The BAFTAs have a new president, and it is not a movie or television star. Instead, it is the young man who would one day be King of the United Kingdom, Prince William. The 27 year-old Prince made his debut as president of the Orange British Academy of Film Awards on Sunday at the Royal Opera House in London. William worked the red carpet, shaking hands with fans before giving a speech to open the ceremony.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images Europe
“I am so grateful to Lord [Richard] Attenborough for inviting me to take over from him,” the Prince said, referring to the actor who suffered from a serious head injury in 2009. William wished he was well enough to attend the BAFTAs.
“The visual arts are such a vital part of what makes up the fabric of this nation,” the Prince went on to say. “Britain has been a world leader in so many ways, not least in its cultural achievements. From the days of Shakespeare to our own Shakespeare in Love, British playwrights, script writers, actors, film makers and now video game designers have led the way globally, if not always in terms of resource then undoubtedly in talent and innovation.
“From what we are about to see tonight, it is quite clear that the same extraordinary cultural dynamism that so infused the first Elizabethan age still drives the beating heart of British visual arts in this second Elizabethan era.”
Prince William then went on to describe the royal family’s links to the BAFTAs, which goes back a ways.
“My grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, was there right at the start, presiding over that exciting time which saw the coming together of the British Film Academy and the Guild of Television Producers and Directors,” he said. “He was followed as president by Lord Mountbatten, who in turn handed over to my aunt, the Princess Royal.”
“So now perhaps you can see why I feel this is such a privilege for me – and I will do my level best to live up to my illustrious predecessors.”
William added: “Occasions such as tonight are obviously wonderful showcases for the British film industry, but I am also extremely excited about the prospect of working with Bafta on its myriad charitable endeavours.
“Because what is less known about this wonderful organisation is how much good it does for young people with its mentoring schemes, career starter initiatives and learning and events activity across the country.
“So, thank you for all you do to support the genius of film. Thank you for asking me to become your fifth president.
“It is a very great honour.”
With that, the Prince sat in the audience with the rest of the nominees and watched the ceremony.
One of the tasks he did as President of the BAFTAs was giving a lifetime achievement award to actress Vanessa Redgrave – who is a republican and a longtime critic of the royal family.
But Redgrave had nothing but kind words to say about William’s father, Prince Charles, saying “I would like to say, your Royal Highness, how much I admire your father for his intelligence, humility and kindness.”
She also mentioned having the pleasure of meeting his mother, the late Princess Diana.
One week into the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and royalty has been just about everywhere. They’ve been cheering on their country men and women as they compete in the various sporting competitions, but mostly anonymously. Meaning, many ordinary people probably did not know there was royalty in their midst as they watched the events.
Earlier this week, Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon was photographed watching the downhill skiing and at the women’s biathlon. He likely went unnoticed with his dark sunglasses.
Also watching the biathlon was Denmark’s Crown Princely couple, Frederik and Mary. They also were at the downhill skiing event. As an IOC member, Frederik took part in the medal ceremony for the Men’s Biathlon 10 km Sprint at Whistler Medal Plaza.
Later, he and Mary were photographed watching one of the hockey games.
Another royal taking part in a medal ceremony was Prince Albert II of
REUTERS/Lyle Stafford
Monaco. A five-time Winter Olympian in the bobsledding as well as an IOC member, the Prince awarded the medal winners of the the Alpine skiing Men’s Super-G event at the Whistler Medal Plaza.
Royalty come and go at these Games, some of them arriving halfway through. Those that did were Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia and their son Prince Carl Philip. The Swedish royals came on Thursday, just in time to watch the women’s round robin curling event. They watched as Sweden beat China 6 – 4.
Spain’s Crown Princess Letizia had a delightful audience with the 20 of the Smile Doctors at Zarzuela Palace yesterday. The doctors are a group of pediatricians, psychologists, artists and magicians who, on behalf of the Theodora Foundation, visit sick children in hospitals. Friday was their 10th anniversary, and Letizia was congratulating them on their work.
