SOME NEVER BEFORE SEEN PICS OF KATE (no sirname to make you feel you know her) DOING A HANDSTAND WHILE EATING A BANANA!! WOOHOO!!!"

I'm happy for them, as best I can tell they both seem to be pretty decent people.

Dear UK journalists, people get married. Quite frequently in fact. I don't care. I went to my cousin's wedding two months ago and the only reason I cared about that was a free bar so unless you're offering a shot of decent whisky with every announcement of this please shut the hell up. Previously the thing I was most looking forward to having to try to skip was when the Olympics happen and now they have to throw another massive non-story in my face.

*SQUEE*  She's lovely.

Gods, I'm turning into my mom.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/85916/toot.gif)

:yahoo:

Prince Charles, presumably channelling Prince Philip...


Odds are good we'll get an extra bank holiday out of this.

The 2nd article was quite amusing in the first comment I saw said "She's so plain and uncharismatic. Not at all like Diana"  Whut?  Diana always struck me as a compassionate but plain woman who'd blend into the wallpaper if she didn't have folks buying her clothes for her. The frumpy Diana in the B&W pic is the one I always saw. /shrug.

Holy crap, why do I care.  :ye_gods:

Anywho, poor Willie doesn't have dad's hair but at least he got a stalker * bride with personality.

*Prior reports implying she'd been following him since before they met have been rehashed in the last few hours.  I know too much about this because of them.

I don't think stalking him would be rated as low as one might think. Seems like British women have all been salivating over him since he was 16, seems like par for the course.

Of course, what do you expect? He doesn't look much of anything like the gargoyle side of his family. And he will be King if he survives that long.

William had plastic surgery when he was a child to pin back his ears, so he would not look like a cup with 2 handles.

...

Why do I know that?

I'd like to know why William looks 40 now with that hair line suddenly going out like the tide. Seriously, I looked at those pics and he looks 20 years older than the last time he was in the news. Of course I am a Henry fan anyway...as much as an American can be that is.

Diana was deified.  There were a lot of rose-coloured glasses used when royal watching.

Plus you have to take her hair in the context of the 80s.

I lol'ed.  :awesome_for_real:

Well the engagement didn't manage to qualify as news with the editors at the Socialist Worker  :grin:

Yup just checked, that's probably the only "media" not covering the story.

Did find this from 2002 on the Jubilee though (https://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=5496).


I doubt that causing me to think that The Queen owning the seabed around Britain is pretty cool was the main intention of the article though.

Well now I know who to talk when it comes time to build my underwater colony off the coast of Britain.

That'll be London in a few years time after the sea levels rise.

She's a legit hottie.

And that's the extent to which I care about this subject.  Not that there needs to be more than that.

I'm old enough to remember the last Royal Wedding, and I think some of the youngsters here will underestimate just how ridiculously big a deal will be made of this event.

And she's hot.

I'm also old enough to remember it, which is why I said that from now until a week after, BBC (and all other British media, but that's the only one I ever follow) is going to be the Royal Wedding Channel(s).

--Dave

Seems harmless enough, and it's only once every generation or so.

It'll be amusing (to me at least) to see how much of a problem 'Security' is around a royal wedding in these days of panic security theater.

Floods in Cornwall and the imminent implosion of the Irish Economy seem to be doing better business today.

I wager the Irish Economy wishes it was doing better business...

This "news" (and this thread) already start to irritate me.

(God help me)

Fashions of the 80s have not aged well.

I clearly remember watching the wedding on TV with my entire family and my Grandmother, other relatives got the photo book of the wedding.... and we lived in California.  I can't even begin to imagine the hype that will go on across the pond.

That said, at this point in my life, I have a hard time thinking the words "royal wedding" without smirking at the idea of royalty.

At least women trim the hedges these days. 

Yeah you see one of the things I like about SW is the fact that it's openly biased and makes no attempt to hide it.  :awesome_for_real:

And I do indeed remember the Di/Charles mass hysteria wedding. My parents were not royalists (surprise!) so for the week of the actual wedding we went on a family holiday to a tiny island off the North coast of Wales called Bardsey, where there were no TVs and the only contact with the outside world was a radio that the lighthouse keeper had and a miniscule boat that came once a week. It was awesome, we missed the entire thing!

