Lady Diana Spencer Made This Telling Change to Her Wedding Vows to Prince Charles After Discovering He Was Still Carrying On an Emotional Affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles
Lady Diana Spencer broke the royal mold when she eliminated the word “obey” from her vows when she, just barely 20 years old, married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981—nearly 43 years ago. But the reason she opted to remove the key word is heartbreaking—The Mirrorreports she made the change to her wedding vows to Charles amid her growing fears about his relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Royal brides before her like Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, and Princess Anne had all promised to “obey” their husbands in their wedding vows, as prescribed in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer dating back to 1662, The Mirror reports. But Diana nixed that for herself, and instead said during the widely-watched ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral that she would “love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health”—no obeying in sight.
The deeper reason behind why Diana opted to eschew “obey” from her vows is, honestly, quite heartbreaking.
At the time, The New York Times reported that Charles and Diana held “very serious” discussions about the inclusion (and, ultimately, exclusion) of the word with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie.
Dr. Edward Carpenter, the Dean of Westminster Abbey, said in an interview that he was “absolutely delighted” by Charles and Diana’s ultimate decision, saying “Marriage is the kind of relationship where there should be two equal partners, and if there is going to be a dominant partner, it won’t be settled by this oath,” he said. “I think this is much more Christian.”
The Mirror reports “The decision was controversial at the time, and other royal brides who followed did vow obedience when they married into the royal family,” like Sarah Ferguson when she married Prince Andrew in 1986 and Sophie Rhys-Jones when she married Prince Edward in 1999. But, in perhaps a show of solidarity for their late mother-in-law, both Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle eschewed the use of “obey” when they married William and Harry in 2011 and 2018, respectively.
Both of Diana’s daughters-in-law, Kate and Meghan, chose to follow her lead and remove “obey” from their respective wedding vows, though not all royal brides chose to do this.
When speaking to Andrew Morton for his book Diana: Her True Story—which came out in 1992—Diana “recalled her growing suspicion that Charles and Camilla were still having an emotional affair, having reportedly discovered a personalized bracelet that Charles had bought for Camilla shortly before the wedding,” The Mirror writes. (When Diana: Her True Story came out, it was assumed to be a biography; after her death five years later, Morton confirmed that Diana was a primary source for the book, making it more of an autobiography.)
Diana wanted to call off the wedding entirely, but her sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, talked her out of it. Diana also claimed that, on their honeymoon, Charles wore cufflinks given to him by Camilla, who ultimately resumed her affair with Charles.
aged 16 or over.
Diana wanted to call off her July 29, 1981 wedding entirely, but her sisters intervened and pushed her to follow through with it.After 11 years of marriage, Charles and Diana separated in 1992; their divorce was finalized four years later.
Charles and Diana separated in 1992, finalized their divorce in 1996, and, one year and three days later, Diana died in a car accident in Paris at just 36 years old. Not quite eight years later, Charles and Camilla married on April 9, 2005, and celebrated 19 years of marriage earlier this year.
June 13th 2024
The Government Is Spying On You & Your Messages – From F.S
New Scientist magazine tells us that these modified Teslas are roaming UK streets to scan homes for energy leaks to help reach Net Zero.
If you’ve ever spotted a Google Street View car, they look a bit like that but with the camera on the back, instead of in the middle.
These modified Daleks have retired from hounding Doctor Who and instead will be hounding you. Not only do they take photos of your house but they report back on the “exact dimensions, heat loss, materials, age and state of dilapidation”.
Of course, this is all being done completely innocently in the name of Net Zero. The government would never want to spy on you, they just want to know how run-down the UK’s building stock is. And because the government is your friend, it will then helpfully plan how to retrofit your house so as to cut carbon.
But you can’t just create a blockade when you see one of these cars coming down the street. Oh no, the government is also capturing details about your house with drones and planes. There’s no getting away. The government WILL know about that dodgy DIY loft insulation project you undertook in 1999 but gave up when you realised that going to the pub was a much better idea.
The aim of this project is to retrofit properties to become more energy efficient, which sounds like a great idea but, as always, it comes with a cost. And retrofitting houses, however many subsidies and grants you are bribed with, will always be expensive.
A database of houses is being created which will use machine learning to tell councils which properties don’t have double glazing or insulation. “In an instant, it will be able to locate exactly which homes have the space and sunshine for rooftop solar panels”.
You can see where this is going. Combine this with a Central Bank Digital Currency, smart meters and digital ID and suddenly a lump sum has been automatically removed from your bank account to retrofit your house. If you don’t have any savings, then don’t despair, the government will just ration what you buy or turn off your electricity until you have paid for the latest cavity wall insulation.
Not only is this a bad idea for your freedom, it is also bad for many British homes. Old properties need to breath and insulating them with modern materials destroys them. Even new properties become mouldy very quickly when air is not allowed to circulate. This causes numerous health issues.
Around 7.5% of homes have been scanned without your permission already. The aim is to have the database up and running later this year.
On a related note, whilst your house is being watched, you are also being spied on. X (Twitter) has updated its terms and conditions, telling users it will now be looking at their private messages. Using Covidian doublespeak it tells users of X that it is to keep them safer. “We may manually review DMs…to comply with laws or governmental request,” it informs them.
