Spotlight on the French capital and its peculiar inhabitants: Les Parisiens / Les Carnets du Major Thompson (The Trophies of Major Thompson) and in the U.K. as The Diary of Major Thompson by Pierre Daninos.

Mort de l'écrivain Pierre Daninos, auteur des "Carnets du major Thompson"- 07.01.05

 

PARIS (AFP) - L'écrivain et humoriste français Pierre Daninos, auteur entre autres des "Carnets du major Thompson", est mort vendredi à Paris à l'âge de 91 ans, a-t-on appris samedi auprès de son entourage.

Né à Paris en 1913, Pierre Daninos commence une carrière de journaliste dès 1931. Après avoir publié plusieurs ouvrages, il reçoit le prix Interallié pour "Les Carnets du Bon Dieu", en 1947.

 

Le prix Courteline couronne "Sonia, les autres et moi" en 1952. Deux ans plus tard, dans Le Figaro, Pierre Daninos crée le major W. Marmaduke Thompson, dont "Les Carnets" connaissent un immense succès et sont traduits dans vingt-sept pays. Rien qu'en France, ils ont été tirés à 1,19 million d'exemplaires (dont plus de 300.000 dans Le Livre de Poche).

 

Grâce à ce personnage d'officier qui raconte ses histoires avec la France et les Français, l'écrivain et journaliste pose un regard plein d'humour et d'ironie sur les travers de ses compatriotes.

 

En 1962, Pierre Daninos publie "Le Jacassin", puis en 1964 "Snobissimo".

 

Parmi les citations les plus connues de Pierre Daninos on relève : "Cartes postales : représentation idéale des lieux destinée à impressionner le destinataire en faisant mentir l'expéditeur", "As de pique : des quatre as, le plus mal fichu" ("Le Jacassin"), "Les Anglais ont appris au monde la façon de se tenir correctement à table. Mais ce sont les Français qui mangent" ("Les carnets du major Thompson").

 

Le Premier ministre Jean-Pierre Raffarin, le maire de Paris, Bertrand Delanoë et le ministre de la Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, ont rendu hommage samedi à Pierre Daninos.

 

"Pierre Daninos avait commencé sa carrière comme journaliste et c'est une passion dont les prix littéraires qu'il obtient rapidement ne le détourneront pas", écrit M. Raffarin dans un communiqué.

 

Bertrand Delanoë, a salué "la pureté de sa plume", notamment dans "les Carnets du major Thompson".

 

L'écrivain et humoriste Pierre Daninos "nous faisait rire de nous-même", a estimé dans un communiqué le ministre de la Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.

 

"Avec Pierre Daninos disparaît une figure profondément attachante de l'humour français", ajoute le ministre dans le communiqué. "En nous faisant rire de nos travers, il nous aidait à nous corriger", juge-t-il. "Ce champion littéraire du regard croisé nous aidait déjà ainsi à être plus européens", ajoute-t-il.

 

 The French, They Are a Funny Race, known in France as Les Carnets du Major Thompson (The Trophies of Major Thompson) and in the U.K. as The Diary of Major Thompson, is a 1955 comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, based on the novel by Pierre Daninos. It stars Jack Buchanan and Martine Carol.

 

This was the last film directed by Preston Sturges.

 

Major Thompson (Jack Buchanan) is a crusty, middle-aged English officer, retired and widowed and living in Paris, who tries to adjust to the French way of life. He falls in love with frivolous but alluring Martine (Martine Carol), and then marries her. The question is, will their child be raised as a proper Englishman, or a swinging Frenchman?

 

[Cast

Jack Buchanan as Maj. Thompson

Martine Carol as Martine

Noël-Noël as M. Taupin

Totti Truman Taylor as Miss Fyfyth, the nurse

Catherine Boyl as Ursula

André Luguet as M. Fusillard, the editor

Geneviève Brunet as Secretary

Paulette Dubost as Mme. Taupin

 

Although Jack Buchanan was Scottish, he often played very English characters. He was dying of cancer at the time this film was made.

Noël-Noël was a French comic actor of some note at the time the film was made.

 

 Production

Preston Sturges had come to Paris in hopes of reviving his career, which had hit the skids in Hollywood after his partnership with Howard Hughes dissolved in acrimony. He did some work on Broadway, wrote the screenplay for an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's The Millionairess which Katharine Hepburn, who had performed in the play in New York, wanted to get produced, and then came to France where, because he was fluent in French, he was able to write and direct the screenplay for this adaptation of Pierre Daninos popular novel.