Back to this wedding though, I doubt that we'll see the same level of slavish fauning from the public now as we did then. I think there's a higher level of disillusion with the royal family than there was in the 80s, plus in the depths of a recession and a vicious public cuts program a bunch of inbred toffs lording it over us and living a life of luxury on our money isn't so appealing an image as it was in the loadsamoney 80s boom.

Yes but we have twitter now  :why_so_serious:

They don't try to hide the crazy either  :grin:

I think you're right though, this isn't going to be as conspicuous as it could have been, and I suspect that will be better for all involved.

With respect to the costs though, I wonder how much additional revenue will be generated through wedding-related business? I'm sure the bookies and bric-a-brac merchants will see a boom, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a bump to tourism too. It's probably a little too cryptic to directly calculate, but I suspect there will be a degree of offset.

I did hear on the radio that as Willy is second in line to the throne, this doesn't count as a 'State Event' which means the general populace doesn't have to pay for all of it. Just most of it.

They should schedule the wedding for Nov 5 next year. There will already be fireworks!

I suspect Charles will die before the Queen - just not before the wedding date. Seriously, Queen Elizabeth is immortal.

The Queen Mother has many Yoda-like qualities.

EDIT: HA, I didn't know what Queen Mother meant. Just thought it is was just another way to refer to the Queen.

had

To be fair, the Queen Mother lived a long goddamn time herself, didn't she?

Queen Mothers always seem to.  Pretty sure they make pacts with Satan.  Also, old as hell Queens never know when to abdicate, for some reason.

They need to make a movie about a disgruntled prince who gets fucking tired of it, and plots to kill his mummy.  I'd see it.

Yeah, the women of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha are notably long-lived. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother lived until she was 102. For comparison her husband (George VI) died aged 57. The current Queen is 84, and Charles is 62; so if she lives to the same age as her mother, and given that she will not abdicate, Charles could easily be pushing 80 before he even has a sniff at the throne.

Which is probably what most people are hoping for, that he will be forced to abdicate in favor of his son (or be dead when that time comes).

Given his frumpy nature, I don't see Charles stepping aside willingly.

Wills would be a lot more popular.

Is that when Hagrid arrived with your Hogwarts letter?

I can't stop laughing at Charles Sniffing The Throne.

The only way the Queen abdicates is if someone threatens her with a silver bullet.

It'd been awhile since I saw any photos of him, so I was surprised to read this. This is always my mental image of His Royal Hotness:

(http://www.topnews.in/files/prince-william_3.jpg)

...which, evidently, makes me just shy of  :hello_thar:

I was shocked, SHOCKED! to see this recent photo:

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_02/PrinceWillMMT_468x375.jpg)

 :ye_gods: Holy what the fuck!   :heartbreak:

I mean, I know some people peak early, but jesus fuck.

Bad angle and lighting.  Not much he can do about balding either, short of Hair Club for Men or RonCo.

He could buzz-cut that mange.  Well, unless he has the Charles bat-ears.  Doesn't look like it, though.

He did but he had surgery to 'correct' them when he was a small child. His Dad justified it by saying he didn't want his son getting the grief they caused him in school, which to be honest sounds like a damn good reason to me.

Yeah, more a case of a terrible, terrible second photo and a quite nice first than of rapid aging.

Ok those are extreme photos, but my point still stands. I am beginning to think the male monarchy in Great Britain are cursed.

 :uhrr:

What gave it away ?

Hairist.

Male pattern baldness is not our fault you know.  :cry:

In the contrary, the current Queen knows quite well when not to abdicate. There couldn't be a better reason to hold onto the throne than the though of Prince Charles in it otherwise.  :awesome_for_real:

Cursed, victims of severe inbreeding on an island of inbreds. Whatever.   :drill:

I wish I could marry this post.

No, I know it isn't, honey. That's what shaved heads are for!

You're just jealous because their form of government turns out to be better than yours after all.

I didn't read it, but I was  :facepalm: at the series of slightly similar outfits that two different women have worn over the course of their lifetimes.

Some of us have misshapen cantaloupes on our shoulders. This is not an option!

Combine that with the scars of cracking your head open five times as a kid, and yup - that's what what we live with. Just resist the combover man, its not worth it.

Not to worry, his brother is taking after his father, who still has a full head of ginger hair to go with his freckles, so at least one royal won't be going bald.

Are you suggesting something, comrade?

But Charles started balding in his mid-20s, too!

Charles?

