#Jonathan Dimbleby

[sussex-sweetheart]

[jerseydeanne]

Harry 'revelations' are those of a 'B-list celebrity,' Jonathan Dimbleby says

[sinoeurovoices]

不讓普丁步上史達林後塵　就繼續堅定支持烏克蘭

彭定康（Chris Patten）英國末代港督，歐盟前外務委員，牛津大學校長 今年夏初，一位澳洲朋友打電話祝賀我成為「OBE」，我在困惑之餘問對方：「你到底是什麼意思？」，他回答：「我在報紙的生日專欄上注意到，你現在已經是個八十多歲的老傢伙了（Over Bloody Eighty）。」 他說得沒錯，我剛在5月12日過了80歲生日。出於對這一天歷史意義的好奇，我發現1944年的同一個周末，蘇聯軍隊迫使德���從克里米亞撤軍，當時他們正逐步扭轉納粹在戰爭早期於俄羅斯和中歐地區取得的戰果。 幸運的是，這些事件正是我的好友丁伯白（Jonathan Dimbleby）最近出版《終局1944：史達林是如何贏得這場戰爭的》（Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the…

[what-if-queen-camilla]

Chapter 29

21st November 1995 - Part 3

"She's asleep, finally.", Camilla sighed as she returned to the dining room - the only room which was still in its normal shape despite the move; mainly because she had already bought a new table and chairs for their new home and would get rid of their previous ones last minute - and sat down next to Charles, leaning onto him. She suddenly felt so exhausted that she could fall asleep immediately. Charles noticed and pulled her in his arms, tenderly stroking her back. "Don't you two want to go to bed?", Rose asked, looking at them in concern. She had arrived around 5 and her presence had been a blessing. She had so kindly made dinner for all of them and afterwards played with Thea so that the three parents could plan the next steps in that unpleasant situation. They hadn't really come to a final conclusion yet; while Charles and Andrew thought it'd be best for Charles to officially acknowledge paternity of Thea to avoid further speculations and especially confusion for the little girl, Camilla was more reluctant and even considered denying the accusations as it was nothing but rumours and speculations at this point and her main priority was still and always would be her daughter's safety. "Maybe when we say it's not true they'll leave her alone and everything will remain as it is.", she had murmured, beggingly looking at her men, but both Charles and Andrew had shaken their heads determinedly. "No, Milla, no more lies from now on.", Andrew had said. "We have explained it all to her and she's taken it rather well. We're not going to contradict ourselves and make it even more confusing for her." "Also, I don't think they'll ever leave her alone again from now.", Charles had stated, looking all desperate and sad. "But if I acknowledge her as my daughter, I can do much more to support you, I can privately pay for her security for example." "That sounds like an exceptionally sensible plan…", Andrew had agreed, but Camilla had panicked at the mere imagination of her daughter having to deal with security. "I want her to have a normal life!", she had declared and while Andrew just rolled his eyes at her, Charles had tenderly taken her hand and softly reminded her: "Darling, her life will never be 'normal' again; but we have to protect her as best as we can and I truly believe that acknowledging her as my daughter is the best we can do now."

"And how exactly do you suggest that we put your glorious plan into action?", Camilla asked, sighing, expectantly looking from one to the other. She really wanted to conclude this before she could even think of going to bed. "With a joint statement.", Charles declared. "From all three of us, together. I really think that, if we explain it all a bit further…" "Explain it all a bit further?!", she repeated, highly alert, and jerked away from him. "Like you 'explained' things to Jonathan Dimbleby in your glorious interview last year?! No! That's definitely not going to happen!" "Milla, please…", Andrew responded soothingly, putting his hand on her shoulder but she shook him off vehemently. "Don't touch me!", she snarled, but now even Rose seemed to agree with the men. "Come on, Camilla.", she whispered, gently reaching out for Camilla’s hand. "It really sounds like the best and most sensible solution for this… mess." Camilla laid back, closed her tired eyes for a few seconds, sighed heavily and straightened her shoulders. "Okay.", she said firmly, much to everybody's relief. "If you really think that's what's best for her then so be it. But I want a lawyer to check on it." And then, looking at Charles intently, making clear that she was not going to accept any form of objection was pointless: "Our lawyer." "Alright.", he replied. "You can have it checked by whomever you want, darling. I won't mess it up this time, I promise you."

