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An Evening With Royal Correspondent Robert Jobson

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Frost joined royal correspondent Robert Jobson at the wonderful Grosvenor House Apartments by Jumeirah Living. Robert was on top form and had lots of amazing stories on Princess Diana, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, James Hewitt, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their son, George, and the Queen and Prince Phillip. Have a listen for some good Royal gossip and find out if Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas will get back together and other great gossip.

prince william turns 30. Kate middletonWe also found out that the Royals were never snobbish towards the Middletons, Robert described it as a ‘Daily Mail Myth’.

Robert Jobson is one of Britain’s leading royal commentators, dubbed the ‘Godfather of Royal Reporting’ by the Wall Street Journal. He is also Royal Editor of the respected London Evening Standard.

A best-selling author and award-winning correspondent, he has been at the forefront of royal reporting for a quarter of a century and is now a familiar face for viewers around the world as a royal correspondent for ITV Daybreak, Sky News and NBC’s Today Show in the USA. Now back in London, following his presence in New Zealand and Australia during the recent royal tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, he will be speaking about the ‘new royal family’ and the next chapter of their modern day fairytale.

Grosvenor House Apartments is unique in the capital, combining the services of a top five-star hotel with the discretion, comfort and security of a private Mayfair residence. This event is being held as part of its ‘At Home’ Events Programme, designed to introduce residents to the best of a luxury London lifestyle by treating them to private evenings with high profile personalities and experts in the fields of design, fashion, music and the arts.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Leave Hospital With Baby Prince

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have emerged from the Lindo Wing with their son. Both happy parents cradled their newborn son as they stood on the steps of St Margaret’s Hospital in-keeping with tradition. Kate looked radiant and happy in a cornflower blue dress by Jenny Packham.

William said: “He’s got a good pair of lungs on him that’s for sure. He’s quite heavy. We’re still working on a name.’ He also spoke about the wait for the birth, “I will remind him of his tardiness when he’s older as I know how long you lot have been out here.” He also complemented his wife’s looks, saying:”He’s got her looks that’s for sure!” and also joked that his son had more hair than him. Kate said that William had already changed his first nappy.

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge leave hospital with baby sonPrince of CambridgePrince Charles and Camilla visit grandchildKate and William with baby son

Kate gave birth to their son at 16:24 yesterday (22/7/2013) and Kensington Palace announced the birth via email at 20:32. The couples son weighted 8lbs 6oz and William was present for the birth.

Carole and Michael Middleton saw their grandchild at the Lindo Wing earlier today. They were followed by Charles and Camilla. Charles said that the birth was ‘marvellous’.

The baby will be called HRH Prince or Princess X of Cambridge, and will one day be head of the armed forces, supreme governor of the Church of England, and the head of state of 16 countries, as well as head of the Commonwealth.

What is your take on the Royal Baby? Were you excited? What do you think it should be called?

Kate Middleton Has To Curtsy To ‘Blood’ Royals.

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Kate Middleton may now be the Duchess of Cambridge, but she has been told that she must bow to ‘blood’ royals when her Prince is not around.

Middle-class Middleton has come a long way but the Queen has updated the Order of Precedence to account for the Duke of Cambridge’s wife.

Kate must curtsy to the “blood princesses”, the Princess Royal, Princess Alexandra, and the daughters of the Duke of York, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie when Prince William is not around as she does not have any blue blood in her veins.

When her husband is with her she only has to curtsy to the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

If Kate thinks she has it bad then give the Countess of Wessex is probably even less happy, she has to curtsy to Kate even when William is not there.

The last time the order was updated after Prince Charles married Camilla the Countess of Wessex then had to curtsy to Camilla. According to a courtier: “She didn’t like it one bit,”

The Queen has changed the Order of Precedence “on blood principles”

What do you think? Would you curtsy to The Queen or another member of the Royal household?

Celebrities don’t cut it with children.