A "few months after" Harrys birth Diana's affair with James Hewitt became news. He definitely wasn't seeing Diana before Harrys birth, definitely, absolutely not. The fact Harry is a near twin of a young Hewitt is purely coincidence. Hewitt himself denies any relationship to Harry.

(http://njmg.typepad.com/ervolino/images/2008/03/02/prince_harry_james_hewitt_20050413.jpg)

No relation. Ginger hair, freckles and facial features are are just a fluke. Everyone knows Harry is the spitting image of Charles, what with the balding, ears, and other features he shares with his brother.

I don't see it.

 :awesome_for_real:

And SW reports (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=23142) on   :why_so_serious:

The most astonishing thing about that article? The assertion that the queen has a £125M stamp collection  :uhrr:

http://www.gibbonsstampmonthly.com/story.asp?storycode=1247&preview=1

Girl likes pictures of herself. And like most modern facebook using girls she's pulling the same pose in every single one.

Well I never, you learn something new every day eh. I'm just amazed that it's worth more than the jewels or the property.

Fun read though, SW never disappoints.  :grin:

That will be based on her own jewels, not the Crown Jewels, in case anyone is wondering. A century or so of the finest the likes of Cartier and Gerrards have to offer, most of which would be gifts or hand-me-downs from recent generations. The Royals don't commission too many pieces in the general scheme of things, compared with nouveau riche billionaires.  You couldn't value the Crown Jewels any more than you could value the market value of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but the Koh-i-Noor would have to be worth hundreds of millions.

The property thing is way out too. Before the crash there were £80m houses in London let alone, Balmoral and Sandringham would see most of the Middle East, East European and Asian Forbes rich list in a bidding war.

For those not keeping track the couple set a most auspicious date for their nuptuals, the 29th of April.

Also known as Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun's 66th wedding anniversary.   Whoops.

Yes, it's old news but nobody'd mentioned it so I thought I would since there's a thread for it and all.

Something bad has happened on every day of the year, can't worry about that shit.

Thus proving my earlier post in Politics where I said "nobody's going to give a shit about Nazis some day."   Apparently it was sooner than I thought.

Really?  There's a list of dates that you can't get married on, can I see the full list?

I keep coming back to this post in hopes of some bikini pics of Kate or something.  I'll try again tomorrow.

Apparently her new nickname is Kate Middleclass Well it's new to me. Also a friend who's in the RAF informed me apparently Prince William is very quiet and generally quite solitary, to the point that people would suddenly realise the guy in the corner was the Prince and all have an, "Oh shit what did I just say over the last five minutes?" moment. Which strikes me as kind of sad.

Actually, why would that be sad?  I mean, if he were pushy about making sure all and sundry around knew he was the prince and was graciously gracing them with his presence, people would be complaining about that.  Nothing wrong with being quiet and keeping to yourself, more or less.  Unless he's going out of his way to avoid talking to people for some reason; that would be something to wonder about.  Plus, it's amazing what you can find out when you spend more time listening instead of acting the star.  *shrug*

As for the wedding date - meh.  There are connections to dates all over the place, good and bad.  No date they pick is going to be perfect, most likely.  I was amused hearing on the news this morning that poor Kate was going to need to rush to get a wedding dress picked out/made in time for April though.  It's not like the royal family doesn't either have a seamstress of some flavor on staff or the ability to just co-opt one or more to do the work.  She should just toss everyone for a loop and buy somehting off the rack, lol!

I like the fact that he's quiet. Nobody needs mouthy royals except the tabloids.

The current Queen is generally very restrained and doesn't talk much. For the role she fills it's a very good quality.

Hitler and Geli Raubal's anniversary is also not auspicious.

Thinking about it, Hitler was a bit of a dick getting married on the day Joan of Arc arrived to defeat the English at Orleans.

Sad in the sense that in that environment most officers are pretty loud and chummy with the others. From the description it seemed he didn't really felt like he could be, which is hardly surprising. It just sounded less like he was quiet and observant and more like he was shy in a way that typically you don't get to be in the RAF because if you don't like it you then you leave. There's a number of reasons for it (overly aware he can't say anything stupid, feels bad he can't do the stuff everyone else does, etc.) but it sounded to me like someone not very comfortable with where they were. And he's only there because he's The Man Who Will be King.

‎"If I could work my will every idiot who goes about with 'Congratulations Will and Kate'' on his lips, should be baked with his own wedding cake, and buried with a small Union flag through his heart."