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Speaking of the election, some numbers – in no particular order:
Starmer has the lowest percentage of the vote of all prime ministers in all the British general elections for which the vote percentage is shown in Wikipedia, which gives vote percentages since 1830. Funny how the BBC calls this a landslide.
Starmer got over 3 million fewer votes than Corbyn in 2015.
Turnout was 59.9%.
Two thirds of the country is without representation. [Numbers here not quite up to date, but close] Lab ; 9.6 million votes – 410 seats. (vote share – 33.87%). Con ; 6.7 million votes – 119 seats. (vote share – 23.7 %). Reform ; 4.1 million votes – 4 seats. (vote share – 14.27%). LibDems ; 3.5 million votes – 71 seats. (vote share – 12.19%).
Labour’s share of the vote is almost exactly the same as when they lost in 2019 (fewer votes than Corbyn that year – 13m). The Conservatives’ vote has crashed by almost exactly the share of the votes that have gone to the newly created Reform Party.
Labour have achieved 34.4% of the vote, less than David Cameron got when he had to go into Coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
Reform UK have secured 600,000 more votes than the LibDems but have 4 seats, versus the Lib Dems’ 71. They also secured 20 times as many votes as Plaid Cymru but secured the same number of parliamentary seats. On 14% of the vote, there should be nearly 90 Reform UK MPs. The Conservatives, on 23% of the vote, should have around 150 seats.
In 2019 the LibDems got 11 seats on 11.5% of the vote. This time they have 71 seats with just over 12% of the vote.
By F.S West Country Correspondent.
Did the U.K & France need their elections over before President Biden Resigns – Naked Emperor.Substak.Com
Has the plan been all along for President Biden to drop out of the US elections? The rumour mill is suggesting that he could drop out as early as this Monday. And not just drop out of the elections but retire as President and hand over the reins to Kamala Harris before a new candidate is found to challenge and beat Trump. A new candidate that will pull all shy Trump voters over to the Democrats and ensure Trump loses convincingly.
Already, the seeds are being sown with papers reporting on a Reuters/Ipsos poll which showed 50% of voters would vote for Michelle Obama if she was running. Only 39% would vote for Trump against Obama. The nudging is in full force.
It makes perfect sense as a Democrat plan – Biden is being thrown under the bus and Harris is nowhere near popular enough to win. Each new day, the mainstream press is revealing to the unawake public, the reality of Biden’s decline which has been evident since the last election. Today’s reports are about the Parkinson’s disease specialist who has visited the White House on numerous occasions over the last year.
The powers that be now what Biden out. But why now? To retain some kind of stability in an ever destabilising world, did the UK and France need to have their elections completed first?
If Biden drops out, then the West would have been in a state of turmoil if two of the next largest NATO countries, the UK and France, were in a power vacuum.
Has this been the plan since March? When Barack Obama made a surprise visit to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, did he say “listen mate – we’ve lined you up with a cushty job in California. There’s only one catch – we want our mate Keir Starmer in power and you need the election done and dusted by 8 July when we are getting ol’ man Biden to step down. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”. (Yes, Obama talks in a London cockney gangster accent when in England).
Did Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, say the same thing to Macron when he met the French President at around the same time?
Both Sunak and Macron then unexpectedly called snap elections. The timing of both was extremely suspect and neither made sense.
Obama then coached Starmer, over Zoom calls, to victory. In fact, Obama has been acting as an informal adviser to Starmer since 2021. His advice clearly didn’t work, as votes for Starmer dropped by 50%, but Labour still obtained power. Part one of the plan complete.
Part 2 was for the French elections to be done and dusted before Biden’s resignation. However, as of time of writing, that is not going as smoothly with a three way tie between the New Popular Front, National Rally Alliance and Macron’s Ensemble coalition. Maybe Biden’s resignation will have to wait a few days until this has been sorted out.
Left wing New Popular Front was hastily assembled after Macron called the snap election. Now, because it is an alliance of members, one of them is likely to be France’s next Prime Minister. This means that in a number of days both the UK and France have changed to left leaning governments. No more pesky trouble makers to question lockdowns and aid to Ukraine.
This result is also suspicious because, only days ago, the right National Rally Alliance led by Marine Le Pen, was projected to win by a mile. Now, after some shenanigans and tactical voting, they are in third place. Quite the turnaround.
Did NATO and the West need two of its strongest members to be fully operational before Biden retires? The goal being to maintain stability, coordinate with intelligence services and ensure alignment with other key allies. Otherwise, the fear might be that Russia or China could use the West being in limbo, all at the same time, to their advantage.
Another curious piece of timing, which I still don’t understand, is the release of Julian Assange. Will this be used for the upcoming US election somehow? Assange was due to attend his appeal hearing on 9-10 July but then suddenly, at the end of June, he was on a plane back to Australia.
As part of Assange’s plea deal for freedom, he agreed to issue an instruction to the editor of Wikileaks to destroy any remaining materials that had not been published yet.
If Biden does resign, we’ll find out soon enough who Wikileaks had compromising information on.
During the Iraq War, the British Defence Secretary somehow ended up comparing the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr to Southampton.
A British sailor was quoted as responding: “There’s no beer, no prostitutes and people are shooting at us. It’s more like Portsmouth.”
