Eternal girlfriend: Kate Middleton frolicking with Prince William in CourchevelHeaven forbid that the recession is having an adverse affect on Party Pieces, the online one-stop party shop run by Kate Middleton’s parents.
What other reason could there possibly have been for the girl who expects one day to be Queen, alongside William V, to break with her own royally rigid and legally policed privacy in order to promote the family firm on its website, while reminiscing about her childhood?
She even offered ideas for the perfect party and advice to parents about party bags.
The words that came to mind in certain palace corridors this week were those uttered by the Queen’s former private secretary, the late Lord Charteris, when describing the acquisitive behaviour and commercial antics of the Duchess of York: ‘Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar.’
A touch unfair on Kate, perhaps, but how ironic that the childhood nostalgia of ‘Kate from Party Pieces’ as she called herself on the website, surfaced around the same time that pictures were emerging of her and William frolicking in the alpine snow on a skiing holiday with her family.
One photo of them on a snowmobile, with the eternal girlfriend clinging on for dear life to the future king, was particularly symbolic.
It is seven years since William and Kate — who are both 28 this year — became an item while studying at the same university. That is considerably longer than the happily married years of his parents, Charles and Diana.
In all that time, including three months in 2007 when William initiated what amounted to a trial separation, there has been no other man in her life and, possibly, no other woman in his.
But as one exasperated family friend observes: ‘Kate has got nothing to show for it except a bulging album of holiday snaps. The one snap she hasn’t got is the one that shows the two of them cutting their wedding cake.’
So why is there no engagement ring? Could the answer be the unease of William’s father, Prince Charles, over her suitability?
Friends accept that William and Kate have what one of them calls ‘a loving relationship’, but it is curious that the Prince remains so touchy on the subject of marriage that they know better than to ask him when — or, indeed, if — he’s going to name the day.
William jokingly referred to Kate’s former airline pilot father Peter as ‘Dad’ on the recent French Alps skiing holiday, during which he was the family’s guest in a rented £15,000-a-week chalet in Courchevel.
And yet the nagging question of the couple’s ultimate future refuses to go away. The result is that Kate Middleton has become the focus of constant public gossip.
Close: Kate Middleton met William at university seven years agoOn the one hand, she is the object of sympathy for becoming a victim of what one exasperated figure calls ‘royal paralysis’ — a young woman cautiously preserved in aspic until, as it is assumed, she is brought to life as an official royal princess.
On the other, it is more than two years since wags coined an unfortunate nickname for her that has all but passed into the English language: ‘Waity Katie.’
Understandably, the wicked soubriquet upsets her mother, a former airline stewardess who famously chewed nicotine gum at William’s Sandhurst passing out parade more than three years ago.
Some courtiers privately believe that if William does intend to marry Kate, it is foolish — and ungallant — for him to keep her in this twilight state of suspended animation, wheeling her out for parties and holiday pictures.
Yet how different the mood would be if Kate Middleton actually broke out of the royal arm-lock and went out and did something instead of existing in this curious state of limbo.
But even friends concede she has made little or no effort to demonstrate that she has the capacity or, indeed, the will to take on the testing and highly exposed royal lifestyle that would be her lot as the wife of Prince William.
One troubled former courtier says: ‘She is yet to show us that she’s prepared for hard work. The poor girl seems to do little except wait for the phone to ring with William on the line. I suspect that is William’s fault, not hers, but it simply will not do.
‘She may not be formally engaged to him, but with her education (she was at Marlborough, a top public school), she should be cultivating a profile of a young woman who is intelligent and capable in her own right, instead of allowing herself to become the subject of jokes.’
Pressure: High Street retailers Woolworths jumped the gun with these planned commemorative gifts in November 2006
source: dialymail
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