It really was quite a funny combination with all four of them sleeping in the house that had once been bought to be Camilla and Andrew's family home but which would soon belong to another family that would hopefully be happier that they'd have been. Charles and Camilla slept in her bedroom on one side of the corridor in the first floor, and Andrew and Rose in his former bedroom, several metres away on the opposite side of the corridor. Thea's room was located somewhere in the middle. It felt a bit like at boarding school but it was only for one night anyway as Charles had to go back to London tomorrow, but Camilla was more than happy to have him here tonight, to be able to cuddle up to him, be held and caressed by him until they'd hopefully wake up to a brighter day in the morning…"

Sir? Sir! Mrs Parker Bowles?!" Camilla tried to ignore the calls and heavy knocks against the front door at first, turned around and covered her ears with the pillow. Couldn't they just leave them alone? Charles seemed to have noticed them as well but only grumbled something incomprehensible. The noises became only louder and impossible to ignore at some point, so she reluctantly got up, grabbed her dressing gown and rushed down the stairs to avoid them waking the entire house- “We’re terribly sorry to… interrupt you, Ma’am.”, Charles’ driver declared, indignantly stepping from one foot to the other, looking down on the floor. Next to him, Charles’ protection officer stood, obviously just as uncomfortable, nervously fumbling on his sunglasses, which was actually ridiculously unnecessary to wear at this time of the day as it was still dark. Before she could ask any further questions, she felt two strong hands on her shoulders, tenderly and protectively pulling her close. “What’s the matter, gentleman?” Charles asked firmly and both, his driver and protection officer, bowed their heads before the future King. “Have you heard the news yet?”, the protection officer asked, anxiously looking from Charles to Camilla, who shook their heads unisono.”I think you’d better…”, he added, clearing his throat in very obvious discomfort which almost made Camilla feel sorry. It couldn’t have been easy to sort of always be the one to overbearing bad news… “Mark, Ranjid, please come in.”, she said and the gentlemen seemed to be as equally surprised as Charles that she actually knew their names. “You must be tired, hungry and freezing cold. I’ll get you a cup of tea and something for breakfast…”

So the whole party went over to the kitchen, and while Camilla heated some water, Charles switched on the radio…“We are shocked and deeply concerned about Her Royal Highnesses’ accusations and take them very seriously.”, an only too well-known voice stated in an exclusive radio broadcast - one of his mother’s private secretaries, Cerberus as he called him, because he was just evil through and through and he’d never trusted him for a second. No wonder he was playing a leading role in whatever this drama was going to be turned into… “We have every intention to completely clear up the matter and will take the appropriate actions such as a DNA paternity test. Further information on the matter will be announced in due course.” Camilla felt like in some sort of a trance. So, Thea had become a “matter” overnight?” DNA paternity test? What on earth were those silly people even talking about? Nobody would make her daughter undertake any kind of test, only over her dead body! “Darling…”, Charles stuttered uneasily, very obviously as equally overwhelmed as she was, but she didn’t care about him right now, she didn’t want to hear anything from him right now. “No!”, she declared with lifted hands, slowly moving away from him. “Whatever you want to say now - just don’t!”, she added, sounding quite dangerously, tears in her eyes. “I trusted you, Charles!”, she screamed at him, heartbreakingly disappointed. “Milla, darling, please, I had no idea!!!”, he desperately tried to convince her of his innocence, but she didn’t even want to hear it. “No! Just shut the fuck up! I will take my daughter to a safe place now and I don’t want to see you ever again!”

[onheirpodcast]

In June 1994, Prince Charles was interviewed with Jonathan Dimbleby where he confirmed he had started an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles in 1986. This surprising act was the final straw for Camilla's unconventional marriage and her divorce from husband Andrew was announced in December. In November 1995 Princess Diana then gave an interview to Martin Bashir where she talked at length about her emotional turmoil and her belief that Camilla was at the root of her marital problems. There was an eruption of fury against Camilla and, a month later, Charles and Diana's divorce was announced.

[oakappleday]

In the spring of 1957 the eight-year-old tonsils were removed and preserved in a glass jar. For several months the Prince insisted on taking them with him wherever he went. At Windsor he had conceived an affection for the little chapel which lay between the Grand Corridor and St George’s Hall. There, alone, he would stand in the pulpit delivering sermons to an imaginary but rapt congregation. On one occasion he was so taken by his own performance that he swept out in the the Grand Corridor -- forgetting that he had left his tonsils on the pulpit.

Jonathan Dimbleby, The Prince of Wales

[snellblogs]

Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival

BUDLEIGH SALTERTON LITERARY FESTIVAL

Sept 21 24 Blog by Lynne Pearl

The sun was brilliant and the gardens beside the Temple Mount Methodist church in Budleigh were resplendent, the sun was so strong.  We might have been in Greece, the sea was nearby.  But we were in a small seaside town in the far South West.  It is beautiful and far away from anything.  And it has a very good literary festival.  On the programme were many quite renown writers such as:

Rick Stein, Frank Gardner, Patrick Grant, Carol Klein, Rev Richard Coles, Iain Dale Jonathan Dimbleby Susan Fletcher Liz Earle Lesley Pearse Cathy Rentzenbrink Craig Brown Wendy Joseph KC Sir Anthony Seldon.

Chair of the festival Cathy Rentzenbrink welcomes us to the festival in the festival programme like this:

‘What a complete delight it is to be writing these words, thinking about how wonderful it will be to be back in beautiful Budleigh Salterton, and what an honour it is to be introducing you to this year’s offerings. The programme is full of familiar favourites, new discoveries and mind-expanding treats. There’s plenty of war, politics, fashion and food, workshops for the curious, and lots of entertainment in the Marquee. I’ll be exploring brotherly love with the amazing Manni and Reuben Coe, and am honoured to be chairing the Hilary Mantel Emerging Writers’ panel. My President’s Event this year is with the erudite and amusing Sam Leith who has written a fabulous book about the history of children’s literature, and I’ll be talking about my own novel Ordinary Time which is about a reluctant vicar’s wife - there is a hint of Budleigh and her churches in my fictional St Breda. Literary festivals and those who organise and attend them are very much on the side of the angels, I think, and I am heartily looking forward to seeing you all in September.’