A preacher in Commercial Road Portsmouth 2020 Warns us to escape hell on earth and follow the word of Jesus Christ for an eternity with God. Image by R J Cook/Appledene Photographics 2020.
By winter oak on June 29, 2024 by Nemo Jones“You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That’s it; that’s the way we move forward.” ~Michelle Obama“We can all agree on the importance of voting.” ~Jenna Bush“Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country, and this world.” ~Sharon Salzberg“You cannot complain if you didn’t vote.” ~Barack Obama“The right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless.” ~Lyndon B Johnson“Voting is not just a right, it’s a responsibility.” ~Don Santo“Voting is a civic sacrament.” ~Theodore HesburghElection day. Inhale deep of the blessed and rarified air. Your moment has come. Your time to shine.
Today – at long last – your voice matters. Your voice will be heard. Your dream of a just and sane world is damn near palpable.The diligent and painstaking attention you’ve paid to the rational, informed and balanced debates of the day, the carefully honed and nuanced arguments you’ve formulated all come to bear – today of all days. Your choice will resonate onwards, shaping our future world. Proudly aligned in thought, feeling and action – a responsible, informed representative of humanity – you step out, relishing the unique significance of the moment.
As you approach the sacred polling station, the drudgery of mundane existence recedes, the endless grinding trauma of life’s grotesque inequity is momently adjourned and a better world beckons, as the magical portal of possibility opens. The liminal dream space of infinite potential unfurls, as you… stroll past, shaking your head in wonder at the brainwashed humanoid automatons filing inside to righteously scrawl a cross into a box.Democracy: a dismal charade.
A transparent scam devised by the same elitist con artists that sold humanity the ‘divine right’ of kings, emperors, sultans and caesars to steal, rape, enslave, starve, torture, subjugate, deceive and massacre: the ‘divine’ wrong. In the modern age, such inhuman parasites hide their power-and-bloodlust behind ‘the will of the people’, who dutifully fall for it, election cycle after cycle. It’s maddening, heart-wrenching and world destroying.Voting is not a ‘right’, but a profound wrong, bestowing the same fake and calamitous ‘legitimacy’ on unscrupulous parasites as the so-called ‘divine right’ of kings. Voting violates Natural Law and everything humane. It is an act of evil.
Election rejection is not the sole remedy to the world’s ills (for that, see here), but it’s a start; a simple, satisfying and eminently attainable goal on our journey toward an enlightened age.Government is the current manifestation of humanity’s greatest failing: the feigned abdication of individual response ability; the pathetic claim of victim status as immutable identity. Government convinces Sovereign beings that they possess no inherent self-authority, or authorship of their own reality: a lethal pretence.
One always remains completely ‘response able’. A lifetime spent in denial of this fact is simply an abject failure to respond appropriately to circumstances – a failure with devastating consequences.The election pantomime is indeed the civic sacrament; the humiliation ritual that formalises and sanctifies the tragic wasted opportunity of a Sovereign being’s submission to false external authority. It’s heavy stuff.
Willingly giving up our natural-born freedom to charlatans – to anyone – is the ultimate self-debasement and insult to nature – or God, if you prefer.It’s clearer than ever that the political class is self-serving, vain, deceitful and beyond corrupt. But to blame morally bankrupt husks for their ruinous treachery is to miss the point: they play their role perfectly: corrupt cogs of a corrupt machine. And all the while, you remain ‘response able’, whether or not you like or admit it.The purpose of a system is what it does. What does government do? Serve hidden interests. Destroy beauty and everything else that supports well-being. Normalise the violation of Natural Law to the point of banality. Devour priceless time and energy. Distract and demoralise while its cogs moralise, posture and pontificate. Endlessly steal, lie, bully and cheat. Reward evil and punish conscientiousness.
Promise justice while delivering industrial-scale injustice and horrors without end. Serve demented elitist agendas perversely clothed and paraded as the greater good.Government mocks you relentlessly. It’s long past time to stop embracing the narcissist.Government was never intended to serve you and it cannot. Government has not become corrupted. It is the very pinnacle of corruption. A finely crafted tool of mind control, distraction, manipulation and subjugation; a weapon of mass destruction; a hideous, bent game in which we lose everything of value.Government is a deadly, yet ridiculous, weapon.
If it didn’t exist, it would be laughable. No one would believe it. And no one should. It’s a crazed despot’s sadistic fantasy; people excitedly lining up to select their torturer of choice, then sitting ‘round the goggle box revelling in the agony and ecstasy of the spectacle, as the knife is twisted right, then left, then right again.A vote is a signal to the universe that you are a willing slave. One who truly understands what government is will never engage.
Why attempt the impossible feat of making government serve you when we can so easily make it disappear instead? All it takes is ‘right inaction’ – the simple reclamation of your attention and natural born authority. Enough of this horror. Enough of this monster.You have no right to dominate or impose your will on others. You have no right to concoct arbitrary rules that do not accord with Natural Law and enforce them upon others. Yet a vote is a (fruitless) attempt to appoint someone to conduct these immoral acts on your behalf: to steal from, threaten, coerce and wield force against others to impose your will – in direct, flagrant and absolute violation of Natural Law. A vote is both an attempted abnegation of natural born self-Sovereignty and an attempt to violate the natural born self-Sovereign rights of others. The consequences of these violations for our shared reality are evident. One can only speculate on the personal consequences.
