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Royalty plans big turn-out to honour
Queen Mother(Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
ONE of the biggest gatherings of members of the Royal Family in recent years
will pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother at her 100th birthday
pageant. Buckingham Palace told Army organisers of the event last week that
it expects up to 40 members to attend.
The Queen, however, will not be present after deciding that all the attention
should be on her mother. Ever since the timing of the event was settled at 5pm
on Wednesday, July 19, members of the Royal Family have been trying to
rearrange their diaries in order to attend.
Those who are expected to be present include Princess Margaret, the Prince
of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, and the
Princess Royal accompanied by her husband, Cdr Tim Laurence. Many of
the Queen Mother's great-grandchildren, including Prince William, 17, and
Prince Harry, 15, are also likely to attend, along with the Duke and Duchess
of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Prince and Princess
Michael of Kent, and members of their families.
It is almost inconceivable that Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles's
companion, will attend. Her appearance would inevitably take the limelight
away from the Queen Mother on her special day: exactly what the Queen is
determined to avoid. Ten years ago Mrs Parker Bowles was present at the
90th birthday celebrations as the wife of Andrew Parker Bowles, then a
colonel in the Army and who helped stage the celebrations.
The organisers said this weekend that the sale of 30 corporate boxes at
£10,000 each will guarantee that at least £300,000 is given to charities after
the pageant. As The Telegraph revealed two weeks ago, the boxes were
initially intended to pay for most of the costs of staging the event. It led to
criticisms that the pageant had become too commercialised and that the
Government should have provided funds to pay for it.
However, Sir Donald Gosling and Ronald Hobson, the founders of NCP car
parks, intervened within days of the disclosure. They jointly donated
£450,000, covering all of the costs of the event at which there will be a giant
birthday card for the Queen Mother, a drop of one million rose petals and a
25ft high birthday cake from which 70 children will appear.
Major Michael Parker, the producer of the event, spoke of his gratitude
yesterday towards the "two very generous donors". He said: "All the seats can
now be given away for free except the corporate boxes, which can be sold
purely to raise money for charity. We intend to give the money largely to
children's charities of which the Queen Mother is patron or president."
Details of performers who will take part in the pageant are expected to be
announced next month. They will include many famous actors and actresses,
including Wendy Craig and Patricia Hodge. Sir John Mills, the veteran actor,
director and producer, will give the address at the pageant, which will be
attended by more than 12,000 guests and a further 800 people in hospitality
boxes. Dame Vera Lynn, the Second World War "forces' sweetheart", will
sing at the event.
Another highlight will be a parade by 12 Rolls-Royces with 24 holders of the
Victoria Cross and George Cross bravery awards. The pageant will begin
when the Queen Mother travels from Clarence House, her London home, in a
carriage escorted by the Household Cavalry.
As she arrives at Horse Guards Parade, she will be greeted by massed and
mounted bands, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a 1,000-strong choir.
Details of some of the entertainment will remain secret so that the Queen
Mother has some surprises on the day.
Maj Gen Evelyn Webb-Carter, who is the chairman of the birthday tribute,
said: "It is very much the Queen Mother's day. There will only be one VIP
and that will be her." The pageant is the largest of three events to mark the
Queen Mother's 100th birthday. There will also be a celebratory mass at St
Paul's Cathedral on July 11, when members of foreign royal families will be
invited to attend.
An essentially private celebration will be held on August 4, the Queen
Mother's actual birthday. Organisers are still finalising details, but the Queen
Mother is expected to make a brief public appearance outside Clarence
House, before spending much of the day with the Queen.
~*~
Prince turns gardens into art(Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
THE Prince of Wales's love of gardening and art is to be brought together in
an ambitious plan for the grounds of Highgrove, his country home, to be the
focus of a florilegium - an important work of art featuring his most-loved
plants.