Established in 1993 in Switzerland, and making its way to Spain in 2000, the group visits about 20 hospitals all over Spain per week. The “doctors” are especially trained to entertain the children.
The Princess met with the Smile Doctors during a visit to a hospital in in February 2009, so she know firsthand just how they make children smile and laugh during their hospital stay.
Also on Friday, Letizia held audience with the Spanish Federation of Parents of Children with Cancer before meeting with the Smile Doctors.
There’s a new policy regarding the public engagements of the Swedish royal family, and its making members of Sweden’s media scratch their heads. According to royal reporter, Daniel Nyhlen of Svensk Damtidning, the press is not allowed to photograph the royals during their public duties.
AP Photo/Scanpix Sweden/Anders Wiklund
This explains why there hasn’t been any photos of Crown Princess Victoria meeting with the athletes of the Winter Paralympics or Princess Madeleine doing work for the charity Min Stora Dag, both events which have been recent.
Nyhlen considers this new protocol to that of “North Korean mentality.” He went on to say that it is, ” [T]otally absurd! When was this stupid rule? And by whom? Does the Court not think it is important that the media documenting what the royal family do? Or should I interpret it otherwise?”
Like anyone who’s existence depends on the public seeing and knowing what they do, this new policy could wind up hurting the Swedish royals than helping them – if that is the intention.
It seems as though Europe’s royals are cracking down on the media big time. The Dutch royals have the controversial mediacode which forbids the press from taking pictures of them during private moments. Late last year, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II personally asked her country’s media to not photograph her family also during private moments.
But note that those actions are for private moments. Why would the Swedish block out the media during public events?
This week, the Austrian television station ORF was told to remove photographs of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, her son Prince Constantijn and his family from its website. The pictures were that of the royals arriving in Lech for their annual skiing vacation.
Dutch Photo Press/Patrick van Katwijk
The Dutch royal household felt the pictures violated a mediacode, where private photos of the royal family are not allowed to be published. This despite that ORF showed video of the family arriving at the ski resort.
Media coverage of the Dutch royals coming to Lech has been existence for about 50 years. But this year, there was no photo call because Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his family are currently in Vancouver for the Olympics.
This is the not the first time the House of Orange’s mediacode caused problems with the media. Last year, Willem-Alexander sued the Associated Press for photographing and publishing pictures of he and his family skiing in Argentina. The Crown Prince won his case even though many of those in the media felt that violated freedom of the press.
Looking fabulous in a Giorgio Armani Privé, Jordan’s Queen Rania was one of the stars of the 60th annual Sanremo Festival Wednesday evening in Sanremo, Italy. She furthered proved her stardom by defending Muslims, saying they are not terrorists.
AP Photo/Alberto Pellaschiar
“It is really a minority that runs a religious message distorted whereas that message does not represent the majority.” the Queen said while speaking on the Ariston stage. “People who commit atrocities are not true Muslims, who would never do that.”
Also while on the Ariston stage, host Antonella Clerici questioned Rania on her marriage to King Abdullah II and whether there were times when the King was jealous of his wife.
“We have a relationship of mutual trust between us. A little ‘jealousy can’ be useful but should never ruin the relationship. A small dose of jealousy can be there, but no more,” said the Queen.
Her Majesty and Clerici also talked about cooking, in which Queen Rania said her specialty is chocolate chip cookies.
Also making his first appearance at Sanremo was Prince Emmanuel Filiberto, the grandson of Italy’s last King. The Prince, who enjoys being in the spotlight, made his singing debut with the song “Italy My Love.”
This afternoon, Spain’s King Juan Carlos had a brief meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House. The two men shared a lunch together and discussed bilateral ties between their countries. Obama is the eighth American President the King had met with.
noticias.terra.es
Upon meeting the President, Juan Carlos gave him a leather bound Spanish version of Obama’s autobiography, “Dreams from My Father.” It was produced in Madrid by craftsman Luis Minguez, and the cover includes the U.S. presidential seal.