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In a world seemingly obsessed with celebrity, it is heartening to know that celebrities don’t cut it with children.

Celebrities aren’t that important to children after all according to research out today, despite the panic over the burgeoning celebrity culture.

When school children were asked to pick the most important people in Britain, celebrities ranked significantly lower than royals and politicians, with showbiz mogul Simon Cowell getting less than half as many votes as David Cameron (20 per cent versus 45 per cent).

The research among 650 UK school children, conducted for Galt Toys by leading child research experts ChildWise, showed Ant and Dec were important to only 21 percent of children and chart topper Harry Styles just 13 per cent. Daniel Radcliffe has lost his magic, only receiving 8 per cent of votes.

It isn’t great news for David Beckham either who ranked lower than Boris Johnson with 13 per cent of the votes versus 14 per cent. Cheryl Cole was important to just 11 per cent of children.

Brit winner Adele gets just 6 per cent of votes and Victoria Beckham trails in last with only 4 per cent.

John McDonnell, Managing Director of Galt Toys commented: “Children aren’t as frivolous as adults fear them to be. Our findings show it’s good news for the Royals in Jubilee year with the Queen topping the importance poll by a significant margin (91 per cent) and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in second and third place.”

The Royal family can’t rest on its laurels though as second in line to the throne Prince Charles lagged behind Prince William and the Prime Minister, coming in fifth place. Prince William got more than double the number of votes as his father (53 per cent versus 25 per cent).

Which of these British people do you think is most important?

Prince William is St Giles Trust's 50th Anniversary Patron

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Tonight, staff at St Giles’ Trust are celebrating after Royal endorsement from His Royal Highness Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. He has agreed to become Patron of St Giles Trust for 2012 – the very year they will celebrating their 50th Anniversary. 
 
The Duke’s Patronage highlights his interest in affording people of all ages and stages of their lives – and especially those who feel disengaged or excluded from society – the opportunity to develop a sense of purpose and realise their true potential. 

Rob Owen, CEO of St Giles Trust, said: 

“We are honoured and delighted that the Duke of Cambridge will be our patron for our important 50th anniversary year.  By supporting us, he is leading by example in helping some of the most excluded, disadvantaged people in society who really need support.  We are very much looking forward to working with Prince William over the coming year.”
 
This will be the third generation of Royal endorsement St Giles Trust has enjoyed, with previous support from the Queen Mother who opened the original day centre in 1963 and HRH Prince Charles when he opened their premises in Camberwell in 1995.

St Giles Trust started out as a soup kitchen in the crypt of the still standing and used nearby church St Giles Church. St Giles Trust’s work has continually evolved to meet the needs of society’s most vulnerable. Their valued work includes work with the homeless, illiterate, innumerate, gang and community work and supporting people back into work.

As many as one in five of their staff are ex-offenders or ex-service users and they remain an organisation supporting people who have fallen through the gaps in the state’s safety net.

The Prince previously visited the charity in March 2009 when he met clients and staff at the charity’s head office in Camberwell, South London.

Kate Middleton: The Making Of A Duchess

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Few people manage to capture the publics attention, but it is fair to say that Catherine Middleton is huge right now. She’s bigger than a movie star, just as famous as Diana, she’s (arguably) more popular than her fiancee Prince William. If you google “Kate Middleton” you get 51,700,000 hits. If you google “Catherine Middleton” you get 8,600,000.

The tale of a commoner (okay, millionaires over privileged daughter) done good is a story usually only read in fairytale. Yet on the 29th Miss Middleton will walk down the aisle and marry into royalty. Yet to call her a millionaire’s daughter doesn’t really scratch the truth of the surface. Her mother was a flight attendant (snobbishly nicknamed “doors to manual” by Williams posh friends), it doesn’t take long to find coalminers in her family history. This is what makes her fresh. The royal family need her to make them relevant again. The Queen and Prince Philip are cousins, he of Greek royalty.

Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Middleton was born on 9 January 1982, she grew up on Bucklebury, Berkshire. Her parents Carole and Michael. She is the eldest and has a sister, Phillipa, and a brother, James. She met Prince William in 2001 when they were both studying at the University of St Andrews. They lived together (and at one point were both seeing other people), they became a couple. There have been two break ups, including one in 2007 that lasted a few months. Kate stayed friends with William and the romance was rekindled. During the break up Kate went out a lot, always looking stunning, and mostly with Williams friends.

It seems naïve that when Kate started dating William she complained about harassment through her lawyer saying “she had done nothing significant to warrant such publicity.” She must have known that you cannot date royalty and come out unscathed. She has had Royal Protection officers since 2006. Kate has done more than her fair share of work on the relationship. She has learned how to shoot, joining a royal deerstalking party in Scotland in 2007, Kate and William had broken up that year and it was a make or break trip. They had broken up because Prince William felt he was too young to get married and because he was too close, and disclosed too much, to ex-girlfriends.

At the Concert for Diana they were just friends but after the shooting party she moved in with William at Clarence House. The home of the Prince of Wales, William’s father. When Kate’s parents were photographed on a stalking trip to Scotland three years later the press went into overdrive. Like Kate they were given shooting lessons. The shooting party was hosted by William and was at his father’s residence, Birkhall. The Middleton’s were all doing their best to fit in and have some royal fun. Kate has said of Prince Charles: “I was quite nervous about meeting William’s father, but he was very, very welcoming, very friendly. It couldn’t have gone easier for me.”

Kate will shortly become Princess or Duchess, she already has her own coat of arms and will be going to Canada for her first Royal tour after her honeymoon. She has come a long way after seeing Prince William playing hockey at her school, from becoming his house mate. She will become the first Queen to have a degree. She hasn’t had any career as such, working at Jigsaw as an accessory buyer and then for her parents. Always on call for William, working her life around his. And now she will become his Queen. Let’s wish her luck, she might need it.

Update: Kate has become Duchess of Cambridge and William Duke of Camdridge. Kate’s dress was designed by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen.

Have you paid for the Royal Wedding?

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It’s the Royal Wedding soon – 29 April 2011. Have you bought your tea towel? Have you paid £3 for a bottle of Kiss me Kate from your local Weatherspoons pub?

If you haven’t yet then you need to be quick, the economy needs you! If conservative estimates are correct, £1bn could be injected into the economy as a consequence of this wedding, but it needs you, the consumer, to get out over the bank holiday weekend and spend like your children’s centre or maternity unit depended on it.

Of course that doesn’t matter much because the wedding will cost £5bn to the economy anyway, making the whole occasion a loss to the tune of £4bn – hey but it’s worth it, right? It’ll be the most expensive day that the nation has taken off for a long time but who hasn’t taken a sneaky day off before at the expense of a day’s wages (and a taxation loss of a few hundred frontline police staff)?

I suppose it would be a bit rich to ask either of the families to pay up. The Middleton’s, despite much fuss being made of Kate’s maternal family lineage, which includes coal miners from Byker (as in Byker Grove, I cannae believe that man), are worth £30m. True, that wouldn’t be able to re-pay the loss to the UK economy for an extra bank holiday, but it could’ve at least contributed to the cheesey pineapple sticks and cocktail sausages.

And the other family, the Royal Family, the most Royal of all UK families. They have a bit of cash lying around to see that Kate and Bill’s special day is, er, special, don’t they? Prince Charles, through entrepreneurial ventures, is worth something close to £36m himself. And if that’s the case, why does it matter that in 2009 the Royal Family cost the taxpayer 7p more than in 2010. It’s not a saving, it’s an insult.