And these were the authors we came to see and listen to them talk about their writing experiences:

TOM LAMONT, PENELOPE SLOCOMBE, CARLA JENKINS

Emerging Writer’s Event where: Temple Church time: 2pm | ticket: £5 Talking to Cathy Rentzenbrink

This year’s trio of debut writers are certainly ones to watch for the future. Their books, which share the theme of relationships, include the story of a mother’s desperate search for her son, the magical relationship that grows between a young boy and his unexpected foster father, and the disturbing tale of a therapist and his patient. Tom Lamont’s Going Home is already one of the Observer’s Debut Novels of 2024.

We were attending a session with two of the three emerging writers being interviewed about the books they had just written and these were their first books.  They were debut writers, their stories were fascinating. One was a journalist by profession, the other an English teacher.  They had just written successful novels one set partly in India and the other book was about the parenting of a very young child and the trials of difficult friendships.

Each writer read from their novel which is always a treat to be read to by the person who has written the words so one sees the personality behind the story.

When I tell a story, I am enchanted with my words, the world and the situation I am creating out of nothing.  It’s rather like being a magician creating worlds that tell us stories and hopefully teach us.

For example, when the hero of my third book, Thiel, is on his travels in a created landscape and country, he has to find accommodation for the night for himself, a young child and his horse so he steps into the pub on the harbour at the sea port of Ive:

The warmth inside made Thiel’s head reel and the brightness of the light blinded him.  He stood quite still on the door mat as the door banged behind him.  No one in the bar seemed to notice the addition of one more body in the room.  They were sitting in groups, some in high-backed benches, some clustered around the huge fireplace, some talking, some listening, and a few playing some kind of game with wooden counters.  When his head stopped reeling, Thiel stepped forward from the shelter of the door to the bar.  He had seen the innkeeper, or so he took him to be by his wide, warm face, standing behind the bar serving customers drinks and food.  Thiel crossed the floor, and a few turned to look and stopped their talk to study the stranger.  Some spoke to their neighbour, they were trying to place him.  Where did he come from?  His appearance and clothes were not easy to identify.  It was a favourite game for the folk of Ive to guess where a stranger’s home port was from outward signs that gave him away.

And in ways like this the author has to make a world out of nothing as it were, which is what the two authors did who were being interviewed that day.

They both happily answered questions including about their book deals, one author had a book deal with US and the other author had a book deal with Germany.  They talked about the luck of it.  One said he nearly didn’t send it.  This was a story about parenting a young child and a problem friend who lets you down.  He had sent it out before, but it was not accepted, so he began to give up, but he edited with help.  He added who you meet is luck, that you can anticipate nothing and have to be grateful for what happens.  But as a result of their book deals both authors are able to continue to write.

It was a lovely day by the seaside and we were in the company of some excellent writers, to listen to how others make a story out of nothing, or just what they know, that is always fascinating.

[whitesalmanrushdie]

The Darg, which first started as a movement within the capital, was subsequently broadened with the inclusion of representatives of various units from all over the country. Each of the forty military units was expected to send three representatives, bringing the total to the celebrated figure of 120. In actual fact, their number was less than 110. The Darg was thus a sort of military parliament, with the vital difference, however, that the units, once they had elected and sent their representatives, lost all power over them. By design, members of the Darg were privates, NCOs and junior officers up to the rank of major; senior officers were deemed to be too compromised by close association with the regime....The Darg’s first act was a request to the emperor to declare a general amnesty for all political prisoners and exiles, the speedy completion and implementation of the new constitution, and the postponement of the parliamentary summer recess. They accompanied their request with profuse expressions of their loyalty to the emperor and admiration for his wise leadership. Perhaps partly because of that, the emperor readily granted their request. The soldiers’ next move was to detain a number of high government officials and members of the aristocracy whom they considered a threat to the continuation of the political change. Except for one or two incidents, this was accomplished with surprising ease. To rally popular support, the Darg enunciated the crisp if somewhat ambiguous slogan of Ityopya Teqdam (‘Ethiopia First’) and started haranguing the populace with statements distinguished more by bombast than substance. Expressions of support and suggestions for what moves to take next poured in; the Darg had facilitated this by positioning suggestion boxes at various sites. In a dramatic show of force and confidence, units of the army came out in late August on a motorized parade in the capital, mounting their slogan on the vehicles. As far as the affairs of government were concerned, dual power prevailed for something like a month – that of the Endalkachaw cabinet and the Darg. A committee of four members had been chosen to liaise and maintain a good relationship between the two bodies. But this proved far from being a practical proposition; power continued to slip progressively out of the hands of the former and into those of the latter. ... the emperor bore everything with a nonchalance that bordered on fatalism. It is far from certain whether he was aware that he was the ultimate target of the Darg. But that fact became abundantly clear soon enough as the Darg dismantled the institutions that were most closely associated with imperial power such as the Ministry of the Pen and the Crown Council. It followed this move with the confiscation of business concerns in which the emperor and other members of the royal family were deeply involved, such as the Anbassa (Lion) Bus Transport Company, the St George Brewery, and the Haile Sellassie I Welfare Foundation. The ruler who had portrayed himself as the caring father of his people was now portrayed as a greedy tyrant. Finally, on the night of 11 September, the ultimate act of vilification was perpetrated as the public was treated to a doctored edition of a famous film on the 1973 famine produced by Jonathan Dimbleby of Thames Televison. A canny collage of royal feast and peasant famine drove home the emperor’s alleged callousness to the suffering of his people. The following morning, representatives of the Darg went to the Jubilee palace and read a statement proclaiming his deposition. He was bundled off in a Volkswagen ‘beetle’ to his place of detention at the Fourth Division headquarters, the very birthplace of the Darg. Thus ended not only one of the longest and most remarkable reigns in Ethiopian history but also a dynasty that traced its origins to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