A spoiled vote is still participation in the sacrament. Why attempt to ‘send a message’ to those with no interest in us? An inhuman system deserves only contempt and disavowal, not engagement or endorsement of any kind. There may be humane but misguided beings caught up in this enslavement system who, it could be argued, ‘deserve’ your vote – the system does not.‘But if I don’t vote, [insert terrifying outcome]’. The monster will lumber on to its inevitable demise whether we feed it or not. The question that should concern us – and deeply – is what ultimately replaces it. True freedom or overt subjugation? A humane or inhuman future? Giving one’s power away as if it were worthless is a clear declaration of one’s valuelessness and a direct cause leading inexorably toward the latter.
The monster feeds on fear. True freedom can only result from right, principled, courageous action.Votes are an accurate measure of one thing: how well the con of democracy is working. The ideal result is zero votes. This may seem an unlikely outcome – but that is no justification for compromise. Compromise with evil is evil. Every vote cast is a vote for an evil system with no right to exist.Voting is evil because: It is a denial of immutable Sovereign self response ability. It is an endorsement of a system which inherently violates Natural Law. It is an attempt to impose your will on others, in violation of Natural Law. Please don’t miss out on a golden opportunity to take right inaction.Our beautiful and humane future begins in the hearts, minds and actions (or conscientious inactions) of the bold.For the avoidance of doubt, the above does indeed approach its limited subject from an anarchistic – a morally and rationally consistent – perspective.
I heartily en-courage you to delve ever deeper into Natural Law (of which I will continue to write). I am convinced that our doing so is the sole and certain path out of the madness, badness and sadness of our deluded age and toward an enlightened one.
Fiona Bruce: ‘I pay my full share of tax, believe you me’
She has been attacked for her icy demeanour, an iffy knowledge of antiques – and her financial arrangements. How does Fiona Bruce cope with being headline news?
The BBC obviously thinks we can’t have too much Fiona Bruce. On top of reading the news and presenting Antiques Roadshow, she has been asked to make another series of her art-detective show, Fake or Fortune?. It’s the one where she and art sleuth Philip Mould investigate the provenance of a painting that divides opinion. It’s a good format, but I wish they’d open it up to other controversial objects. Like people. They could start with Katie Price: fake, and a fortune. And move on to Philip Mould’s tan: fake? Or has he spent a fortune on tropical holidays? Then there’s Bruce’s smile…
I map out the first few episodes during the 10-minute walk from Belsize Park station to a café near her house, where we’re due to meet. This is London’s real media village, a dreamy enclave of mega-mansions where the BBC’s top 1 per cent hole up. Presumably, Bruce doesn’t want me to snoop round her place, which is why we’re off to the Belsize Kitchen. A pity, but as it happens, I know her house already. It’s a detached, Victorian, red-brick villa, with high ceilings and whitewashed walls. On the garden side, she and her husband, Nigel Sharrocks, an advertising executive, have added a massive Modernist extension, which sweeps across the length of the building, joining a vast, clinical kitchen to a vast, clinical drawing-room. I know this not because I’m a stalker, but because you could see it all in fascinating detail in Who Do You Think You Are?, the BBC’s family-history programme.
Now there’s a good TV programme, in which famous people reveal themselves through talking about their family. There’s usually one or two skeletons knocking about, the exception being Michael Parkinson: they abandoned his episode because they couldn’t find any interesting relatives. Patsy Kensit came from a line of criminals, and one of Lesley Garrett’s ancestors was accused of killing his wife. When Bruce was on, they asked what she hoped to find. “Some mass murderer, or a stripper!” she trilled, knowing the drill. But the disappointment was how little we got to know her. Even Jeremy Paxman appeared in a new light, when he blubbed over his great-great-grandmother’s ordeal in a Glasgow slum. Not Bruce: the smiley, breezy shell never cracked. Even when she was talking to her parents, it felt like the Antiques Roadshow, a slick London journalist talking to cosy old people in the provinces. The shots of that kitchen – immaculate, cold, expensive – were more telling.
So, what to expect? She arrives all smiles and laughter, and is taller than I had imagined. She is casual in skinny jeans and a cardigan, and orders a giant muffin with her coffee. She has two children, Sam, 14, and Mia, 10, and they have just taken delivery of a new puppy, Molly, an Irish Terrier, so we spend the first few minutes talking dog: she’s thrilled, as she’s always wanted one, though she apologises for being “a booore” about it – she speaks quickly but elongates certain words in a strangely posh drawl . This isn’t the Fiona Bruce I’ve read about in other interviews: an ice maiden, nicknamed Lady Macbeth for her ruthless ambition. She is chatty, sympathetic, warm and happy to answer any question – even about her tax affairs.
She seems like a person relaxed with who she is. As a student at Oxford, she was earnest and political, and took herself very seriously. She would go on demonstrations at Greenham Common and, in retrospect, says she wishes she had “lightened up”. Today, she is a successful 48-year-old TV presenter with a successful husband, two children, a London house and a country retreat, and now, a dog. It’s the perfect life, I say. “Well, not everyone wants to lead the kind of life I lead,” she says, brusquely. “I mean, I’m very lucky. But I work hard.”