 

The film was released in France on 9 December 1955, but Sturges did some additional polishing of it for the American audience, and it was not released in the United States until 20 May 1957, when it premiered in New York City, the final American opening of Sturges' film career.

 

Screen: Mellow Sturges; 'French Are a Funny Race' at the Baronet

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Published: May 21, 1957 in The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1957/05/21/archives/screen-mellow-sturges-french-are-a-funny-race-at-the-baronet.html

 

IN eight years a man can do some mellowing—especially a man who has spent much of that time in France, where a great deal of skill is devoted to the mellowing of expatriates. But it isn't quite fair that Preston Sturges should have mellowed as much as it looks as though he has from his first new film to be released in eight years, "The French They Are a Funny Race."

 

From this made-in-France spoof of the French people, which opened at the Baronet last night, it looks as though our old friend Mr. Sturges has become as soft as a summer breeze. He who made such tremendous satires on American manners as "The Great McGinty" and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" is here playing around with such small humors as how the French drive their cars or shake hands. Once he does wax so daring as to speculate on how a Frenchman thinks of sex, but drops the subject with some spluttering embarrassment when the lady on whom he is speculating walks into a church.

 

It isn't fair for Mr. Sturges to be so mellow. It isn't fair to us—or to the French.

 

As a matter of fact, the most galvanic and amusing thing in his film, which is based on "The Notebooks of Major Thompson," a series of humorous essays popular in France, has nothing to do with the French people but is a jab at the English. It is a scene in which the raconteur, Major Thompson, pays court to his first (English) wife.

 

She is a raw-boned "county" creature, named Ursula, whose way with a horse is much more comfortable and cozy than her way with a man. Indeed, she inclines to treat the latter the way most women shy off from a nag. But when she and the Major take time out from a hunt to slug down some booze, while sitting astride their horses, Ursula undergoes a change. It's the sort of change that Mr. Sturges, past master of satiric farce, knows how to handle superbly. And he does so, this one time, in the film.

 

But it grieves us to tell you that, for the most part. "The French They Are a Funny Race" is a generally listless little picture, without wit, electricity or even plot. It is simply a series of comments by this major who is writing some screeds about his French friends, his casual observations and his domestic problems with a pretty French wife.

 

One trouble is that the major, whom Jack Buchanan plays, is a pompous and pudding-headed fellow whom Mr. Sturges doesn't slap down properly. He's the sort our boy would have enjoyed belaboring in the old days, before mellowing. Like most pompous fellows, he gets off some pretty obvious and dismal jokes.

 

For another thing, the observations are pretty prosaic and dull, such as the reverence of the French for Napoleon or their native inclination to mistrust. Mr. Sturges, in the old days, could have thought up many funnier things to kid about, we're sure. And the English narration of the major, which accompanies the film, is too ornate.

 

To be sure, a very able French actor, Noel-Noel, plays the major's French friend, and he does make some wry, amusing gestures and hit some comic expressions, at times. Ursula is also played briskly by a tall girl named Catherine Boyl, and the Major's French wife is made attractive and mildly mettlesome by Marline Carol. Likewise, Totti Truman Taylor does well as an English governess. (They all speak English, by the way.)

 

But the picture is all too bland, too listless. The French they must be funnier than this.

Tour of London's Mayfair

Burberry Trenchcoat Segment-BBC British Style Genius: The Country Look / End of partnership that kept Burberry at the leading cultural edge

End of partnership that kept Burberry at the leading cultural edge

 

Analysis: Could Marco Gobbetti be followed out of British luxury brand by creative director Riccardo Tisci?

 

Jess Cartner-Morley

@JessC_M

Mon 28 Jun 2021 13.08 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/28/end-of-partnership-that-kept-burberry-at-the-leading-cultural-edge-marco-gobbetti?fbclid=IwAR3xwKqn16k1O9WsxJwUKZCZOUSX4r1-WqbbxeV0V-iva6gruWlobvlDf3A

 

The departure of Marco Gobbetti as chief executive of Burberry raises the key question of whether Riccardo Tisci, whom Gobbetti appointed creative director soon after he joined, will remain at the luxury fashion brand.

 

A desire to be closer to his family in Italy was given as the reason behind Gobbetti’s decision to quit Burberry, and Tisci too is thought to have found it difficult to be away from family in Italy for prolonged periods during the pandemic. The designer was a fashion student in London in his teens and has a deep affection for British culture and subculture, but the pull of his homeland remains strong. Italy has many deep-pocketed luxury brands and a shortage of exciting design talent, so opportunities are likely to present themselves.