-Bahru Zewde, a History of Modern Ethiopia

Derg mentioned, and also the end of Haile Selaisse

[crazygadgetshere]

https://armorama.com/news/osprey-dunkirchen-1940-paperback-edition Osprey Publishing Publications Osprey: Dunkirchen 1940 Paperback Edition The varanusk Editor Posted on 1 Minute Ago Five views Robert Kershaw’s Dunkirchen, 1940: the German View of Dunkirk is available as a paperback next 14th March. His methodical approach dispels many of the myths surrounding Dunkirk. His methodical approach dispels many of the myths surrounding Dunkirk.' David Price, bestselling author of The Crew'This is military history of the highest order.' Jonathan Dimbleby, author and broadcaster'Impeccably researched, a unique and enthralling approach - Dunkirk solely from the victors' perspective.' Anthony Tucker-Jones, author of Churchill, Master and Commander'Robert Kershaw has produced another superb book that demands a reassessment of the fighting at Dunkirk. Kershaw's highly insightful and readable account corrects some assumptions about German forces by using new, underused sources. The result is a blend of narrative history and analytical analysis that deserves to take its rightful place in the pantheon of great books about this iconic battle. He offers a reassessment of the pivotal event in World War Two. It is an excellent book written by a professional. In an epic tale that spans from the tactical to grand strategic, he combines British voices with those of French and Germans. He is a master of every area. In each, a fresh and new telling of British history's most crucial year, he shows that he has mastered all. Robert Lyman author of A War of Empires WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE? 0 AWESOME! 0 Love it 0 The NICE 0 HELPFUL 0 Pass window.DiscourseEmbed = {discourseUrl: 'https://forums.kitmaker.net/', discourseEmbedUrl: 'https://armorama.com/news/osprey-dunkirchen-1940-paperback-edition' }; (function ) ; Supporter Advertisement /* Magazine Style */ var k=decodeURIComponent(document.cookie),ca=k.split(';'),psc="";for(var i=0;i

Robert Kershaw’s Dunkirchen, 1940: the German View of Dunkirk is available as a paperback next 14 March. [0]Using revelatory new material on the event which changed the tide of World War II, this is the first major history to uncover what went wrong for the Germans at Dunkirk.[0]Drawing on his own military experience, his German-language skills and his historian’s eye for detail, Robert Kershaw…

[bgallen]

Pink grasshoppers, reading children's books, Six Triple Eight, and more...a Friday List

Happy Friday!

I hope that you have had an enjoyable week with hopefully decent weather. I know that in many places this week the weather has been devastating. I have compiled a list for you to enjoy and as always I hope that you find one or two things to enjoy. I have also added some podcasts that I have been enjoying as well as a new to me book that I’ve begun.

 May your weekend be one of rest, activity, joy, and calm – whatever it is that you need in this moment.

 ·       Why adults should read children's books - BBC Culture, “So it's to children's fiction that you turn if you want to feel awe and hunger and longing for justice: to make the old warhorse heart stamp again in its stall.”

 ·       Texas Author Reunites with TikToker Who Made Him Bestseller (people.com), what a neat story!

 ·       The Pink grasshopper - Erythrism (roeselienraimond.com), oh my I have never seen one of these and didn’t know it was possible for them to be pink. It would seem more likely to find one of these in Alice in Wonderland than out and about in real life. Here’s another beautiful one, Anglesey: Rare pink grasshopper spotted in garden - BBC News

 ·       Six Triple Eight: The battalion of black women erased from history - BBC News, how incredible! Such an impressive accomplishment and I am so glad they are finally being recognized as they should have been. Tyler Perry is currently filming a Netflix film about them with Kerry Washington starring as well as producing in it.

 ·       Sounds of Motown (A cappella Medley) - Kings Return - YouTube, I really enjoy Kings Return…harmonizing is impeccable and covering Motown?! Even better.