It certainly pays. Her salary is known to be at least half a million, and in recent weeks her name has been bandied about as one of the 148 BBC presenters paid through a private service company (PSC). This is the controversial system by which an individual channels their income through a specially set-up company, allowing them potentially to avoid the 50p top tax rate, and lowering their employer’s National Insurance contributions. Everyone’s a winner, except the Exchequer, of course. The loophole is perfectly legal, but it doesn’t look good. So I ask: do you avoid paying tax?
“There are two things to be said,” she says. “I formed a service company because it was a stipulation laid down by the BBC. And I pay my full share of tax.” So, you pay the 50p tax rate? “Yes.” So why have all the embarrassment of a PSC? “It’s a stipulation that I, and a number of other presenters, have to form service companies to be employed by the BBC. It’s not my choice, and it would never be my choice. But that’s the situation.”
It must be annoying that every time a news article appears about BBC presenters and the tax loophole, there’s a big picture of her next to it. “If you’re in people’s living-rooms, via the television, it’s what happens. You’re more noticeable. But I’m not aware that anyone has said I pay a lower rate of tax. I don’t. I pay my full share of tax, believe you me. I mean, that is all I can say about it. But you know, I’m not launching a crusade, and news journalists will write what they write. It comes with the territory. It’s not the first time I’ve been associated with things or decisions I’m not responsible for, and you can’t get aggravated about every single one.”
She says she’s “not particularly thick-skinned”, though she seems quite unfazed by the usual criticisms levelled at her: that she’s ruthless, that she knows nothing about art or antiques, and that, when she reads the news, her expression appears to be a fixed smirk, whether the item concerns a pantomime or a child massacre. “I can’t imagine that’s what I do,” she says about that latter dig, with a puzzled expression, as if it’s the first time anyone has pointed it out to her.
And she is quite open about her non-specialist status, despite being the face of Antiques Roadshow. “I don’t know anything about antiques,” she says. “I do buy them now, but I have a little knowledge, and great enthusiasm.”
Her path to becoming the face of cosy Sunday evenings was, like many BBC stories, rather random and unexpected. She began presenting on the BBC2 show in 1998, and, despite being an outsider amid a field of experts, she replaced Michael Aspel as the main anchor on his retirement in 2007. Inevitably, there were complaints of “dumbing down” and “sexing up”, but, curiously, ratings soared by half a million. “I would never have foreseen what I am doing now,” she says, “but doing Antiques Roadshow seems to have led to the BBC offering me more work with antiques.”
Last year, she presented a documentary about Leonardo da Vinci, despite having no art-history qualifications. Worse, in the eyes of some, was the cameraman’s unhealthy interest in her derrière, though at least that had a qualification: it won Rear of the Year in 2010, a prize she accepted in a moment of “dreadful hypocrisy”. She also presented a three-part series about the Queen’s palaces, a job, some said, better suited to an architectural historian, not a newsreader. Does the sniping about her being given all the plum jobs, despite not being an expert, bother her? “I’m not aware of that criticism,” she says. “There’s definitely a role for experts, my goodness. Ultimately, it’s up to the viewers to decide whether they want to view it. But I never go to anything not knowing anything about it! That’s quite a vulnerable position to be in. I do my research. Copiously! But you can’t become an art expert in a matter of months. I suppose what I would hope I do is ask the questions the viewers would ask. And lots of experts do that as well, so it’s not that I can do something that they can’t. But the BBC, in its wisdom or otherwise, has chosen to put me in those roles. And I love making those kinds of programmes, so I’m not going to say no.”
She was, she adds, offered one arts series she turned down, because she felt she wouldn’t have been right for it, though she can’t remember the name. “If there’s a need for an expert, I’m not going to put myself up for it.”
The fiercest criticism came when she interviewed Prince Philip last year, as part of a BBC documentary to mark his 90th birthday. Although it’s hard to think of anyone who could ask him about his feelings and come out on top, Bruce came across as particularly Key Stage 3. From the moment he said, “Who cares what I think?” to his frank admission that he didn’t want to do the interview, the Prince was one person not easily won over by the Bruce charm. So, to ask a question she might have asked, how did it feel?
“It was an interesting experience, slightly more antagonistic than I had expected,” she says, delicately. “I mean, I’ve met him since and he’s been a delight, but clearly he didn’t want to be there.” Her main concern, she says, was that he might have walked out. “I really thought he might. He was getting quite agitated.” Perhaps her questions were the problem? “Partly, though it’s not that they were too soft… I’m not going to flatter myself, but there are a few members of the Royal Family who, well, there are certain things they don’t want to talk about. And you can go along with that or not. I took a view that there were some things I wasn’t going to talk about. Like, I wasn’t going to say, let’s talk about Princess Diana. It may have made it pretty anodyne, watching it, but for me, while those are the most natural questions in the world to ask, they may not be the questions he wanted to answer.”
In fact, she did manage to get him to talk about himself, and when he refused to discuss whether he minded having to give up his job as a naval officer, it’s obvious that he did. “He is a bit like a clam when it comes to his feelings. So when I asked, did you enjoy your time in the Navy, which to me seems like a pretty anodyne question, to him, it was like a red rag to a bull.” Would she do it differently, if she could do it again? Long pause, then: “Probably not, because actually what I think we got in the end was truthful to the man. It was a very uncomfortable hour.”