The Civil List, which effectively is the Government subsidy for the family (around £38m a year), pays for Royal staff and transport. The Crown Estate says that 70% of that sum goes on staffing costs. But how much do they cost, if you consider that it cost the taxpayer £14,756 for the Prince of Wales to take the Royal Train from London to Cumbria to launch a Red Squirrel Survival Trust. Or consider that it cost £85,700 in charter flights to get him and the Duchess of Cornwall to Italy and Germany in 2009.

Those are some significant staff costs.

But – a big but – they are worth every penny for the money they bring to the economy. The Crown Estate estimates £304m. It doesn’t say exactly how, and I’d love to see some breakdown figures. I’ll give it a guess though: tourism and trade. Though France doesn’t have a Monarchy, and they’re doing okay aren’t they?

Not just okay. France is the second largest economy in Europe, fifth largest in the world and has been growing consistently since 2009. Wow. France attracted 78.95 million foreign tourists in 2010, making it the most popular tourist destination in the world. Their tower – the Eiffel tower – is the most visited paid monument in the world.

So France can do international trade well, and receive tourists without making losses literally all over the place. I’m not liking the sound of this, but perhaps there is no point having a Monarchy. But how do we tell them that?

WILLIAM AND KATE ROYAL WEDDING SET TO BE MORE POPULAR THAN CHARLES AND DIANA’S.

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National Express brings in extra staff to cope as half price Royal Wedding coach tickets go on sale.

Coach operator National Express is preparing for a huge surge in bookings of coach tickets to London following the announcement that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to marry on 29 April 2011, and are already booking out extra vehicles to meet demand.

The company is slashing 50% off the price of its advance tickets travelling to London from anywhere in the UK for travel between 27 April and 1 May 2011 and bookings are now being taken. National Express has already had hundreds of enquiries since the wedding date was announced, from travellers wanting to book tickets to get to London to enjoy the atmosphere and excitement of the royal wedding. They have had enquiries from as far a field as Mexico and has brought in extra staff to man phones and process ticket sales.

The move will be the biggest peak time fare reduction ever offered by National Express and MD Andrew Cleaves predicts it will be the company’s busiest ever period. Andrew comments: “For Charles and Diana’s wedding in 1981 we transported over 8,000 people to the capital for the occasion but we expect to far exceed those numbers this time. The Easter Holiday is one of our busiest times of the year anyway and with the extra Bank Holiday more people than ever will making the most of the break.

“We have never cut our prices by this much before for a major event but it is such a significant national celebration, we want to help as many people get there as we can. We recently transported over 50,000 from around the country to Birmingham for the Pope’s recent visit and we expect this will be the next busiest event in the country.”

National Express experience an average 100% increase in coach ticket sales to London for major Royal events and sales can be up to 300% higher than average from key royal fan base locations such as Cheltenham and Cornwall.

While Kate will be arriving at the Abbey in her own royal coach, National Express coaches also cover a number of ‘regal’ locations around the UK including Royal Leamington Spa, Caernarfon, Queens Parade in Bloxwich, Princes Rd bus station in Wells, Kings Head in Chacewater and Royal Well Bus Station in Cheltenham.

The coaches carrying visitors to London for the festivities will arrive at Victoria coach station, which is on the royal wedding route and just a short walk to Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey.

National Express (and its former companies) has been carrying people right into the heart of London by coach to enable them to celebrate every single Royal event that has taken place over the past 80 years including the Coronation, the Abdication, the Silver Jubilee, all the Royal Weddings, Trooping the Colour, Royal birthdays and Royal funerals.

National Express provide Britain’s only scheduled national coach network, serving more than 1,000 destinations with 19 million passenger journeys each year across the UK. National Express provide Britain’s only scheduled national coach network, serving more than 1,000 destinations with 18 million passenger journeys each year across the UK.

The discount is available in all National Express ticket outlets – at the National Express call centre (+44 (0) 8717 81 81 78) nationalexpress.com, over the counter at all National Express coach stations and nearly 1000 other ticket agents across the UK.