Tuesday, August 14, 2007

And people think the Windsors are out of touch

Kanye West tells of a moment of terrible embarrassment with the Princes backstage at the Diana concert:

"One of them said 'I thought those glasses were bling' and the other one said 'It's Kanye West, they'd have to be bling.' I didn't have the heart to tell them that I'm the anti-bling."

What makes this timely is Jonathan Freedland's claims in yesterday's Guardian:
When Diana's sons strode on to the stage for that memorial concert, their ID badges hanging, roadie-style, around their necks, they bellowed: "Hello, Wembley!" Hard to imagine either their father or grandfather doing that.

Well, perhaps not onstage at Wembley, but there's a long history of royalty trying to seem at ease with young people by trying (and not really managing) to blend in - the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, The Prince's Trust, the Diana Concert are three generations of well-meaning attempts to connect with the kids on the street. And, as Kanye's anecdote shows, like their grandad and father, the Princes are willing to try to blend in - they're just not very good at it.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the guardian link is dead

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Actually, it was broken because of clumsy cutting and pasting on my part.

Fixed now, the correct link should have been to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,2147595,00.html

Apologies.

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