Columnist JAN MOIR says she's so disappointed in Kate and Wills, whose US tour proves how dull they've become. See her write up after the cut...
Earlier this year, during the Australian tour, a wisp of doubt crept in. Then there was a growing suspicion when they trotted through King’s Cross station in baseball caps, before the awful truth emerged on their whistle-stop tour to New York this week.
Which is that however you look at it, be you republican or royalist, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become a terrible, terrible disappointment to us all. I’m sorry, but they have.
Nearly four years after they married at Westminster Abbey, in a fairytale ceremony that was gasping in its gorgeousness, the gilt is off the gingerbread, the bloom has gone from the rose.
From the tips of her favourite nude shoes to the top of his Homer Simpson forehead, Kate and Wills have proved themselves to be as dull, dull, dull as Windsor moat water. They are High Street, not high class.
There isn’t an occasion they can’t live down to and they almost always fail to exhibit the sense of grandeur and dignity that the monarchy demands. Quite frankly, they are a bit of a bore.
In the beginning, hopes were high for the launch of the new Team Cambridge; two potentially alluring and exciting members of a fascinating family, one whose history is stitched through the tapestry of British life like a shimmering, golden thread.
They would be our new symbols of modern Britain, they would single-handedly invigorate the House of Windsor, they would go out in the world as shining representatives of our country. We would be proud of them, as they were proud of us. But that is not what has happened.
Instead, what we got are a couple of dreary suburbanites, a Mr and Mrs Bland who trundle around the world in mumsy dresses and dad-trousers, saying not very much at all. So terrified are the low-impact Cambridges of causing even a hint of controversy, they make a point of never uttering anything within ten miles of that town called Mildly Interesting.
This fear of disputation, matched with a craving for the public approval that ensures their survival, has turned them into a pair of weird, international geisha-people. Mouthing only platitudes, they smile and nod at everything as they cut ribbons and accept posies like royal robots.
They have none of the beguilement that strange, little Queen Victoria aroused, none of the deep respect the current Queen commands, not a drop of the molten glamour that Diana, Princess of Wales oozed.
Even at black-tie galas in palaces or embassies, Kate and William somehow manage to look as if they are attending a golf club dinner in the Home Counties, just after they have finished the weekend shop at Waitrose. In speeches and in the spotlight, they come across as a couple from Cheam who just cannot believe their luck.
Look at their trip to New York this week. What was that all about? From Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Empire State Building, they dazzled the U.S. like a pair of damp squibs submerged in a bucket of cringe.
Kate wore 50 shades of gloom while William fussed with his blazer buttons and made appeals on behalf of the very important cause to which he is devoted; saving elephants and stopping the ivory trade.
It might be very noble of him, but I do wish he would instead highlight causes that really mean something to British people, things that affect their daily lives.
And it does seem rather hypocritical to try to save one species of animal, while the royals gaily blast game birds and stags at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, I winced when they turned up at their hotel like any old pair of out-of-towners, to be met by the schmoozing manager and a barrage of paparazzi.
Later, they were photographed under an umbrella prominently displaying the name of the hotel; a lovely bit of global advertising right there, thank you very much. Can you imagine the Queen ever allowing herself to be duped into such a tacky situation? No, me neither.
The Cambridges were introduced to pop royalty Jay Z and Beyoncé at a basketball match, where it was clear to see who was the most regal and important — and it wasn’t the duke and duchess.
Other VIPs they met included film mogul Harvey Weinstein, editrix Anna Wintour and former reality show star Mary-Kate Olsen, a list that tells you everything you need to know about the trip.
The main reason for going to New York in the first place was to raise money for St Andrews, the Scottish university where Kate and William met and studied.
Does this privileged university really qualify as a noble cause? And what has it even got to do with Americans, especially those very rich ones who disparagingly call royal fund-raising trips like this ‘Viking raids’
The Cambridges trotted around the Big Apple, marble begging bowls at the ready, in a thoroughly demeaning way. Isn’t it all rather embarrassing, particularly when one considers how rich William is?
The duke roused himself to make a typically dull, three-paragraph ‘speech’ at a wildlife reception, which he ended with: ‘I’m off to shoot some hoops now, or whatever it is you Americans say.’
That’s about as funny as a tusk-poaching expedition. Not to mention patronising.
