显示标签为“London”的博文。显示所有博文
显示标签为“London”的博文。显示所有博文

2011年4月29日星期五

The crowds swell in London as William and Kate prepare for marriage

反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 2 行,位置为 8564。
反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 1 行,位置为 9873。
April 29, 2011, 3:58 AM EDT By Kitty Donaldson, Chris Spillane and Laura Price

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Thousands of people are streaming into central London for today’s wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, joining those who camped out overnight along the route the newlyweds will take in a carriage procession.

Local officials estimate the crowd will swell to 600,000 people by the time the ceremony gets under way in Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. As many as 5,000 people stayed on the streets overnight, the BBC reported. The weather is dry, though forecasters say there may be showers later. The U.K. government says the event will be seen by 2 billion people on television around the world. It’s a public holiday throughout Britain.

“We got a few hours sleep, on and off,” said Sheila Barton, 57, who started camping on The Mall at 5 p.m. yesterday after traveling from Sevenoaks, southeast of London. “We kept warm with layers, food, drink and cuddling up. We chose this spot so we have a good place to run into the park when they drive past.”

Middleton is the first woman from outside royalty or the aristocracy to marry so close to the throne for 350 years. When William becomes Britain’s monarch, she will be queen. Queen Elizabeth II, William’s grandmother, announced today that the couple will be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after their wedding.

Today’s celebrations are the U.K.’s biggest royal event since the funeral in 1997 of William’s mother, Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris after her marriage with Prince Charles ended in divorce.

‘Lavish and Extravagant’

Charles and Diana married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London in 1981. That event was “incredibly lavish and extravagant” and won’t be replicated today, according to Hugo Vickers, the author of “Elizabeth, The Queen Mother,” a biography of William’s great-grandmother and an adviser on the Oscar-winning movie, “The King’s Speech.”

“This is actually a more traditional royal wedding -- the Queen and Prince Philip were married at Westminster Abbey along with other royal couples,” Vickers said in a telephone interview. “You could argue that the archbishop at Charles and Diana’s wedding saying ‘this is the stuff of which fairy tales are made’ put too much of a burden on to that couple.”

Not all the campers were roughing it overnight. Robin Ward, 47, from Auckland, New Zealand, and her family were staying in a five-star “glamping” tent in Clapham, south London, after arriving by helicopter.

‘Birthday Treat’

“It was a birthday treat from my husband. He knows I’m a huge fan of the royal wedding,” said Ward, whose husband flew her and their four daughters to the British capital from Auckland as a birthday surprise. The family will watch the wedding on big screens in the park in Clapham.

Middleton, 29, spent her last night as an unmarried woman in the 111-year-old Goring Hotel, just around the corner from Buckingham Palace. Her day is timetabled with military precision. While getting dressed, the princess-to-be will hear the sound of military marching bands across London. They start leaving their barracks at 9:10 a.m.

She will travel from the hotel by car, in the company of her father, Michael, at 10:51 a.m. and arrive at Westminster Abbey at exactly 11 a.m.

That’s the moment when the public will have its first view of the bride’s dress, whose design -- and the name of the designer -- has been kept secret.

“I want to see her dress, it’s going to be lush,” said Kiayra Mansfield, 18, from Lloydminster, Alberta, who’s also staying overnight at the Clapham campsite.

Taffeta and Lace

When Diana Spencer, then aged 20, married Prince Charles in 1981, she wore an ivory taffeta and antique lace dress with a 25-foot train and puffed sleeves, designed by Elizabeth Emanuel.

Middleton will be attended today by five bridesmaids including her sister, Pippa, and two pageboys. They arrive at the abbey at 10:55 a.m.

The 28-year-old groom will get to the church 45 minutes earlier than the bride, accompanied by his best man and younger brother, Prince Harry, 26.

William, who as monarch will command Britain’s military, will be dressed in the uniform of a colonel of the Irish Guards regiment, his senior honorary appointment in the army. He is currently a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, based in north Wales, and could also have worn a naval uniform. Harry will wear the uniform of a captain of the Household Cavalry.

The 1,900 guests have started arriving, with the most important, the queen, the last to get to the abbey at 10:45 a.m.

Those invited include more than 40 foreign royals such as Queen Margrethe of Denmark and political leaders including Prime Minister David Cameron. There are also members of both families and friends and acquaintances of the couple, including soccer player David Beckham and his wife Victoria and Elton John, who sang at Diana’s funeral.

Rebuff for Syria

Ambassadors in London are automatically invited unless diplomatic relations are strained. The Foreign Office withdrew the invitation to the Syrian envoy yesterday in protest at the killing of anti-government protesters by security forces.

During the four minutes it takes Middleton to walk down the aisle at the abbey, she will pass floral decorations that include eight 20-foot trees alongside blossoms, azaleas, rhododendron, beech, wisteria and lilac.