 ·       DREAMIN' WILD Trailer (2023) Casey Affleck - YouTube, this looks to be a really great film.

 ·       Tiny Octopus Gets So Excited When His Diver Friend Comes To Visit Him | The Dodo - YouTube, oh my goodness – this is the sweetest little mollusc (yes I did have to google that.) I am always fascinated when animals interact with humans that aren’t animals that we keep as pets.

 ·       Elizabeth Cotten - In the Sweet By and By - YouTube, Learned something new today…”cotten picking” was created by Elizabeth. She was left-handed so she played her right-handed guitar upside down, which apparently is not the easiest thing to do.

 ·       Woodland (2020) – Sarah Anne Johnson, I saw Sarah Anne’s art on a house tour on youtube and fell in love with this Woodland series that she has. This is what she has to say about the series, “ I then transformed the photographs with paint, metal leaf, holographic tape, photo-spotting ink, and photoshop to create a more honest image that reflects my personal experience with the landscape.” I once had a friend tell me how she edited her photos so beautifully and she said the same thing as Sarah Anne, she edits the photo to appear in the photo as her own eyes and mind experienced it in person.  

 Podcasts I’ve been binging:

·       Lionsgate Sound | Scamanda, this is an incredible story….that I can’t quite wrap my mind around. I have found that I prefer podcasts that are hosted/created by journalists. Charlie Webster did a great job researching this story along with her team and the original investigative journalist that began the work and then she does an excellent job telling the story.

·       Betrayal on Apple Podcasts, another well done podcast. Heavier material than Scamanda, well it’s a different sort of heavy. Depending on how you handle things, you may want to read up on it before you listen. Both seasons so far have been so well done. The first season is now a documentary on Hulu.

·       Huberman Lab, I just began this one today. In the episode I began listening to today, Dr. Malenka is on it discussing how the brain changes in response to learning and reward and reinforcement. Fascinating and exciting stuff!  

New book:

·       Operation Barbarossa - Jonathan Dimbleby - Oxford University Press (oup.com), the largest military operation of all time – the invasion of Russia by Germany in 1941.  

[xtruss]

Handstands, Badgers and Sewage Works: 12 Snapshots of Charles III

The UK’s new king had an unhappy childhood, a disappointing marriage and a frustrating wait to succeed to the throne. What can his past tell us about his last act?

— May 3rd 2023 | By Catherine Nixey | 1843 Magazine

The Royal Touch, Part I

How close can one come to the king’s skin? Not very, if the king in question is Charles III. (“There was never anything tactile about him,” said Princess Diana.) Not very close, either, if the royal in question was his mother. In 1954, Queen Elizabeth II returned home from a tour of the Commonwealth, having spent almost six months apart from the five-year-old Charles. Grandees lined the deck of the royal yacht Britannia to greet the queen. The young Charles tried to jump the queue to reach his mother. “No, not you dear,” she said, batting him away. When it was his turn, she shook his hand.

Things About Which Charles Has Complained

Modern Architecture

Industrial Farming

The Menace Presented By British Badgers

Illegal Fishing of the Patagonian Toothfish

Nicholas Witchell, the BBC’s Long-suffering Royal Correspondent (“I Can’t Bear That Man. He’s so Awful. He really is.��)

Interest in His Private Life (This “National Pastime…of Prurient Speculation”)

Fountain Pens (“I Can’t Bear this Bloody Thing.”)

The Birth of Prince Harry (“Oh God, it’s a Boy…And He’s Even Got Red Hair.”)

Things About Which Charles Did Not Complain

The queen and Prince Philip chose to send the young Charles to the then infamously grim Gordonstoun school in Scotland – “to toughen him up”, said Prince Harry. The school’s outlook was an eccentric blend of ancient Greek ideals (namely a firm belief in steeping the pupils in culture) and aristocratic English ones (namely a firm belief in steeping them in mud). It had been founded with the aim of churning out Plato’s philosopher-kings: men strong in body and mind. The boys’ lockers, as Jonathan Dimbleby observes in his biography of Charles, offered a graphic demonstration of this hearty approach to life. A “Training Plan” was pinned inside each one. It divided daily life into upright columns and upright tasks, with entries to be made for “Teeth Brushed”, “Rope Climbed”, “Skipping”, “Press Ups” and (of course) “Cold Shower”.

“I don’t like it much here. I simply dread going to bed as I get hit all night long. I can’t stand being hit on the head by a pillow now”

There was no column for “Coping with Relentless Nocturnal Bullying”, but, for Charles, there ought to have been. He was, as one contemporary observed, bullied “maliciously, cruelly and without respite”, while at the school. “I don’t like it much here,” the young Charles wrote in a letter in 1963 when he was 14. “I simply dread going to bed as I get hit all night long. I can’t stand being hit on the head by a pillow now.” (There is pathos in that “now”, as if once he might have been capable of tolerating it.)