It is not that they are not nice people; they clearly are. Indeed, they have many excellent qualities.
He is built of solid Windsor timber, a prince we can rely on always to do the right thing. She makes an absolutely tremendous duchess, in every way. She is polite and charming, and always looks thrilled to be meeting whoever it is she is meeting. That is a very big plus.
However, the problem is that there is no pizazz, no drama, no sprinkling of magic dust about them. The only exciting, spontaneous thing that happened this year was when Prince George threw away his stuffed bilby toy at Sydney Zoo during the Australian tour.
Yes, there were those moments when Kate insisted on wearing the kind of ill-advised gossamer skirts that float upwards when a cricket coughs, but they are becoming rarer. She and William even allowed themselves to be mocked and joked about by a bunch of third-rate comics on the Royal Variety show, which was screened this week.
In a break from the usual protocol, the Royal Box at the London Palladium was bathed in lights, and cameras captured their reactions throughout the evening.
Host Michael McIntyre even introduced them, as if they were just another act appearing between the ‘utterly sensational Bette Midler’ and the legendary Shirley Bassey.
‘Making their debut tonight, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, How exciting, thank you for coming,’ roared McIntyre, as the couple grinned like goons.
He also congratulated them on having an addition to the family and asked: ‘Who’s the daddy?’
Comedian Jack Whitehall made much of the fact that he attended the same school as Kate. ‘I don’t know if it is appropriate, but you were my first ever crush,’ he told her, adding that his ‘posh’ mother is ‘absolutely obsessed with you’.
How delightful. I do hope our own dear Queen wasn’t watching.
There is increasingly a very fine and indeterminable line between royalty and celebrity. And as they capered around New York and giggled at the Royal Variety show, it seemed that the Cambridges have crossed it.
I blame Prince William and his insistence on an approach that is as informal as protocol will allow. He wants to get down with the kids, to be seen as just another bloke.
Yet I wonder if he has not made a terrible mistake. Royalty needs a bit of mystique to keep interest piqued. It needs star power.
The days of the Royal Family being able to stand apart from society, to be remote but still respected by their adoring subjects, have gone.
Yet if our future King and Queen want to be a relevant force in the future, they have to realise that they can’t just be one of the boys and girls. They really will have to do better than this.
Which is that however you look at it, be you republican or royalist, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become a terrible, terrible disappointment to us all. I’m sorry, but they have.
Nearly four years after they married at Westminster Abbey, in a fairytale ceremony that was gasping in its gorgeousness, the gilt is off the gingerbread, the bloom has gone from the rose.
From the tips of her favourite nude shoes to the top of his Homer Simpson forehead, Kate and Wills have proved themselves to be as dull, dull, dull as Windsor moat water. They are High Street, not high class.
There isn’t an occasion they can’t live down to and they almost always fail to exhibit the sense of grandeur and dignity that the monarchy demands. Quite frankly, they are a bit of a bore.
In the beginning, hopes were high for the launch of the new Team Cambridge; two potentially alluring and exciting members of a fascinating family, one whose history is stitched through the tapestry of British life like a shimmering, golden thread.
They would be our new symbols of modern Britain, they would single-handedly invigorate the House of Windsor, they would go out in the world as shining representatives of our country. We would be proud of them, as they were proud of us. But that is not what has happened.
Instead, what we got are a couple of dreary suburbanites, a Mr and Mrs Bland who trundle around the world in mumsy dresses and dad-trousers, saying not very much at all. So terrified are the low-impact Cambridges of causing even a hint of controversy, they make a point of never uttering anything within ten miles of that town called Mildly Interesting.
This fear of disputation, matched with a craving for the public approval that ensures their survival, has turned them into a pair of weird, international geisha-people. Mouthing only platitudes, they smile and nod at everything as they cut ribbons and accept posies like royal robots.
They have none of the beguilement that strange, little Queen Victoria aroused, none of the deep respect the current Queen commands, not a drop of the molten glamour that Diana, Princess of Wales oozed.
Even at black-tie galas in palaces or embassies, Kate and William somehow manage to look as if they are attending a golf club dinner in the Home Counties, just after they have finished the weekend shop at Waitrose. In speeches and in the spotlight, they come across as a couple from Cheam who just cannot believe their luck.
