The BBC’s political editor, Robert Peston has been disciplined by his bosses for what they consider disrespectful tweets about their royal highnesses and even her majesty over the period of the “society function of the year”, or as I prefer to call it, “the great distraction”.Peston, whose strange delivery style with lo-o-o-o-o-ong drawn out vowels is already a gift to the satirical comedy shows, was hauled over the coals for tweeting:
‘The really important thing about this truly magical day is they can have sex at last.’
‘Bit worried about the new princess. Plainly didn’t read her BBC health and safety manual. Too much waving. Big RSI risk.’
In another, he asked what the collective noun was for Royal pundits, naming Simon Schama, Andrew Roberts and Andrew Morton.
He tweeted: ‘The correct answer, as students of constitutional history will know, is “a lickspittle”.’
In a tweet which might be seen as patronising, he wrote: ‘My favourite moment in a magical morning was when Sky News told us that Her Majesty knows the name of every one of the horses. Bless her.’ 
Jeez, when I read the headline in the Mail online, I thought that he’d actually been rude. I can’t help but think that the BBC management is over-reacting just a bit and he’d be quite within his rights to tell them to “get stuffed”. Needless to say the Daily Mail readers are choking themselves with anger, demanding that he be sacked.
The Mail also has a complicated (to me) story about the rift between socialite Annabel Goldsmith and her daughter Jemima Khan on one hand, and Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles on the other. It’s fascinating the trivia that these people engage in, and that the readers of the Mail clearly lap up.
From what I can make out, it seems that, despite being Diana’s closest friend Annabel didn’t get an invite to the wedding, because Camilla Parker-Bowles and her “husband” are not happy that they (the Goldsmiths) are supportive of Julian Assange. (Clearly it’s not in Charles’ best interests to have a load of secrets revealed, and although the UK government has given him an exclusion from the FoI Act, t
here’s not a lot Cameron can do about the Wikileaks.) So anyway, there’s a rift and it wasn’t helped that Jemima tweeted ‘Kate Middleton – those are not heir-bearing hips are they? Unfeasibly narrow.’The worry is that as Annabel is simply the hostess with the mostest, that Camilla will find herself edged out of events, which I thought was a bit unlikely seeing as princess parker Bowles is the heir to the throne and as such anyone who is anyone (except me) would like to have her at their party. Hey but what do i know, I’m only Scottish, and we don’t count in these matters.
Oh dear. The things you end up reading, and then worrying about, when you’ve already heard all there is to hear about Osama bin Laden being shot by the Americans.
Apropos of which, I loved the heading in the Daily Telegraph:
Osama bin Laden killed: live
Tris.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, don't ever open up a twitter account, it can lead to all sorts of problems lol.
I think the readers of the Mail ought to grow up and get a life. Okay so a BBC economic reporter who has a irritating way of expressing vowels pocked a bit of fun at the Windsors..HUH!!Get over it Mail readers!!
I think Preston would have great difficulty pronouncing Nikos blog..It has no vowels!
LOL Allan.... I hadn't thought of that. Mind you have a bit of a problem pronouncing Niko's blog....
ReplyDeleteYeah, the trouble is that people are buying all this propaganda to make them forget higher taxes, lower wages; higher prices, lower benefits.
There must be something that I just don't get about royals; something missing in the "Romantic" side of me, which misses the point that seems to be "got" by people who can forget how poor they are by watching how indecently rich THEY are...
I got a lovely watch for my 21st birthday; Charlie got Cornwall. I'm not sure I'll be able to pay my electricity bill next winter, and the old dear over the road may die of the cold, but wasn't that a nice Aston Martin Willie drove away in ...just like he was an ordinary person... except of course it cost £450,000!
Nope, it just doesn't work to make me happy and feel proud to be British; I'm still sad and refuse to admit to being British!
I hope the guy keeps his job. If you MUST have a monarchy as a form of government, you should at least be allowed to make fun of all the silliness.