The 1,000-year-old abbey has hosted 15 royal weddings. The service will be conducted by the Dean of Westminster, John Hall, and the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and the wedding ceremony itself by the senior cleric in the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Welsh Gold

When the couple exchange vows, Middleton will be given a gold wedding ring to wear alongside her sapphire and diamond engagement ring. The ring was made by a family-owned London- based jeweler, Wartski, from a piece of Welsh gold given to William by the queen after the engagement was announced last year.

If Middleton follows royal tradition, she will pause to place her bouquet of flowers on the grave in the abbey of the Unknown Warrior, which commemorates soldiers who were killed in World War I. The tradition was started in 1923 by William’s great-grandmother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, after a clergyman fainted, requiring a pause in the service in which she married Prince Albert, who became George VI.

Following the ceremony the newly married couple will leave the abbey at 12:15 p.m. in an open-air state landau carriage, the same vehicle used by Charles and Diana 30 years ago, along a union flag-lined route to Buckingham Palace. If it’s raining heavily, a covered carriage known as the Glass Coach will be used for the 15-minute journey.

The couple will have their photographs taken inside the palace before emerging on to the balcony at 1:25 p.m. to wave to the crowds and, perhaps, to kiss in public as man and wife for the first time.

Battle of Britain

A flypast of three planes from World War II symbolizing the Battle of Britain -- a Spitfire, a Lancaster and a Hurricane -- alongside four modern jets -- two Tornados and two Typhoons -- will salute the newlyweds.

“In our era, we always hear about the past, stories of kings. This will be part of our history, in 50, 100 years’ time, so it’ll be great to be able to tell my grandchildren I was here,” said Marcelo Ros Castilho, 27, an IT project manager from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He camped out on The Mall with friends and family.

After the air display, around 650 people will attend a lunchtime canape reception at the palace. Two cakes will be cut. One is a multi-tiered fruit cake decorated with white icing and flowers and the other a chocolate cookie cake made from a royal family recipe.

Dancing at Palace

In the evening, there will be a 300-strong reception at the palace for the couple’s close friends with dinner and dancing. That’s where Prince Harry will make his best man’s speech. Where the couple will travel on honeymoon is another secret.

The ceremony, the lunch and the evening dinner will be paid for by Charles and the queen, while Kate’s parents, self-made millionaires who run their own company, Party Pieces, are also contributing.

By the end of the day, Middleton’s life will have changed utterly.

“She will one day, as the queen is, be a figurehead for this country,” Claudia Joseph, author of “Kate: The Making of a Princess,” said in a telephone interview. “In one sense it will be extremely restrictive and limiting but she will also have experiences that other people can only dream of.”

--With assistance from Svenja O’Donnell and Thomas Penny in London. Editors: Eddie Buckle, Leon Mangasarian

To contact the reporters on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net; Chris Spillane in London at cspillane3@bloomberg.net; Laura Price in London at lprice3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net


View the original article here

2011年4月14日星期四

Applications of apartments in London, royal marriage racket stop

反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 1 行,位置为 8979。
反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 1 行,位置为 9089。

With only a little over two weeks left before the much-hyped nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the push is on to cash in on the seemingly insatiable appetite for royal wedding memorabilia.

Even the royal household's official purveyor of wedding merchandise and some of Prince William's family members are getting in on the action.

The Royal Collection, an administrative body that oversees the Royal Family's art collection and sells palace-sanctioned products like William and Kate's commemorative wedding china, will be releasing a Royal App for Apple and Android cellphones on April 18.

The smartphone application will sell for £1.79 ($2.80) and be available in eight languages. Through a series of articles and photo galleries, it will take users through "seven royal nuptials, from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840 to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in 2005."

It will join a host of other paid and free royal wedding apps, ranging from the practical — such as the Royal Wedding Essential Guide, complete with maps, schedules and other tools — to the silly, a digital paper doll game of sorts called Dress the Royals.

A commemorative royal wedding cushion being sold at the Highgrove Shop, an enterprise established by Prince Charles as a way of raising money for his Prince's Charities Foundation.A commemorative royal wedding cushion being sold at the Highgrove Shop, an enterprise established by Prince Charles as a way of raising money for his Prince's Charities Foundation. www.highgroveshop.com

And while critics might cluck at the tackiness of it all, it seems the royals themselves are not opposed to commodifying the happy event. Prince Charles is selling a £29.95 ($47) Catherine and William Engagement Jigsaw puzzle, as well as Will and Kate-themed cushions, champagne flutes and chocolate, at his Highgrove Shop, which raises money for the Prince's Charities Foundation.

Charles Spencer, Prince William's uncle and brother of the late Princess Diana, meanwhile, has teamed up with Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel to offer royal wedding tours of his London home, Spencer House, and the family estate where Diana is buried, Althorp.

For a paltry £11,300 ($17,687) per person, visitors who purchase the six-day package will also get a tour of Chartwell, Sir Winston Churchill's family home in Kent, and have dinner at the London townhouse of an unnamed "member of the royal family" the night before the wedding. It's not the first time that the earl has been seen to be cashing in on his family ties. After Diana's death, Spencer was heavily criticized for opening a Diana mausoleum and museum at Althorp. A spokesperson for the earl has said the money raised from the tour will go to local charities and estate upkeep.