After we meet, Bruce is off to interview Boris Johnson and to host the 6 o’clock and 10 o’clock news. Throughout the Olympics, she is presenting the news from a special studio in Stratford, which makes her sound like she’s speaking via Skype from her kitchen. She is taking only two weeks’ holiday this summer, which she will spend with her family in south Oxfordshire, where they have a second home. When she had her daughter, in 2001, much was made of the fact that she went back to work only 16 days later. Does she ever think about doing less? “I went back to work for three hours. I wanted to go back to work and see the people I like and show them my baby. They made a big fuss of it, but that was all. But the conflict about children and work is always there. It wasn’t an issue with my maternity leave, I just took it. But now that they’re more grown up, absolutely. It’s the kids’ holidays, and I’m only taking two weeks, and I used to work part-time, but that was a long time ago. I want to see more of them, I want to make sure I don’t miss their key things. So there’s a lot of guilt, definitely. I’m not absolving myself, I’m sure I could be a better mother. I feel guilty about a lot of things, a lot of the time.”
Her own childhood was “very stable”, despite much of it being spent abroad. Her father worked for Unilever, rising from postboy to company director, and was given various foreign postings. Bruce was born in Singapore in April 1964, and the family later moved to Milan, where she learnt Italian. She has two elder brothers, one of whom is a local councillor, the other works in the wine industry. Her mother, who died of cancer last year, was a constant and reassuring presence throughout her childhood, and she describes the family as “a very close unit”.
Returning to Britain, she attended the comprehensive Haberdashers’ Aske’s in New Cross, south London, then read French and Italian at Hertford College, Oxford, though she didn’t feel especially comfortable there. “I wish I had been more relaxed about it all, but I felt I had to prove myself.” Afterwards, she wanted to become a journalist but felt she didn’t have the contacts, so went into management consultancy instead, which was “a disaster”. She then worked for an advertising agency where, in 1988, she met her now husband, Nigel Sharrocks, who was her boss. Those who like to portray Bruce as a Lady Macbeth figure point to the fact that she targeted him at a Christmas party, and five years later, when he still hadn’t asked her to marry him, she told him to, which he eventually did.
Her journalistic career began in 1989, after she met the Panorama editor Tim Gardam at a party, and begged him to give her a job, which he did, as a researcher. She later moved to become a reporter on BBC Breakfast News in 1992, and swiftly moved up the ranks. In 1999, after the murder of Jill Dando, she became a presenter on Crimewatch and started presenting the 6 o’clock news. In 2003, she was promoted to reading the 10 o’clock news as well.
For the past 10 years, she has been ubiquitous across the BBC, and it’s easy to see why: bright, straightforward and utterly professional, she is a reliable all-rounder, unflappable during live events, but also warm and enthusiastic during non-news programmes. She is reaching the age at which the BBC has had a tendency to get funny about women, though she says she has never experienced any sexism. As to whether there’s another, more complex, Fiona Bruce, I can’t tell. You want to think there’s something more lurking behind that perma-smile and the cool blue eyes, but if there is, I didn’t see it. Then again, to get ahead in television, you don’t exactly need a soul. You just have to be happy in the knowledge that it’s all a bit fake, and get on with making a fortune.
4 Oct 2009 — Top BBC presenters at centre of tax dodging row as they snub contracts to remain ‘freelance’ … Presenters such as Fiona Bruce (left) and …
On Thursday, Andrew Bridgen, an independent candidate for Northwest Leicestershire, joined Resistance GB journalist Will Coleshill. One of the many shocking revelations he made is that the UK is already at war with Russia but installed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not officially told Parliament or informed the British public.
There are a few reasons why Rishi Sunak has called a general election now, Mr Bridgen said. The reasons Mr. Bridgen gave were: Sunak knows he hasn’t got inflation under control and food prices are going to skyrocket before the end of the summer; the disastrous Rwanda Bill for dealing with illegal migrants was only ever “for show” which will become more and more apparent to the public as time goes on; the narrative of “safe and effective” vaccines is effectively destroyed but as time goes on, even more people are going to realise they were lied to. Another reason is the war with Russia, and possibly its allies; Sunak doesn’t want to be a wartime prime minister.
“I’ve got my informants in the Ministry of Defence and Rishi Sunak had told them six [to] eight months ago – the Generals, the Admirals and the Air Vice Marshals – that he doesn’t want to be a wartime leader,” Mr. Bridgen told Coleshill.
“The information I’ve got is that we’ve got British personnel – they won’t be classed as service personnel now but they would have been in our military very recently – we’re firing British missiles, Storm Shadow missiles out of Ukraine into Russia, being controlled by UK citizens … the Americans are doing the same with their weapons. The Germans, the Poles everyone else is doing [it], the French they’re all doing it. We are effectively, we’re actually at war with Russia now. They just haven’t squared it with Parliament [and] haven’t told Parliament officially. They haven’t told the people. And this [war] is escalating,” he said.
But there are a lot of strange things going on, Mr. Bridgen said. For example, the UK advertises that its nuclear missiles don’t work at the same time as the government is pushing for conscription and national service. Another example is the last remaining steel factory that could make weapons-grade steel for armaments has been shut down.
And then there are attempts being made to reduce the amount of food that our farmers are producing. “Historically whenever we’ve gone to war our opponents have tried to starve us out because we only produce about 55% of the food that we actually consume,” Mr. Bridgen noted.