ReplyDeleteOf course the 21st century attitudes of the British in the matter of monarchy is inexplicable enough, (from an American perspective.) But the behavior of the American media about this ridiculous circus was simply beyond belief. A popular American news/talk program installed itself in front of Buckingham Palace for days before the great event. They had as a guest a British born historian now residing in the US. The American reporters were gushing about the love of the British people for the monarchy, as evidenced by the excitement over the wedding.
The British historian was asked how he personally feels about this. "Nauseous" was his one word reply. They quickly went to a break, as the stupid American reporters regained their composure. We got rid of the royals years ago. Why Americans continue to pay the slightest attention to them is beyond understanding.
(But they do put on a heck of a show.) ;-)
BTW....the RSI risk occurred to me as regards both the Princess and the Prince. Neither of them have mastered the languid wrist rotation of the royal wave. They were just flapping their hands wildly. Rather like commoners now that I think about it.
ReplyDeleteWhy WE pay them any attention is beyond understanding, Danny.
ReplyDeleteAll this rubbish is the world of a manipulative spin machine masterminded by Flashman the Botox Boy, whose only real job was as a PR Spin Person.
The theory being (and the practice too, so far) that you can hit the stupid Brits with any amount of misery to pay off fat cat bankers betting debts, as long as you give them a super large doze of "Hello" styled rich and famous soap opera crap to slaver over.
Rows between air head socialite hostesses; details of hats, dresses, shoes, bags and jewellery of the obscenely rich and frequently rather tasteless; gossip about who has child bearing hips (given that that is the purpose of royal brides...after all they don’t have to cook, or look after the children or do anything really, as Mrs Parker Bowles has proved); the enormous fuss when three women all turned up with exactly the same dress on; the fuss about who was wearing top hats and tails, and who were wearing lounge suits (tut tut).
It was the royals this time, but it is what the papers are full of here. It could have been Katie Price or Paris Hilton or other talentless nonentities.
Even the serious papers gave dozens of pages over to this, while 300 people were killed in your country; and hundreds in Syria and Libya.
It was a positive relief to wake up this morning to Osama bin Laden being dead adn the news programmes having something that they simply couldn’t ignore to replace the royal soap.
The thing is that true royalists should see this for what it is. The royals have been manipulated, and they have been turned into a circus for the proles’ entertainment and the nobs’ salvation.
Perhaps you could run a course on the proper way to wave? They won't half suffer in later life if they do it wrong now!!
Tris - Is it not a coincedence that Bin Laden was "killed" on this same Royal Wedding Bank Holiday weekend. Especially as the US economy is in some state and they are going to cut the Security/Defence budget by hundreds of billions of dollars so that is the big bogey man out of the way of the people who may object to these cuts. Watch for the early announcement of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan which this will give them the reason to save face and $billions. This is just another part of the great distraction especially for a US audience so now everyone is in a happy mood this weekend but the lies and conning continue.
ReplyDeleteTris....As for the royal wave. I never saw it better executed than when Queen Mary did it. A single rotation of the wrist held at the waist. Not even a raised arm.
ReplyDeleteAs for the hats, there is always a competition among the women of the House of Windsor to wear the silliest one. For the wedding, the prize...by far....goes to Princess Beatrice, pictured in this Washington Post article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/royal-wedding-watch/post/prince-andrew-his-daughters-and-their-hats-arrive-at-royal-wedding-photos-and-video/2011/04/29/AFe59DDF_blog.html
The British somehow always manage to look serious when the royals show up in their costumes. But how did anyone keep a straight face when they saw Princess Beatrice? I'm sure that's why His Royal Highness The Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh looked so grim here. He's trying desperately not to laugh. ;-)
Good, Peston should be severely punished for attacking the Royals. Where is his patriotism?
ReplyDeleteTo attack the Royals, at a time when they are bringing 2 billion people to their tv screens to watch us here in Britain is to be an unpatriotic dog.