The King and the President lunched in the dining room next door to the Oval Office. They ate a salad, grilled shrimp with tomato sauce and an apple pie. With the two men were U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. National Security Adviser, James Jones, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and the leader of the Royal Palace, Alberto Aza.
It is believed King Juan Carlos invited Obama to visit Spain, in return for the invitation the President gave to the monarch.
Queen Sofia did not accompany her husband to Washington. She did not even go with him to Lebanon recently. It is unknown why the Queen has been absent from these trips.
The Journal of the American Medical Association announced today just how ancient Egypt’s most famous pharaoh died. After two years of DNA tests and CT scans, scientists can positively say that King Tutankhamun died of a broken leg brought on by malaria, and his parents were brother and sister.
AFP/DDP/File/Lennart Preiss
Tut became King at the age of nine in 1333 B.C.E. and died ten years later. It was long speculated that the boy King was murdered, and a hole in his skull appeared to be proof. But now, it is clear that is not the case.
“A sudden leg fracture possibly introduced by a fall might have resulted in a life threatening condition when a malaria infection occurred,” the JAMA article said.
The study also reveals the King’s numerous physical ailments. He had a cleft palate, a clubbed foot and walked with a cane. These problems might have been due to his incestuous origins, confirmed by the DNA test results.
The Egyptian pharaohs had a long history of marrying brother and sister. Cleopatra was married to her half-brother before getting involved with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. King Tut himself was married to his half-sister.
These revelations display a much different King Tut than often seen in the popular imagination. Ever since his intact tomb was found in 1922, filled with treasures beyond anyone had dreamed, including the Pharaoh’s golden face mask, Tut had been seen as a sort of romantic figure. But the test results prove otherwise.
This study on King Tut’s lineage is part of a massive project to test the DNA of the Egyptian mummies to determine who they are and who their parents were. Egypt built two DNA labs in order to do the genetics testing.
Egypt’s top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, believes many more discoveries could be found for King Tut and the other ancient royals
“It will never be revealed completely, still we need more research,” Hawass, said. “We finished the first great part of the mystery and the second one is coming soon in one year.”
The Queen of Jordan is on a working visit to Barcelona, Spain this week. For Monday, she aimed to rally the CEOs of cellphone companies to support her 1Goal education campaign.
The Jordan Times/Nasser Ayoub
“Your world, the mobile phone industry, and my world, global education, might not be, at first glance, an obvious partnership, but I’m here because our worlds overlap and intersect more than you may realise,” Queen Rania told the executives at a reception hosted by the GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide cellphone industry.
“Not going to school or receiving a poor education means fewer customers and fewer talented recruits. It costs businesses around the world billions of dollars in lost trade revenue, innovations and efficiencies,” she added.
“That’s why,” the Queen said, “the mobile industry has a vested interest in making sure as many children as possible receive an education.”
The 1GOAL campaign, which aims to make education available to everyone worldwide, was co-founded by Queen Rania last August, in partnership with FIFA, the 2010 World Cup and the Global Campaign for Education. It aims to put the 72 million children who are not receiving an education for various reasons, to be put in a classroom.
To sign-up for the campaign, go to www.join1goal.org to petition governments to stand by their current education pledges.
Monday saw one of the worst train collisions in Belgian history. Two commuter trains collided head-on south-west of Brussels during rush hour, leaving nearly one hundred injured and death toll currently at 18.
King Albert II promptly left his vacation spot in the south of France to come to the crash site at Buizingen, near Halle. He was accompanied by Prime Minister Yves Leterme, who ended a trip to Kosovo early to get to the site. Leterme said he was stunned by what he saw, which many described as a carnage.
World leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sent their condolences to the King.
This train collision comes less than a month after a gas explosion in Liege killed 14 people. The King also came to the site to see for himself the damage, and talk to the firefighters involved.
Recent Comments