This weekend, reading the online versions of the British tabloids and newspapers has been a bit like watching the brides at the famous Filene’s Basement wedding dress sale here in the US — they line up at the starting line, getting more and more excited for the go ahead, and when they get the signal, they go nuts.
These royal journalists (a kind term for some of the tabloid writers, really) have been chomping at the bit for some good news about Prince William and Kate Middleton for months. They’ve made mountains of molehills in an attempt to fill column inches — remember the furious back and forth over whether or not Kate met William in Mustique in August or met him at his ship? And now that they’ve got two solid pieces of actual news about the pair, they’ve gone into the ultimate overdrive!
But, if you ask me, it all seems to be one thing: speculation. We only know two things at this point:
1. Prince William has decided to become a search and rescue pilot, and he began his training with the RAF earlier this week, and
2. Kate Middleton helped to organize a roller-disco charity event, and while attending it on Wednesday, she took a spill while skating.
And that’s it. I cannot for the life of me locate any other kernels of absolute, unadulterated fact in any of the press coverage we’ve seen this week; even Mandrake’s reported comments from William’s private secretary (William has time to get married — he’s still young) sound to me more like general statements designed to calm press frenzy rather than concrete facts. Even Eden admitted that “Lowther-Pinkerton refused to be drawn on the Prince’s private life.”
