Word: queene
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Some 200 people--including operafans, autograph hounds and even a Beverly Sills look-alike-turned out Saturday to greet the retired opera queen as she came to the Coop to hawk her autobiography and a new set of records...
...example. In a recent sale at the Phillips auction house in London, American dealers and collectors bid up the prices of fruitwood furniture one- third or more above the advance estimates. An 18th century walnut desk that went unsold at $1,875 last year brought $4,680; a Queen Anne walnut bureau expected to go for $16,800 reached $33,600. Such prices wiped out the savings that American buyers got from the strong dollar, but London prices for decorative furniture are still at least 20% lower than New York...
Indeed, the staff--which number in the hundreds--often act like they own the place. Many exchange gossip with the Queen herself, though they wait until she's out of sight before boxing an unruly Royal baby on the ear (the young rascal Prince Andrew once got a black eye from an exasperated footman, but the Queen said nothing). Competition for prestigious jobs, like serving at state banquets, can be fierce, and the slightest brashness inevitably leads to a servant's being "sacked...
With their archaic titles--some are actually called "Coal Porters"--the staff indulges every whim and want of the Royals. Even the beloved Queen mother will send the cooks scouring the stores for fresh strawberries in December, laughing "it's just a little treat." Princess Margaret routinely kept the staff up to 3 or 4 a.m. until the Queen intervened, since they all had to be up at 7. But there are occasional moments of compassion: "Charles himself has often broken Royal habit by sometimes bathing the children," Barry notes. However, Charles' interest in child-rearing came in part because...
This failure to provide genuine inactive news leaves the reader feeling betrayed, Barry, who tries his readers by writing in sentence fragments, simply refuses to part with scandalous or embarrasing anecdotes, though he reminds us that he knows many. The closest we come is a scene of the Queen spreading newspaper over the carpeting of the Royal Train. It was for her prized corgis to use, in lieu of "walkies...