Her Majesty the Queen: A Tribute

What a reception from the people; I found it very moving. Yes, the children are delightful. Little Cambridge is a hoot.

What about this drummer?  She's only 12 years old. Absolutely incredible!     

The Royal Family
1h  ·
“I have been humbled and deeply touched that so many people have taken to the streets to celebrate my Platinum Jubilee.”
As the Platinum Jubilee weekend draws to a close, Her Majesty has sent a thank you message to all those who have marked her 70 years as Queen.



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"Renewed sense of togetherness"

Amen to that. That's what I felt all weekend. Long may it last.

Harry arrives home early after a fun-filled Platinum Jubilee weekend with his self-inflicted estranged family, having been snubbed and booed. Maybe now it will register just what that lie-filled Oprah interview, as his grandmother's beloved husband lay dying, and tell-all Netflix and book deal has cost him. What will happen to him when the inevitable happens and Megflix takes him to the cleaners with a divorce?  

I think now that the con artists being at the Jubilee really put them in their place. They wouldn't have thought for one second that they wouldn't be with the real royals. What a master plan, to keep them at a distance. They have made fools of themselves numerous times, but this was special. Well done, royal family.

One of the comments in the Daily Mail:

"The Queen just schooled Harry and Meghan"

  Absolutely.

All they achieved was a couple of photos at the window shushing Zara's kids and being shunned by Mike Tindall and Peter Phillips then booed as they came down the steps from the Thanksgiving Service.

Classic.

But I do feel sorry for Harry's future predicament when Megflix does an Amber Heard on him.

If she does (and probably will) dump him, he might end up here again. That's the last thing we need! Unless he decides    to have his  post divorce psychiatric treatment in the U.S. - that could take a few years.

It's a pity Harry didn't set his sights higher up the alphabet to an A-list actress like Grace Kelly.

Someone like her really would have given Duchess Catherine a run for her money.

Hologram of young Queen waves from Gold State Coach during Jubilee pageant


This was so clever.

That's ^^^ charming!

There was a comment in the Times about Her Majesty's tea party with Paddington Bear.

I quote .... 'Don't let Pritti Patel hear of this, she'll be sending him off the Rwanda'

The Grand Finale


Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince George of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince Louis of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge stand on the balcony during the Platinum Pageant on June 5, 2022, in London

This will almost certainly be the last time Her Majesty makes a public appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

And the scene isn't being ruined by you know who.

Andrea Bocelli interview: ‘You can learn a lot from a woman like the Queen’

The tenor talks about our monarch, his nerves about performing at tomorrow's Platinum Party, and the recent death of his mother

3 June 2022 • 5:00am


Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli Credit: Camera Press/Barbara Ledda/Photomovie

For a man who has sold 80 million records and performed in front of presidents and popes, it’s surprising to learn that Andrea Bocelli still gets nervous. But when the Italian tenor takes the stage tomorrow at the televised concert outside Buckingham Palace to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, he will feel a very particular kind of pressure.

“At concerts where I will only perform one piece that will appear on millions of TV screens, it’s like kicking a penalty, you know? The last penalty. It is psychologically difficult,” the 63-year-old tells me over Zoom from his home recording studio in Forte dei Marmi, Tuscany, prior to departing for London.

He won’t name the piece he’s performing at the Platinum Party at the Palace, beyond saying it’s “one of the most popular and loved songs in the world” and that he’ll be backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I take a shot myself at this operatic open goal. Nessun Dorma? A smile. “You guess very well,” he says via an interpreter.

Singing Puccini for the Queenie. Being Italian, the significance of the concert might be lost on Bocelli, who grew up on a farm south of Pisa. But Bocelli has met the Queen on numerous occasions, including when he sang at her 90th birthday celebration in Windsor in 2016.

He says he’s seen first-hand the affection that the UK has for its Queen, whom he calls “courageous and brave”. We can learn from her service. “From a woman so experienced who has led a country for so many years – and a country with an ancient history – you can always learn something,” he says. She has also set an example in how she’s handled the trickier, darker moments. “She is a woman who over the decades has also known moments of pain [and] of sorrow or problems in her family, and all these things together have made her a strong woman from whom you can learn a lot.”


Andrea Bocelli with his family

Pain and sorrow have entered Bocelli’s life in recent days. On Saturday, he announced that his mother, Edi Aringhieri Bocelli, had died. She was nearly 85. It’s still incredibly raw and I check if he’s alright with me asking about her. He nods. How will he and his family remember Edi? “My mum was an extraordinary, brave, hard-working, hyperactive and generous woman until unfortunately several conditions transformed her,” he says, without elaborating on those conditions. “I would like to remember her when she was really her – not when she was hit by the conditions.” They were close – “like all children to their mothers” – and her funeral was held on Sunday.