Seriously hoping that's the end of hearing about all this crap. I've been trying not to pay attention to this and have still gotten really sick of the coverage. If it wasn't for the Daily Show coverage I'd be entirely unhappy about it.

Luckily I'm able to avoid it.

Anyone talking about the stupid wedding shit is not worth talking to. So it's a handy detector for that.

Seeing that my office is next to the receptionist I'm stuck overhearing stories about how they woke up at like 4am to watch this shit and about all the details. On top of that, someone brought in doughnuts to celebrate the wedding... :uhrr:

I paid just enough attention to it to confirm that Kate still managed to look hot in her dress.  Opening a web browser this morning was all I needed to do to confirm it.

In fairness, watching the whole thing to see how slinky the bridesmaid was - Also worth it.

I thought it was great, I'll bump the thread with some pics just for the haters.

(http://i.imgur.com/vJUqwl.jpg)

All over, and it wasn't as annoying as I thought.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381795/ROYAL-WEDDING-Prince-William-Kate-Middleton-kiss-Buckingham-Palace-balcony-2bn-watch.html

Yeah, cause pics of it are hard to come by on the net at the moment.

 :oh_i_see:

How about
(http://www.boingboing.net/images/royalwedding.jpg)

For the record, people caring about the royal wedding is stupid, pointless, yet is bewilderingly fascinating to a wide variety of people around the world. I don't get it.

I loved the Times, 10 pages of it in the front with an additional souvenir pull out, then felt the need to put a novelty face mask in for people bored with it.  Once every 30 years is fine with me, especially if they want to give me a couple of days off work for it.

You got free donuts, don't complain.  Just nod and smile like you do when people celebrate birthdays. :awesome_for_real:

I was working all night, so it was on the TV.

The queen's dress was, in fact, REMARKABLY yellow.

Also, hat fashions are beyond me, although I find the formal vestments of the Church of England almost as amusing as I do Catholic formal stuff.

I feel bad for the kid's choir, insofar as I'd imagine "Singing for the Prince's wedding" is sort of going to be a bunch of 11 year old singer's career peak.

That chick in the white dress? Yeah, I noticed her despite the TV having the sound off and being 20 feet away. (Worked all night).

I did stumble across a writer I like who liveblogged it, complete with things like "That hat looks like a stork was eaten by a serving dish" and "The bride has arrived. I haven't seen that much gratuitous train since Atlas Shrugged."

Mostly I worked and tried to decide what .NET book to order and making bets with myself on the shuttle launch. I think I chose a good one -- covers a bunch of 2.0 stuff I'm rusty at in addition to the 3.5 stuff. I could use the refresher.

Given they're pretty much done when their voices change, most likely yes.

That would be Kate's sister Pippa.

(http://i.imgur.com/YhcxOl.jpg)

Original image.

(http://i.imgur.com/DMTQr.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/HxyK7.jpg)

(http://hothottie.com/images/kate-middleton-bikini.jpg)

(http://hothottie.com/images/kate-middleton-wet-bikini.jpg)

Welcome to three years ago. You are doing internet wrong. (http://www.point-spreads.com/content/view/1182/2/)

Yes, the wife and the media insisted on telling me everything about her including her long form birth certificate in order to spoil my viewing.  All I wanted to know was 'hot dark haired lassie in a silk dress that looks sprayed on'.

Was she born in Kenya, too?

No, but she IS a secret Muslim.

Also, a secret lemonade drinker.

The absence of a hat also helped. Also, good with children. :P

I spent yesterday in Hyde Park with friends, we sang, we drank, we ate pork pies. All in all it was a lot of fun. I'm hardly an ardent Royalist, but if we have to do this once every 30 years or so then I can deal with it for a day off in the sun.

Also, Pippa Middleton is fine, all kinds of fine.

Edit:

(http://i.imgur.com/yOA8h.jpg)

He should have sported the van dyke.

...Rowan Atkinson?

He's a friend of the royal family

Black Adder's always hung around the locus of power!  :drill:

Eh, there's half a dozen upskirt shots of her, sadly her panties are some horrible herringbone patern and appear to be made out of wool.

I don't know if I'm getting old, or simply seen way too much porn.  But somehow, doing an image search for random actresses, models, etc., is always disappointing these days.

--Dave

NSFW Kate Middleton's family uncensored (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S00gAgVlTEM) NSFW

(http://i.imgur.com/pAiBx.jpg)

oh hai