Here are some of the other notable ways in which the wedding of William and Kate is being commemorated and commodified:

Real estate watchers estimate Londoners will make £100 million ($1.56 million) in rental income over the April 29 royal wedding weekend. With one million people expected to travel to central London for the event and only about 120,000 hotel rooms in the city, it's no wonder that a quarter of the city's residents are reportedly considering renting out their homes to wedding watchers. Sites like Londonrentmyhouse.com, Findaproperty.com, Crashpadder.com, HomeAway.co.uk and Gumtree.com are all advertising royal wedding rentals and offering tips to Londoners about how to make their flats attractive to overseas visitors. British media are reporting that flats are renting anywhere from $60 a night to $6,000 a week in prime locations, such as those with balconies that offer views of the wedding procession route.

Transport for London, the city's transit agency, is issuing a special commemorative travel card, emblazoned with the image of William and Kate's engagement that will go on sale eight days before the wedding. The Oyster card, as it's known, is a smart card that can be loaded with credit. Travellers will have to pay a £5 ($7.80) deposit and load it up with at least that much money. Media have speculated that if people keep the cards and don't redeem their deposit, the agency could make a profit of $6 million to $12 million. A similar travel card was issued for the 1981 wedding of Charles and Diana.

Cups from the official royal wedding commemorative china collection wait to be completed at a factory in Stoke-on-Trent, U.K.Cups from the official royal wedding commemorative china collection wait to be completed at a factory in Stoke-on-Trent, U.K. Associated Press

Although there are plenty of William and Kate mugs, cups and plates being sold around the world, there is only one official Royal Family-sanctioned range of china. It doesn't come emblazoned with images of the couple, only their names, initials and wedding date. The factory in Stoke-on-Kent charged with making the bone china had reportedly sold 70,000 pieces as of the end of March. The collection includes a plate, a mug, a pill box and a £125 ($195) two-handled Loving Cup made in a limited edition of 1,000.

The Royal Mint has issued a royal wedding commemorative coin, with images of the couple's faces on one side and the Queen's on the other. It will produce 250,000 of the coins.

The Canadian Mint has its own set of commemorative coins for the occasion that it will start selling May 2. One has a colour image of the couple and another has a blue crystal embedded in it, a nod to Kate' s sapphire engagement ring.

The Royal Mail has created two commemorative stamps for the wedding that went on sale online April 7 and will officially be issued in the U.K. on April 21, the Queen's birthday. The Commonwealth Pacific island nation of Niue caused a fuss when it issued its own commemorative stamps but sold them as a set of two with a perforation down the middle that effectively split the couple up, which some took to be a bad omen for the marriage.

By now, most people have heard about the royal wedding sick bag and Crown Jewels condoms, but there is also William and Kate in Bed, 2011, a photo by British artist Alison Jackson in which Will and Kate look-alikes are shown scantily clad lying in bed in what looks like a candid shot taken in their bedroom. The fake photo is part of an exhibit of works with an irreverent take on the royals called The Royal Family, on at London's Hayward Gallery Project Space until May 2.

The Royal Wedding: William and Kate Dress-up Dolly Book by Sunbird publishers lets you dress the couple for any occasion - including their wedding. The Royal Wedding: William and Kate Dress-up Dolly Book by Sunbird publishers lets you dress the couple for any occasion - including their wedding. Amazon.co.ukAmid the flood of tea bags, salt and pepper shakers, mugs, coasters, engagement ring replicas, spoons, ash trays, key chains, tote bags, fridge magnets, paperweights, pens, clocks, figurines and other royal wedding tchotchkes are a few standouts:

No More Waity, Katie nail polish — Made by Butter London, the shade of this commemorative nail colour is greige, a mix of gray, beige and lilac glitter, and its name alludes to the rumour that Kate had been waiting for some time for William to pop the question. It sells for $17.William and Kate Dress-up Dolly Book — A classic cut-out paper doll set, with outfits for everything from a weekend in the country to the wedding day.Royal Wedding for Dummies — Surely, this proves that there is no subject that this ubiquitous publishing franchise doesn't cover. The book, available as paperback or ebook, includes royal trivia, etiquette and history; British recipes; tips for getting around London; and "a guide to planning and holding a street party."Recycled-stamp portrait of William and Kate — Peter Mason, a 66-year-old British retired art teacher, used more than 3,000 recycled postage stamps of Queen Elizabeth to make his roughly 90 cm by 120 cm pixilated portrait.Wedding podcast — A recording of William and Kate's vows and the other parts of the Westminster Abbey service are to be sold on iTunes within hours of the ceremony by the classical record label Decca, which also recorded Charles and Diana's wedding and Diana's funeral. The label also plans to sell the recording on CD, vinyl and even cassette.Mobile apps — Aside from the practical and time-wasting cellphone apps mentioned above, there are also many customized options created by media outlets such as NBC and Hello! magazine that aggregate wedding news and feature content. See the Telegraph newspaper's list of the 10 best royal wedding apps for a selection of what's out there.Back to accessibility links

View the original article here