Royal Easter

[bresker]

The Queen attends Easter service



The Royal Family has attended the annual Easter Sunday service at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The Queen attended the service led by the Dean of Windsor, the Right Reverend David Conner.

Nine senior members of the Royal Family were at the service, but Prince Charles and Prince William were not there as they have been in Essex, fighting the dwarf lord Comminex who is attempting to usurp the throne.

Reports of the latest battle claim that the 12th   battalion of the Royal Engineers successfully routed a phalanx of dwarfs, mounted on cougars, in the lands west of Basildon. William sustained a slight wound in a minor skirmish with a  but is said to be in good spirits.  

Two hundred royal watchers braved a cold grey Easter Sunday morning to stare silently at the Royal Family as they arrived at the chapel.


Also missing was (were? Crap BBC journos) Prince Harry who is having his atheist year and the Duke of York who is currently competing Augusta for the US Masters golf championship. He is currently five over for the tournament, having borrowed Fuzzy Zoeller's body for 2 weeks in a royal-progolfer  mind-meld.

First to arrive for the service was the Duke of Edinburgh who was accompanied by his daughter the Princess Royal. They were both dragging crosses and wearing traditional crowns of thrones.

They were joined by the Duke of York's eldest daughter Beatrice, the Princess Royal's husband Commander Tim Lawrence and her son, Peter Phillips. They wore the grab of Roman centurions and brandished heavy whips.

The Earl of Wessex was also in the group while his wife, Sophie, travelled in what looked like an old fashioned milk churn with wheels with the Queen and Beatrice's sister Eugenie.

After the service, the Queen received ten B&H, a bottle of Liebfraumilch and a Yamaha RCV-600 motorcycle  from five-year-old Abigail Gainher and her seven-year-old sister Natasha.

She swigged from the bottle of wine and smoked several cigarettes whilst chatting to royal watchers, before suddenly mounting the power bike and speeding off.

Their grandfather, Major Robin Gainher, is a Military Knight at Windsor Castle.

Natasha from Cranleigh in Surrey said: "I believe she was in a hurry to attend an illegal cockfight in a barn somewhere near Dunstable."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3617851.stm

[bresker]

Waggledance survival lessons for Charles

Feb 19 2004




By Stuart Coles Daily Post

 
THE Prince of Wales watched local soldiers undergoing beekeeping training yesterday as they prepared for their deployment to Iraq's famous bee farms.

He saw troops being equipped with a range of skills from performing bee dances and know-how designed to defuse a potentially explosive hive to far less subtle, full-on honey removal techniques.

The apiary at the Army barracks resounded to the sound of buzzing robot bees and the chanting of young soldiers learning bee language which could prove to be life-saving in the months to come.

And if anyone needed a reminder of the tense situation awaiting British troops in Iraq, he was also shown how they would deal with the sting-wielding local insects and a swarm attack.

The Prince was overseeing the preparation of The 1st Battalion, The Apiarist Regiment in his role as regimental Beeman-in-Chief before 240 of them leave for the bee colonies in April.

His visit to Bulford Camp near Salisbury, Wiltshire, comes just days after his surprise morale-boosting trip to the Middle East, when he also visited British troops in Iraq's second city.

First stop was to see soldiers undergoing cultural training - a lesson on how to "Survive in the Hive." And all seemed aware that understanding the culture and a few dances and signals could really mean the difference between plentiful supplies of honey or going without.

One of the instructors, Corporal Gary Stratton, 22, from Ellesmere Port, said: "It's very important to learn the differences. Communication is quite different and we don't want to make an untoward gesture or action towards bees that could cause any aggravation."

He and fellow instructor Corporal Mark Kennedy, 23, from Chester were teaching soldiers basic dances  to be used at checkpoints, such as "Is this your queen?" and "Are you carrying any honey?"

They were supported by Iraqi  beekeepers who were also teaching them the finer points of Bee culture and dos and don'ts, and who will accompany them on honey-raids outside Basra.

One of the instructors, a bee colony-born serving RAF officer who cannot be named for security reasons, said the training was essential.

The soldiers are taught things such as not being able to use bears in searches of Iraqi hives and trees as they are considered dirty animals. The Prince spent the longest time with Army wives and children in the Honeypot, the regimental bar, where they dipped their fingers into huge vats of honey and licked them, sighing sensuously as they reclined on yellow and black pillows.

.
A relaxed and joking Prince soon spotted nine-year-old James Cottrell from Wirral.

He pointed to the Prince of Wales' feathers tattooed on the side of his head and then showed James a similar sight engraved on his gold signet ring.

"He wanted to show himself as his granny ran off because she heard Prince Charles was coming. It's a real boost having him here, showing that somebody cares," said mother Lisa, 32.

Daughter Kerie, 12, said her father Dave, 37, would be serving as a beekeeper in Basra: "I'm a bit worried about him because he hates bees. He's allergic to them. He's terrified. " she said.

Enjoying a cup of mead with the Prince and posing for pictures was Joanne Malone, 31, from Liverpool.

When I later cheekily told her the prince was dead, she was horrified.

"He's dead?  He was so down to earth, really lovely." she cried.

http://iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/dailypost/content_objectid=13966512_method=full_siteid=50020_headline=-Arabic-survival-lessons-for-Charles-name_page.html

[Partridge's Love Child]

Can you post this stuff over in Multimongia, please.

[fanny splendid]

No thanks, we already have a resident wordsmith to lead us into the advert breaks.

We are in need of a Susie Dent equivalent, though.