Later, Charles would tell Harry that he had been “persecuted” as a boy. “I remember him murmuring ominously: I nearly didn’t survive,” Harry says in “Spare”, his recently published memoir. What kept him going? His teddy bear, which he still hangs on to decades later. “Teddy went everywhere with Pa,” Harry writes. ‘It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there…Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood.” Charles never said a word to his teachers. Whether or not Gordonstoun did turn out philosopher-kings is moot. But it forced one future king to be – or at least to show himself to be – philosophical.

Friends

It wasn’t easy for a man titled His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland to find someone on his level. One such person was his great-uncle, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, Admiral of the Fleet, Earl Mountbatten of Burma and the last viceroy of India.

Their relationship felt natural from the beginning, particularly since Mountbatten bought Charles such good presents. The austerity of Charles’s schools seems to have been matched, if not exceeded, by the austerity of his parents. Prince Philip once bought the boy an electric toothbrush as a birthday present, which, wrote the underwhelmed future king, was “like using an electric drill in one’s mouth”. It was reported by some newspapers that when the young Charles wished to attend a midnight feast at prep school he “had been obliged to sell some personal possessions to finance his contributions”.

That story is dubious, but it is beyond doubt that Mountbatten lavished his great-nephew with love, affection, letters and presents. He bought him a subscription to Eagle magazine (“I like Eagle very much,” the young Charles wrote back. “It’s got such exciting stories”); a bicycle (“I have had great fun on it and it goes very fast”); and a dymo label printer (Charles wrote in thanks that he had heard of such things but had “never possibly believed that anyone would give me one. I sit playing with it all day”).

“Teddy went everywhere with Pa. It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there…Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood”

Mountbatten also gave advice, not all of which was followed: he told Philip and Elizabeth to have Charles’s ears “fixed” because, “You can’t possibly be king with ears like that.” And he wrote to Charles in a letter in 1974 that a young man should “sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl.”

In August 1979, the ira blew up Mountbatten’s fishing boat as he was taking his daughter and her twins on a family outing in the Atlantic waters near his holiday home in north-west Ireland. A deckhand and one of Mountbatten’s grandsons died instantly; Mountbatten himself shortly after. “I have lost someone infinitely special in my life,” Charles wrote in his diary that night. “In some extraordinary way he combined grandfather, great uncle, father, brother and friend…Life will never be the same now that he has gone.”

Love, Part I

Charles is in a blue suit and a tie. Diana is in a blue pussycat bow, head down, eyes up, fringe over them. They are giving their first interview after their engagement, one which will cast a long shadow over their marriage. The script is now notorious. As with any good tragedy, the tension comes not because you don’t know how things will end but because you do.

Interviewer [Offscreen]: Can You Find the Words to Sum-up How You Feel Today, Both of You?

Charles: Difficult to Find That Sort of Word Isn’t It Really…

Diana: Mmm….

Charles: Just Delighted, and Happy…And I’m Amazed That She’s Been Brave Enough to Take Me On.

Interviewer: And I Suppose, “In love”?

Diana: Of Course…

Charles: Whatever “In Love” Means…

Diana: [Laughs] Yes.

Love, Part II

The oddest thing about Charles’s statement was less his ambivalence than the fact that he’d made it before. This was not a romance plotted by Barbara Cartland. They had met a dozen times before their engagement. The first meeting was on a ploughed field: she was 16 years old, “fat, podgy, no make-up” and in Wellington boots; he was 30 with a Labrador and a gloomy air about him. Her first impression was “God, what a sad man.” There followed meetings at a friend’s house where “he was all over me,” Diana remembered. “I thought: ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’”

It’s not easy for a man titled His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland to find someone on his level

There were more meetings. At one, Diana told him that he had looked “so sad” at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, whereupon, to her surprise, he pounced on her the “next minute”. But “the feeling was I wish Prince Charles would hurry up and get on with it,” as Diana later put it. It was evident that the queen was also “fed up” by her son’s failure to grasp the nettle. Charles returned from a skiing holiday and asked Diana to come over to Windsor. She thought, “Christ, what am I going to do?” At this point she was still calling him, “Sir”. Charles sat her down and told her that he had missed her. Then he said: “Will you marry me?” Diana laughed. “I remember thinking, ‘This is a joke.’”

Charles, who had always been acutely aware that royals are more or less gametes in gumboots, was indeed serious. He had always been serious about marriage. It was a “much more important business than falling in love”. The proposal was almost more awkward than the public announcement. After Diana realised that Charles was not joking she replied: “Yeah, OK.” Whereupon Charles said, “You do realise that one day you will be queen.” She said: “Yes.” Then she said: “I love you so much, I love you so much.” Charles said: “Whatever love means.” Diana later recalled, “I thought that was great!” She was 19.

Aphorisms

Kings are richly served by the “Yale Book of Quotations”, from Shakespeare’s Richard III (“Now is the winter of our discontent”) to his Henry IV (“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”) to Martin Luther (“I have a dream”) to the current King Charles III, who appears in the dictionary a little before Chaucer and Chekhov.