Given what has happened, I wonder whether there will be added poignancy tomorrow in honouring a strong matriarch’s life and hard work. “Probably, yes,” says Bocelli, who is married to Italian actress Veronica Berti, with whom he has a daughter. “However in their lives they were totally different people. My mother belonged to a very middle-class family, she lived in the countryside, whereas the Queen has a very different life.”

Bocelli has form in carrying on in the face of family loss. In 2000, just hours after the death of his father Sandro, he sang for Pope John Paul II after his mother encouraged him to honour his commitments.

Bocelli looks very unstarry dressed in a burgundy T-shirt and black aviator shades, so it’s easy to forget just how famous he is. Since 1994, he has recorded 17 wildly successful studio albums. His 1999 LP, Sacred Arias, is the biggest- selling classical album by any solo artist in history. He has performed for three Popes as well as Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden (he was reportedly due to sing at Trump’s inauguration but withdrew after an online backlash, although Trump’s side claimed they turned down his offer).

It’s equally easy to overlook something else: Bocelli’s disability. He was born with sight problems before being diagnosed with congenital glaucoma. He lost his sight completely aged 12 when he was hit in the eye with a football. Doctors battled to save his sight, even applying blood-sucking leeches, but were unable to. He found solace in music, entering and winning singing competitions. He worked briefly as a lawyer before sending a tape to Italian rock star Zucchero in 1992. It changed his life.

Zucchero had asked tenors to audition to appear on a demo version of a song he was writing for Luciano Pavarotti. When Pavarotti heard Bocelli’s voice, he ended up recording the song with him. Patronage from Zucchero and Pavarotti put Bocelli on the map.

Bocelli believes music has therapeutic qualities. He’s not alone: a live stream of him singing in Milan’s empty Duomo on Easter Day 2020, at the height of the pandemic, was watched by more than 28 million people within 24 hours. You can see why. Bocelli’s powerful voice is infused with a restorative purr. But he warns that music can also be “abused”. Too often, he argues, you hear it everywhere – in restaurants, in lifts, in bed – and its power is diluted. He’s talking about Muzak. “For instance, when you walk into a restaurant you can hear music but you should instead concentrate on what you’re doing in the restaurant. It’s more a distraction.

“Music is food for the soul. If you eat when you’re hungry, that’s OK. But if you eat when you’re already full that’s when you’re going to get indigestion. You can’t live without food but if you eat when you’re already full, it’s terrible. It’s dangerous,” he says.

He’s hoping that British audiences will be hungry come September when a massive tour is planned. Dates include two nights at London’s O2 (he’s also playing a stadium in Inverness next month). It speaks volumes about his status that his chosen arenas are almost exactly the same as those currently being performed in by pop star Billie Eilish. Is opera now fully embraced as a form of pop? It’s not a distinction Bocelli sees. After all, “pop” simply stands for “popular”.

He will “try” to invite his son Matteo (the second of his two children with first wife, Enrica Cenzatti), a rising star in the classical crossover world, on the road with him but he’s busy studying music at the Lucca Conservatory. Two weeks ago, father and son performed together at the Portofino wedding of reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian and Blink-182 musician Travis Barker. Bocelli says it was a “very beautiful party”. At one point, Kourtney’s sister Kim posted a clip of the Bocellis singing to her 314 million Instagram followers.

He seems both impressed and flummoxed. “Basically, I am curious about her [Kim] as a character. I have never wanted to be an influencer myself because the main purpose in my life was exactly not to be influenced” – there’s that singlemindedness again – “so the fact that an influencer like her has influenced so many people is really curious to me.”

With the jubilee in mind, I suggest that the Kardashians are, in fact, a very different, very modern kind of royal family in their own right. “Absolutely!” he agrees. “That’s the beauty of the world. Everybody’s different.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/concerts/andrea-bocelli-interview-can-learn-lot-woman-like-queen/

I don't think she'll touch those two again. The best they can hope is the ghastly Whoopi and her coven, now that Jeremy Kyle is out of the picture.

First Official Portrait of the future King and Queen. 

Hard to believe this is a painting  

It's fabulous.

It really is fabulous and a tribute to the Queen that her grandson, a future King, couldn't have chosen a better wife. In public they look perfect together. And their children are absolutely scrummy.

Catherine's parents must be so proud of their daughter. She, and William, are a credit to the Royal Family and to this country.