“Germany and France have already passed the legislation so they can enact conscription at a moment’s notice. And the EU is preparing to sell war bonds to investors to pay for the war,” Mr. Bridgen said. “The problem with selling war bonds is that you actually owe someone a war then, don’t you.”
“We need some sensible heads. We need some statesmen in the House of Commons to stop this madness,” he said. Adding that it could easily escalate into World War III. “I’ve got defence analysts feeding me information and they’re in, you know, services and they’re saying that there is going to be a nuclear detonation in Europe.”
“The only people who win out of [war] are the super-rich and it buries the poor,” he said.
During the interview, Mr. Bridgen also discussed:
Covid measures and covid vaccines.
The Post Office Horizon scandal.
The infected blood scandal.
The end of the fiat money system and the introduction of carbon credits to replace it.
The mind games they played to silence him. For example, saying he was going to commit suicide.
The corruption surrounding the purchasing of property for the HS2 project.
Control of corporate media.
Child trafficking in the UK.
Illegal immigration.
Indoctrination of children with gender ideology in schools.
The European Union Defence Pact which the Labour Party, according to their manifesto, intends to sign the UK up to. The Pact will give the unelected European Commission full control of the British Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, MI5, MI6, GCHQ, and access to the Five Eyes and our local police forces.
If you live in the UK, Mr. Bridgen’s exposé of the secrecy and cover-ups within UK politics is a must-watch from beginning to end.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pidSG5nMkW8?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&start=684&wmode=transparentResistance GB: Andrew Bridgen Bombshell Interview, 20 June 2024 (126 mins)
“It sounds ridiculous but I worry so much about how I’ll cope once my cat Collie dies”, I said to my now-partner on our first date.
I meant it. I’ve lived in 23 homes, faced a lot of trauma and upheaval but getting Collie and his sister Jess in 2011 gave me a sense of home that I’d been longing for my whole life.
I found them on recycling forum Freecycle. I’d spent the summer sofa-surfing after a lot of difficulties in the home I’d been living in and once I finally got a permanent flat, I was looking for furniture and comforts to fill it when I saw a picture of two cats snuggled together.
I didn’t hesitate.
I got a train to a nearby station, picked them up in their carrier and waited in the rain for the train to come while they both shivered. Once I brought them back to the tiny one bedroom flat, Jess wandered everywhere but Collie just couldn’t take his eyes off me.
I’ve always had pets, always loved animals but my bond with Collie was immediate and all-consuming. He was lost, scared, and timid. Just like me when I got him at just 21 years old.
I’d spent years feeling that nobody understood me but then suddenly, this small animal with big eyes seemed to understand me in a way that I didn’t know was possible from pets.
Read More https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/losing-my-cat-almost-destroyed-me-a-grief-expert-explained-why-it-hit-me-so-hard_uk_6666ff71e4b02d4d5ed23916
June 22nd 2024
Conspiracy ? Don’t Believe It. We live in a Democracy – By F.S
Slap the conspiracy label on something and it goes away for 99% of the population. They’re all happy to ignore the number of so-called conspiracy theories from history that have been proved (or admitted to be) correct.
There have certainly been some very odd clouds recently, with many interesting photographs and articles. And in the comments for these articles, I noted someone UK based saying he’s been tracking plane movements, and that the backwards and forwards ‘sowing’ behaviour he’s been seeing isn’t normal.
Interesting responses from MPs to questions about UK involvement in all this are documented too. They have a cut and paste reply, so it’s clearly something they’re having to shut down quite a lot.
If it’s ugly, unprincipled, misguided or moronic, it’s happening, and the usual suspects are involved.
Guess the fastest growing major economy in the world.
‘No one wants to much leave their houses now. We are a nation of post-traumatic victims—from the covid, from the inflation, from the heavy-handed censorship, from the blatant corruption, from the deliberate divisiveness, from witnessing the violence and duplicity and righteous judgments of others. The protests. The growing crime. The closing down of familiar stores and restaurants. The broken. The tent cities proliferating. And the anger and punitive and defensive stances from people we had not expected would be this way. We prefer now to stay with the familiar. We want to watch the rain from the windows‘
Click on the link and Read More
June 15th 2024
The best of mid-Wales.
Recent rain, padlocked bins, cafe shut on Saturday afternoon, limp bunting.
And add in the 20mph speed limit, so you can observe the urban scene in forensic detail. It’s not pretty.
Image Copyright F.S
June 14th 2024
Seven Watchmen Blind & Without Knowledge
“His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds Who cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own quarter.”
Isaiah 56:10-11
Although time passes, some things never change. Human nature, especially of those who end up in positions of power, is one of those things. In the passage above, the prophet Isaiah was condemning the spiritual and moral failings of the leaders and watchmen of Israel. However, the words from a few thousand years ago could equally apply today.
The image above shows the leaders of the G7 countries, currently in their 50th summit in Apulia, Italy.
The number above each leader is their approval rating in their respective countries. (Their approval rating minus their disapproval rating. Therefore, if your number is negative, more people disapprove than approve)
From left to right:
Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz. After the EU elections last week the “question now is not whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government will survive, but for how long…Scholz, the biggest loser of the night, put in a cameo at his party headquarters for a few selfies before going AWOL, leaving to the help the unenviable task of explaining his Social Democrats’ worst showing in a federal election in over a century”.
Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. “He has trailed in polls by double digits for nearly a year, and the outlook for the once popular prime minister is so grim that some old guard Liberals have been grumbling that maybe he should just step down and give someone else a shot”.
French Prime Minister, Emmanuel Macron. “Macron’s approval rating fell to its lowest level in 5 1/2 years, according to a poll carried out after he called a snap vote in response to defeat in European elections, deepening the country’s political turmoil. Macron dissolved the National Assembly on Sunday and announced a two-round legislative ballot on June 30 and July 7. This came after his political group was trounced by National Rally in European Parliament elections”.
Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. Whilst still in the negative zone, Meloni is the most popular of the G7 leaders.
US President, Joe Biden. “Biden’s public approval rating this month fell to its lowest level in almost two years, tying the lowest reading of his presidency in a warning sign for his reelection effort”.
Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida. “The approval rating for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet in June dropped 2.3 percentage points from the previous month to 16.4%, the worst level since the ruling Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in 2012”.
UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. “His leader approvals at the start of the campaign are among the worst ever recorded – as bad as Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, or Gordon Brown in the depths of the financial crisis. His campaign trail choices have not improved things”.
Our seven watchmen are blind, being both ignorant and lacking spiritual vision. They are ignorant, displaying a lack of understanding and making unwise decisions. Unable to sound the alarm about our dire circumstances, they are like dogs that cannot bark. Negligent in their duties, they are lazy, sleeping and loving slumber. And like selfish shepherds they are greedy, only looking out for themselves.
Isaiah’s metaphor accusing Israel’s leaders of moral corruption and abandoning their sacred duties to the nation could equally apply to our inept G7 “watchmen” today.
I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said something like “the government you elect is the government you deserve,” but I don’t think that is fair on us any more. What choice do we have? Biden or Trump. Starmer or Sunak. There is no choice, just two wings of the same bird.
Which stage, in the meme below, do you think we are in?
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I think the Mosley death is a news event that makes no sense. People get gaslit as the story keeps subtly changing, and then they start to understand on some level that they’re being lied to. Someone is trying to wake up the unaware. And although what really happened to MM may never be revealed, I’d say there’s something very odd about his wife’s comment: ‘He nearly made it’. He had apparently been walking for two hours in the opposite direction to where they were staying so ‘made it’ where? Like the Madeleine McCann disappearance when the mother’s first comment was ‘They’ve taken her!’ (Why assume that and not that she’s wandered off?
Why assume it’s more than one person? Why make it sound as if you know who ‘they’ are?) it raises more questions than it answers. And with Michael Mosley, what happened to the initial comment made by his wife (now no longer referenced) that he said he was unwell and wanted to go home? Who would let their partner walk for what would have been at least half an hour without a phone in the baking heat when they have said that they’re unwell without going with them or insisting they get the ferry? As I said, makes no sense. And maybe that’s the point.
F.S June 12th 2024
Election Message To The Nation – Says It All.
From F.S Roving West Country Correspondent.
June 11th 2024
About Doncaster
Not a reflection in Doncaster. New library/museum.
A Doncaster work of art – the art of knowing when to shut up..Doncaster’s best – from days of hopes and dreams – the railway museum.
All images copyright of F.S our roving West Country Correspondent – 2024.
It’s Grim Up North – This is Leeds.
A street sign and an exhibit in the Leeds art gallery. Which is art ?
Happy campers in Leeds. Classy overnight spot, up against the inner ring road. Five minutes’ walk from the city centre. Image by F.S.Modern architecture. I mean, are people paid for this stuff ?Image copyright F.S
All Images F.S Copyright.
June 10th 2024
There’s money being spent in Wakefield. The results are unfortunate. All following Wakefield images copyright 2024, F.S West Country Correspondent.
Evidence that Cave men are alve in Wakefield.Wakefield oozes the best of British Diversity.Somebody has to be – F.S
facebook https://www.facebook.com/rj.cook.9081
I went to school in Buckinghamshire, where my interests were music ( I was a violinist ), art ( winning county art competitions ) athletics and cross country ( I was a county team athlete ).
My father died as a result of an accident- he was an ex soldier and truck driver- when I was 11.
It could be said that I grew up in poverty, but I did not see it like that. As a schoolboy, I had my interests, hobbies and bicycle, worked on a farm, delivered news papers, did a lot of training for my sport, painting, and music.
I also made model aeroplanes and was in the Air Training Corps, where we had the opportunity to fly an aeroplane. I had wanted to be a pilot, but university made me anti war.
At the University of East Anglia-which I also represented in cross country and athletics- I studied economics, economic history, philosophy and sociology.
Over the years, I have worked in a variety of manual, office and driving jobs.
My first job after univerity was with the Inland Revenue in Havant, near Portsmouth. I left Hampshire to work for the Nitrate Corporation of Chile, then lecturing, teaching and journalism - then back to driving.
I play and teach various styles of guitar and used to be a regular folk club performer. I quit that after being violently assaulted in Milton Keynes pub, after singing a song I wrote about how cop got away with killing Ian Tomlinson at G7, in broad daylight and caught on camera.
The police took no action, saying taht my assailant had a good job. The pub in question was, and probably still is, popular with off duty police officers.
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