It was reported by some newspapers that when the young Charles wished to attend a midnight feast at prep school he “had been obliged to sell some personal possessions to finance his contributions”

It is an unflattering juxtaposition. There are five quotations from Charles in the dictionary. They include his public inability to define love, two on architecture (including his condemnation of a mooted extension to the National Gallery as a “monstrous carbuncle”) and his musing on the conversations he conducts with his plants (“they respond, I find”). The fifth, and most famous one, does have a certain Wife of Bath bawdiness to it. It is: “Or, God forbid, a Tampax.”

The Other “The Ugliest & Disgusting Woman”

To understand the Tampax, it is necessary to understand Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, once his mistress, now his queen. There was something gynaecological about their relationship from the beginning. On November 14th 1948, an obstetrician named Sir William Gilliatt had safely delivered Elizabeth II of her firstborn son, Charles, at Buckingham Palace. Sir William was in high demand in high society. The year before, on July 17th 1947, he had delivered another baby, this time a girl, named Camilla Rosemary Shand, whose married name was Parker-Bowles.

There were other intimate coincidences between the two. Camilla’s great-grandmother had been Alice Keppel, the favourite mistress of a former Prince of Wales, Edward VII, the great-great-grandfather of Charles. Being the mistress to the Prince of Wales was easier in those days. As Alice simply put it, her job was to “curtsy first and then leap into bed”.

A young man should “sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl”

The two babies that Sir William had delivered would meet in 1972. And, by all accounts, were as taken with each other as their ancestors had been. “She was in love with him and would have married him at the drop of a hat,” wrote Penny Junor, a Royal biographer. “Alas, he never asked her. He dithered and hedged his bets, and could not resist the charms of other women, until Camilla gave up on him. It was only when she was irretrievably gone that the prince realised what he had lost.” They rekindled their affair in 1986.

Transcript of phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles on December 18th 1989

Charles: What about me? The trouble is, I need you several times a week, all the time.

Camilla: Mmm. So do I. I need you all the week, all the time.

Charles: Oh God, I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier.

Camilla (laughing): What are you going to turn into? A pair of knickers? (Both are laughing) Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.

Charles: Or, God forbid, a Tampax, just my luck. (He laughs)

Camilla: You are a complete idiot. (She laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea.

Charles: My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on forever swirling round on the top, never going down.

The conversation then moves on and, with Chekhovian understatement, ends with a discussion of which combination of motorways offers the quickest way to Wiltshire.

The Royal Touch, Part II

Access to the royal skin has always been carefully controlled. It is generally rationed but, at times, also offered liberally. Kings from Edward the Confessor onwards would touch the scrofulous sores of their subjects, healing them with the “royal touch”. Charles II used to get through 600 people in a single session.

Today, royals are measured less in consumptives cured than in their willingness to hug. Diana deployed hugging to show she was a caring and modern royal. She hugged her children (“I hug my children to death”) and she hugged the sick (“I had always wanted to hug people in hospital beds”).

No one has ever suggested that Charles is a hugger. Not even on the night in August 1997 that Diana died in a car crash in Paris. “He sat down on the edge of the bed,” Harry writes in “Spare”. “He put a hand on my knee. ‘Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash,’” he told him. “They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.” Harry doesn’t remember what he said in response. But what he does recall “with startling clarity is that I didn’t cry. Not one tear.” And, of course, that “Pa didn’t hug me.”

Sewage

The gardens of Highgrove, the private home of Charles III and Queen Camilla, offer many delights for those who visit them at a cost of £30 for a garden tour or £85 for champagne tea and tour. There is the Wildflower Meadow (“one of the most picturesque gardens at Highgrove”), the Thyme Walk and the Arboretum, filled with magnolias, a “particular favourite” of the king.

They also contain the less celebrated Highgrove sewage-filtration system. “Believe it or not,” Charles announced in a speech in Madrid, sewage sludge “is a subject which has long fascinated me”. The man who capitalises the word “Nature”, began organic farming long before most people had heard of it and wears his clothes till they are patched at the pocket, has strong views on recycling. Including that of human faeces.

Highgrove therefore has a “specially built reed-bed sewage system, much loved by dragonflies at its treatment end” that recycles all the household’s waste. Those who come as Charles’s private guests are likely to be given a special tour of what he calls his “sewage garden”. The sewage garden is not part of the private champagne tea tour, which costs a cool £790.

Boxer Shorts

The facilities in Balmoral are Victorian, in the most literal sense possible: the house was bought for Queen Victoria and has been little improved since. It has a rustic charm, for those who appreciate such things. The water in the toilets is, for example, always brownish, which “often alarmed weekend guests”. Charles, Prince Harry explains, will reassure them that there is nothing wrong with it. On the contrary, it has been filtered and sweetened by highland peat. To have a bath in this water is one of life’s “finest pleasures”.

