Word: windsors
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...salacious news about someone else, for a change, brought no lasting respite for the beleaguered House of Windsor. Up popped a transcript of an alleged telephone conversation between Diana, Princess of Wales, and a male friend on New Year's Eve 1989. He calls her "Squidgy" and repeats, "I love you, I love you." She mentions the "torture" of her marriage and agrees to a meeting with her phone partner "next Tuesday," under guise of a visit to her acupuncturist. True? Who cares, when 40,000 Britons paid $22 each on the first day to call a special phone line...
Such defenses are technically correct, but they ignore an anomaly that has been introduced into British public life by none other than the House of Windsor itself. As reigning Kings lost their real power, they had to find other reasons for the monarchy's existence. Queen Victoria, who ascended the throne in 1837, settled on an answer that has come back to haunt her descendants. Along with Albert, her beloved prince consort, she buttressed her sovereignty with the admonition that the royal family would set by example the moral tone for the nation and the empire. Collective good conduct became...
Braudy has stitched more than 1,000 interviews into this dismal tale, and she offers her readers some delicious tidbits: Ann in India, ready to stalk tigers in 120 degrees weather, appearing in a wool hunting outfit lined with chinchilla. At a dinner honoring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, a footman passes potato chips and onion dip with the cocktails. Unfortunately, Braudy's arsenal of adjectives is limited. Families tend to be "wealthy," living in "opulent homes." And there are some unfiltered howlers -- the Duke of "Marlboro," for one. After a while, without the leavening of irony, one begins...
...case. If her husband admires her efforts for AIDS victims and drug addicts, he keeps it to himself. By her in-laws, she is watched "in doubtful and often jealous silence," writes Morton. "The world judges that she has dusted off the dowdy image of the House of Windsor." But inside it, "she is seen as an outsider and a problem. She is tactile, emotional, gently irreverent and spontaneous." Adds Davies: "Basically separated from her husband and most of her royal in-laws, she has yet managed to carve out an empire for herself...
...tenants cited peeling paint, holes in ceilings and floors, heat problems, mice and poor upkeep in the building's common areas. In short, critics say a city agency agreed to raise rents for a building that is "abominable" and "a dump." And they say 266-270 Windsor St. is a perfect example of why the city's rent control system needs structural reforms...