Look at their trip to New York this week. What was that all about? From Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Empire State Building, they dazzled the U.S. like a pair of damp squibs submerged in a bucket of cringe.
Kate wore 50 shades of gloom while William fussed with his blazer buttons and made appeals on behalf of the very important cause to which he is devoted; saving elephants and stopping the ivory trade.
It might be very noble of him, but I do wish he would instead highlight causes that really mean something to British people, things that affect their daily lives.
And it does seem rather hypocritical to try to save one species of animal, while the royals gaily blast game birds and stags at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, I winced when they turned up at their hotel like any old pair of out-of-towners, to be met by the schmoozing manager and a barrage of paparazzi.
Later, they were photographed under an umbrella prominently displaying the name of the hotel; a lovely bit of global advertising right there, thank you very much. Can you imagine the Queen ever allowing herself to be duped into such a tacky situation? No, me neither.
The Cambridges were introduced to pop royalty Jay Z and Beyoncé at a basketball match, where it was clear to see who was the most regal and important — and it wasn’t the duke and duchess.
Other VIPs they met included film mogul Harvey Weinstein, editrix Anna Wintour and former reality show star Mary-Kate Olsen, a list that tells you everything you need to know about the trip.
The main reason for going to New York in the first place was to raise money for St Andrews, the Scottish university where Kate and William met and studied.
Does this privileged university really qualify as a noble cause? And what has it even got to do with Americans, especially those very rich ones who disparagingly call royal fund-raising trips like this ‘Viking raids’
The Cambridges trotted around the Big Apple, marble begging bowls at the ready, in a thoroughly demeaning way. Isn’t it all rather embarrassing, particularly when one considers how rich William is?
The duke roused himself to make a typically dull, three-paragraph ‘speech’ at a wildlife reception, which he ended with: ‘I’m off to shoot some hoops now, or whatever it is you Americans say.’
That’s about as funny as a tusk-poaching expedition. Not to mention patronising.
It is not that they are not nice people; they clearly are. Indeed, they have many excellent qualities.
He is built of solid Windsor timber, a prince we can rely on always to do the right thing. She makes an absolutely tremendous duchess, in every way. She is polite and charming, and always looks thrilled to be meeting whoever it is she is meeting. That is a very big plus.
However, the problem is that there is no pizazz, no drama, no sprinkling of magic dust about them. The only exciting, spontaneous thing that happened this year was when Prince George threw away his stuffed bilby toy at Sydney Zoo during the Australian tour.
Yes, there were those moments when Kate insisted on wearing the kind of ill-advised gossamer skirts that float upwards when a cricket coughs, but they are becoming rarer. She and William even allowed themselves to be mocked and joked about by a bunch of third-rate comics on the Royal Variety show, which was screened this week.
In a break from the usual protocol, the Royal Box at the London Palladium was bathed in lights, and cameras captured their reactions throughout the evening.
Host Michael McIntyre even introduced them, as if they were just another act appearing between the ‘utterly sensational Bette Midler’ and the legendary Shirley Bassey.
‘Making their debut tonight, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, How exciting, thank you for coming,’ roared McIntyre, as the couple grinned like goons.
He also congratulated them on having an addition to the family and asked: ‘Who’s the daddy?’
Comedian Jack Whitehall made much of the fact that he attended the same school as Kate. ‘I don’t know if it is appropriate, but you were my first ever crush,’ he told her, adding that his ‘posh’ mother is ‘absolutely obsessed with you’.
How delightful. I do hope our own dear Queen wasn’t watching.
There is increasingly a very fine and indeterminable line between royalty and celebrity. And as they capered around New York and giggled at the Royal Variety show, it seemed that the Cambridges have crossed it.
I blame Prince William and his insistence on an approach that is as informal as protocol will allow. He wants to get down with the kids, to be seen as just another bloke.
Yet I wonder if he has not made a terrible mistake. Royalty needs a bit of mystique to keep interest piqued. It needs star power.
The days of the Royal Family being able to stand apart from society, to be remote but still respected by their adoring subjects, have gone.
Yet if our future King and Queen want to be a relevant force in the future, they have to realise that they can’t just be one of the boys and girls. They really will have to do better than this.
Source: Daily Mail
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