“Believe it or not,” Charles announced in a speech in Madrid, sewage sludge “is a subject which has long fascinated me”

There are 50 bedrooms in Balmoral, so it is easy to get lost. And behind some of these doors, as on a magician’s stage, or in a riddle, surprising things lurk. Including the king. For the man who was once the “world’s most eligible bachelor” is older these days and, like Balmoral, also a little creaky. He has been prescribed exercises by his physio to cope with the neck and back pain inflicted by old polo injuries. Open the wrong door and you might therefore find Charles doing headstands in his boxers or “hanging from a bar like a skilled acrobat”. As Harry explains, “If you set one little finger on the knob you’d hear him begging from the other side: No! No! Don’t open! Please God don’t open!” ■

— Catherine Nixey is a Britain Correspondent for The Economist

— illustrations Martin Rowson

[clevernews]

«Επιχείρηση Μπαρμπαρόσα» 

του Jonathan Dimbleby από τις εκδόσεις Ψυχογιός  Η Επιχείρηση Μπαρμπαρόσα, η εισβολή του Χίτλερ στη Ρωσία τον Ιούνιο του 1941, είχε ως στόχο τον αφανισμό του σοβιετικού κομμουνισμού, του Εβραϊσμού και την επακόλουθη δημιουργία ζωτικού χώρου (Lebensraum) για τη γερμανική άρια φυλή. Ωστόσο, η Επιχείρηση οδήγησε στην καταστροφή του Τρίτου Ράιχ και είχε ολέθριες συνέπειες για τη Γερμανία, καθώς…

[thisweek35]

Foreword

It is diffiult to view This Week objectively, for it has been so prominent a part of my life and that of ITV. I have been closely involved with the series (and TV Eye) for at least 30 of its 35 years on air - as a viewer, director, producer and currently as Thames Television's Director of Programmes.

So many outstanding journalists, directors and technicians have brought their talents to the programme, helping build its reputation for intelligence, courage and integrity. The series can count on its credits names such as James Cameron, Robert Kee, John Morgan, Jeremy Issacs, Jonathan Dimbleby, Desmond Wilcox, Phillip Whitehead, Peter Williams and Peter Taylor.

Aside from professionalism and dedication, perhaps the greatest contribution they and their colleagues have made to the series has been their passion for the subject in hand. The personal determination to investigate circumstances, expost scandal or illuminate the truth of a situation has earned This Week wide respect.

That degree of commitment to the craft of television journalism and film making has also given the programme an impact far beyond the screen, so much so that This Week cometimes makes headlines itself. 'Dying For A Fag' was perhaps the most devastating programme about cigarette manufacturers that has ever been made. 'Ethiopia: The Unknown Famine' brought the crisis to world attention, precipitating the collapse of the Ethiopian government.

'Time For Murder' highlighted a miscarriage of justice in the Maxwel Confait case.Nor should we overlook This Week's authoritative coverage of Northern Ireland, an involvement which was to lead to the BAFTA award winning 'Death On The Rock' in 1988.

In 1956 the inaugural producer of This Week, Caryl Doncaster, remarked about the vitality of programmes, 'They must be presented with on-the-spot emphasis, filmed illustration and lively, unfettered comment'. This Week has brought hard-hitting stories to the mid-evening schedules of ITV, proviiding an informed, lucid critique ofoften complex national and international issues for its broad viewing public. From personal experience I know that sustaining such a standard of output, week in, week out, is a singular achievement.

Teamwork has always been the keynote of This Week operations and I am proud to have been part of that team. At a time of stocktaking such as the present, I am inclined to think most of those who are no longer with us - John Morgan, Llew Gardner, who died recently and Alan Stewart, killed on location in the Sudan so tragically young. But I also know that every one of the hundreds of people who have worked on This Week will always have for me a special claim of comradeship: even those I've never met.

Television is ephemeral, current affairs even more so. It is fitting that through the National Film Archive and the Thames Television Programme Library the work produced by This Week teams is assured of a permanent place in the television canon. This Week itself continues to preserve the calibre of current affairs journalism that has earned it a significant place in the public service television system of which Britain is justifiably proudl.

[duchessanon]

“Willy said I was a fine one to talk about cooperating with the press. What about my chat with Oprah?”

“Several close mates and beloved figures in my life, including one of Hugh and Emilie’s sons, Emilie herself, and “even Tiggy, had chastised me for Oprah. How could you reveal such things? About your family? I told them that I failed to see how speaking to Oprah was any different from what my family and their staffs, had done for decades—briefing the press on the sly, planting stories. And what about the endless books on which they’d cooperated, starting with Pa’s 1994 crypto-autobiography with Jonathan Dimbleby? Or Camilla’s collaborations with the editor Geordie Greig? The only difference was that Meg and I were upfront about it.”

[qudachuk]

The King, as Harry’s father, ‘would be very anxious to bring it to an end’, according to Jonathan Dimbleby

[oakappleday]

Had he been a politician or a diplomat, he would have found the phrase to disguise the truth without quite telling a lie. But then as later Prince Charles was quite unable to deploy the characteristic wiles of public life. To a degree that dispassionate observers would never comprehend, he found it impossible to feign his feelings. To the anguish of those who loved him and the frustration of those who advised him, it was virtually impossible for him to hide either his emotions or his beliefs; rather than dissemble, he would either withdraw into silence or torture himself towards the truth--occasionally mangling syntax along the way.

Jonathan Dimbleby, The Prince of Wales