In the good old days he'd have been strung up for disgusting comments like that.
How could the ugly sisters have gone to a shop and looked at those ridiculous hats and not have started laughing? They must have wanted to inject an element of levity into the proceedings!
ReplyDeleteLOL Danny....
ReplyDeleteI take it Beatrice is the one in the beige. Her hat looks like something you find in a cheap flower arrangement, and furthermore her smile makes her look like she's a sandwich short of a picnic.
When Andy Pandy doesn't look happy it usually means that his wife has run up piles of debts and he has to mix with the most awful common people to sponge her a gift that will pay it off.
That blokey that is paying for Charlie's trip to America might be worth touching for a few hundred thousand.
True Munguin. It was their attempt to make it a fun day out for all the 'hard working British families up and down the country'.
ReplyDeleteDavid Cameron may even have paid for them out of out taxes.
It was their gift to cheer us up after the tax increases and benefit reductions that we are suffering.
Oh Dean!
ReplyDelete"To attack the Royals, at a time when they are bringing 2 billion people to their tv screens to watch us here in Britain is to be an unpatriotic dog."
When did 24.8 million become 2 billion except on the biased BBC. Now if half of that were Brits that is about 20% of the UK population, some support.
Billy:
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the USA may just have bought itself a pile more trouble.
It may get out of Afghanistan and leave the place in a terrible mess... (but then what else was Afghanistan ever going to be, but a mess....) but there may be reprisals for this attack.
Bin Laden hadn't been seen or heard of for years... he was forgotten, and I doubt he was in any way influential in the planning of Al Qaida's terror campaign.
They've gained nothing but perhaps some sort of closure for the attrocities of 10 and more years ago, which is important for the people who lost, of course.
But he's a martyr now. He may be more problematic dead than he was alive.
Dean... have you been celebrating something. You did exactly the same, only rather more viciously a few weeks ago on your blog.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should be off to the oubliettes of Edinburgh Castle, there to fester at Her Majesty's pleasure....
Mind that knock on the door a 2 am... Mr Macaskill's men keep late hours!
I think it was a worldwide audience Cynical.
ReplyDeleteBut who cares? What good has it done for Scotland?
Tell us how mr Cameron will spend the money that he made for the UK by arranging a wedding.
And then tell us how he will make up the estimated £6 billion that has been lost from the economy through all the bank holidays, and people "faison un pont" as they say in France...."making the bridge" between them... taking the 3 days off in the middle.
Overall effect is (as Brown would have described it) a minus 0.25% growth in this quarters economy.
In short, thanks to all these holidays, the economy will grow a quarter of a percent less (or shrink a quarter of a percent more) than it otherwise would have done. Good Tory policy that!!!
Can I be 'rood' tris and ask what is Camilla staring at, or is that being nosy?
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, you can be rood if you want. It's that kind of blog really!
ReplyDeleteThe truth is I can't for the life of me imagine. I mean who on earth would interest themselves in what's between old Chic's legs...
He probably dropped a Smartie or something (had the munchies after a few drinks, as you do) and she was looking for it. (Dry cleaning doesn't come cheap you know, and chocolate... once it melts...euch!)
BTW, don't you think he looks a bit like Terry Wogan there?
I'm sure it has done Scotland a tiny bit of good, as St Andrews has had reporters descending on it, and perhaps some tourists...
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr TMG, it's true that a few reporters may have turned up at St Andrews, although quite what they were hoping to see, I'm not entirely sure.... the place where they met; the first bed they slept in...? Where she bought him a coffee; the Tescos they bought their asparagus in (yes he did; as a student, he bought asparagus!!! I always opened a tin of beans myself)
ReplyDeleteI mean the action wasn't in St Andrews, it was in London. Still if we made a couple of thousand pounds that will be it.
Still, Edinburgh has a royal wedding coming up. So that will bring in the billions. Miss Philips and some bald rugby bloke. Can't wait. Maybe we'll get another month off!!!!
:)