By agreeing to the Highgrove Florilegium, the Prince would become the first
member of the British Royal Family to sponsor what in past centuries was a
symbol of status for foreign kings. Detailed discussions are under way about
the project and the Prince is to allow a group of Britain's finest botanical
artists to visit Highgrove later this year.
When he bought Highgrove 20 years ago, the creation of a beautiful garden
was a top priority and he has long been an admirer of fine paintings.
Illustrating the flowers and plants will take years to complete - botanical artists
can take a week to paint a single leaf - but will eventually provide a valuable
record of the garden. The artists would work in watercolour, pencil and ink.
The Telegraph has learnt that the project is likely to be headed by Anne
Marie Evans, from Oakham, Rutland, an internationally respected botanical
watercolour artist who travels the world giving masterclasses. Her anticipated
role was the talk of botanical experts at last week's Chelsea Flower Show.
She is thought to be keen to recruit other painters for the work, including
members of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society, of which she is
president. This weekend she referred enquiries on the proposal to St James's
Palace.
After buying Highgrove and 300 acres of land for £750,000 through the
Duchy of Cornwall in 1980, the Prince said that he wanted its garden to be
"the outward expression of my inner self" and approached the Marchioness of
Salisbury to help him with the design. Over the next decade, the Prince
created a garden that was widely acclaimed for its imagination and character.
Sir Roy Strong, the former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum,
described Highgrove as the most important garden to be made during the
Eighties, praising its "return to formality in design and a growing delight in wild
nature".
The proposal for a florilegium comes 14 years after the Prince told an ITV
documentary, In Public In Private, that he talked his plants into growing.
Although intended as a joke, the comment has repeatedly returned to haunt
him and has been picked up on by critics keen to portray him as eccentric.
Florilegia had their heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some examples
include Vallet's Jardin du Roy, a record of Henri IV's garden, and Besler's
Hortus Eystettensis, a 17th-century work that contains 367 engraved plates
depicting more than 1,000 flowers. A copy of the Besler work is to be
auctioned by Sotheby's in the near future and is expected to fetch £150,000.
Last year the Moller Florilegium, a work that had been lost for almost 150
years, sold at Christie's for £500,000.
With the help of advisers such as Rosemary Verey, the gardener and author,
Prince Charles has been involved in the design of three separate gardens at
Highgrove: a wild garden, a formal garden and a walled kitchen garden.
The landscaped areas also include a sun dial garden planted with roses and
softly coloured plants, while the centrepiece of the kitchen garden is the
Golden Hornet crab apple trees. There is a further area known as the
Stumpery, designed around old tree roots with a variety of hostas and
hellebores. To the rear of the house is a hay meadow, which contains
cowslips, narcissi and blue camassias in early summer, with buttercups, lilies
and alliums coming later.
A spokesman for St James's Palace said yesterday: "A florilegium based on
the gardens at Highgrove is a lovely idea, but it will involve considerable
organisation and years and years of work. Discussions are continuing and a
final decision will rest with the Prince of Wales."
Over the years, the Prince has invested large sums of money in the gardens. "I
have put my heart and soul into Highgrove - and I will continue to do so while
I can," he once wrote. "I have also put my back into Highgrove and have
probably rendered myself prematurely decrepit in the process."
~*~
Amis writes royals into a
porno plot(UK Times)
Richard Brooks, Arts Editor
MARTIN AMIS, among the most controversial British
novelists of his generation, is set to cause shock waves with
his next work which features an explosive mix of royalty,
pornography and paedophilia.
In the name of research, Amis, who has just published his
memoir Experience, has been investigating the porn
emporiums of Los Angeles. This included spending half a day
on a film set where actors "clearly were doing it for real. It
was weird and not a turn-on", Amis told The Sunday Times.
"It was disturbing."
Amis, who will be speaking today at the Hay-on-Wye book
festival, was alarmed at the concentration on violence that he
encountered in the sex films: "It makes British porn seem like
a blushing wallflower."
In his new novel, to be delivered to his publisher Jonathan
Cape next year, the main character, Xan Meo, suffers a head
injury which so alters his personality that he becomes sex-
obsessed. "It's mainly a novel about a clash of cultures - a
disreputable cast from the underworld on the one hand and
from royalty on the other," said the author.
The plot draws Meo, who becomes a porn merchant, into a
scandal with a 14-year-old princess, who is the daughter of
the king of England, Henry IX. She is set up in a paedophile
scam, which has a huge impact on the credibility of the
monarchy.
While the book is, of course, fiction there are obvious
parallels with the real British royal family. The queen in Amis's
novel is involved in a serious car crash. Whereas Diana,
Princess of Wales died, the fictional queen goes into a deep
coma. Amis is intrigued by the Windsor clan, which has
suffered not just from marriage problems but also from recent
allegations about Prince William mixing with friends who take
drugs.
Royalty may be a new subject for him, but Amis has explored
low life in his novels be-fore. In Money, his character John
Self is a porn freak involved in corruption in New York. In
London Fields, Keith Talent is a disreputable character with a
stable of mistresses.
In Experience, Amis devotes a section to his cousin, Lucy
Partington, who disappeared in 1973. Twenty-one years later
it was revealed that she had been sexually tortured and
murdered by Fred West, the serial killer.
While Amis admits that he never knew Lucy well, he calls her
"a very remarkable person". He keeps a photograph of her
by his desk. Next to it is a photograph of his daughter
Delilah, who was born from an affair he had in 1975. He did
not meet her, however, until 1995.
Writing Experience was "extremely cathartic" for Amis: "I've
never been to a psychiatrist. The book was a crash course in
self-examination." While a memoir of his life from childhood
until 1999, when he turned 50, it focuses on the mid-1990s
when Amis lost his father Kingsley, found out about Lucy and
Delilah, and went through a divorce.
"While writing it I went through this complete change in my
sleeping pattern," said Amis. "It was not an excuse not to
write, as I was enjoying the writing. I was just emotionally
exhausted. Yet as soon as the book was finished I returned
to my usual pattern."
Amis also used Experience to lay some ghosts to rest,
particularly about his relationship with his father. It has often
been said that Amis was angry that his father cared little for
his son or his work. "I was pissed off the once, when he just
read one chapter of one of my early novels. But that's it. It
really was an extremely close relationship."
Like his friend Salman Rushdie, Amis has suffered from a bad
press. It was not helped when he fell out with one of his best
friends, fellow writer Julian Barnes. This occurred after Amis
left his agent Pat Kavanagh, Barnes's wife, for the American
agent Andrew Wylie and a large advance for Information, his
last big novel. It did not get good reviews.
"I didn't write Experience to settle scores," said Amis, "even
though much of what's written about me has been distorted."
Amis has recently hinted that, like Rushdie, he might live in
America. Rushdie lives in New York with his 29-year-old
model girlfriend, Padma Lakshmi. Amis's wife, the writer
Isabel Fonseca, whom he married in 1997, is American.
"I don't feel fed up with London," said Amis. It's just that I
think I might live in America in a few years' time. With me, it's
pull and not push."
~*~
Ghostbusters hunt beheaded queen in British palace(Yahoo: Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) - Ghostbusters have gone hunting for King Henry VIII's beheaded wife who is
said to wander amid the splendours of Hampton Court Palace.
"There's definitely a ghost here -- lots of people have seen things -- so there is a plenty of interest in
how this goes," a spokeswoman at the royal palace told Saturday's Guardian newspaper.
So a team of ghostbusters armed with temperature gauges and cameras are to survey the palace where
Catherine Howard -- Henry's fifth wife and the second to be executed -- was held before being taken
to the Tower of London.
Richard Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire which is organising the search, said Catherine was believed to
have made a desperate attempt to escape from the palace before her execution.
He will use thermal imaging to locate possible "cold spots" and invite tourists to join a royal "goosepimples trail".