 

While Gobbetti focused on raising price points and elevating Burberry’s luxury status, Tisci worked on keeping Burberry relevant – a huge challenge over the past year, as the pandemic has put the fashion industry on the back foot. The charity partnership with the footballer Marcus Rashford, who starred in a recent advertising campaign, was a symbol of how Burberry successfully positioned itself at the progressive leading edge of culture.

 

A label whose signature check pattern once had such combative overtones that it was banned by nightclub bouncers looking to keep out trouble is now a pioneer of gender-neutral clothing. The brand has committed to climate neutrality by next year, and climate positivity by 2040.

 

Burberry is Britain’s only major luxury fashion brand. This means that a Burberry catwalk or shop window is as much about selling an appealing image of modern Britain as it is about designing clothes. Backed by Gobbetti, Tisci has brought to Burberry the uncompromising, hard-edged aesthetic he pioneered during his previous job at Givenchy. In the most recent catwalk show, released digitally last week, trench coats came with the sleeves ripped off, and were accessorised with nose rings. The mood music of Tisci’s Burberry wavers between menace and melancholia, with occasional blasts of mischief. It is quite a stretch for a British luxury brand, where bread-and-butter sales come from investment coats that hang in corner offices and in the cloakrooms or expensive restaurants, and polo shirts worn in smart golf clubs.

 

It was Christopher Bailey, who preceded Tisci in his dual role as designer and chief executive of Burberry, who pivoted Burberry from being a British heritage brand to an international fashion powerhouse. Under Bailey, Burberry’s touch points were bookish, bohemian, and with a lyrical connection to the British countryside. The gardens of Vita Sackville-West, and the landscape paintings of David Hockney, were among his references. Under Gobbetti and Tisci, Burberry has looked at Britain’s future rather than at its past, shaking off fashion history and taking its cue from the cultural and political preoccupations of the next generation.

First World War Officer's Trenchcoat

‘The thought is unbearable’: EU prepares to cut amount of British TV and film shown post-Brexit

 

‘The thought is unbearable’: Europeans react to EU plans to cut British TV

 

EU media critics say post-Brexit plans could pave way for more homegrown content

 

Kate Connolly in Berlin, Angela Giuffrida in Rome, Jon Henley in Paris, Helena Smith in Athens and Sam Jones in Madrid

Fri 25 Jun 2021 18.17 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/25/the-thought-is-unbearable-europeans-react-as-eu-plans-to-cut-british-tv?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

 

It was during a trip to Brighton for an English language course in 1984 that the young German student Nicola Neumann first discovered British television.

 

“The elderly couple who put me up tried really hard to educate me further, so we’d sit in front of the telly together every evening and then talk about the programmes afterwards,” she said.

 

She remembers watching news bulletins, EastEnders, Coronation Street, and ‘Allo ‘Allo! – and every Friday night without fail, a crime drama.

 

“I was hooked,” she said. “Since then I’ve not been able to imagine my life without British TV and film. I like the quality, the tone, the humour, the way it has taught me to express myself in colloquial English. For me it’s been an education over three decades.”

 

On her return to Germany, Neumann continued to get her “fix” through videos and episodes of programmes such as All Creatures Great and Small, and Upstairs, Downstairs, which aired on television – albeit dubbed into German – in Bavaria, where she grew up. More recently, said Neumann, who is a bookseller from Erlangen, it has mainly been streaming services and YouTube which have helped feed her craving.

 

So when it was reported earlier this week that the EU was preparing to act against the “disproportionate” amount of British television and film shown in Europe after Brexit she said she was “furious”.

 

“Some of us are still reeling from the shock of the Brexit referendum. We’ve thought about the consequences of things like freedom of movement, import duty, or fishing, perhaps, but this is one of the things we had not paid attention to.

 

“I guess if it happens I will try to circumnavigate the problem even if it means going to the UK and buying up loads of DVDs,” she said.

 

Chiara Lagana, an Italian journalist who writes about TV, is equally shocked at the prospect of having less access to British content.

 

“The thought is truly unbearable,” she said. “I’ve been fond of British TV series for years. The thought of losing them or not having access to new ones makes me feel poorer. They are of huge quality, much better even in comparison to the US.”

 

In Spain, British television series have always been viewed as “prestige products”, said Natalia Marcos, a journalist for the TV section of El País.

 

“Downton Abbey is one example of that, as is The Crown. But it’s not just the period dramas – British cop shows are also very popular. Line of Duty has found a real niche among TV lovers here, who really rate and respect it,” she said.

 

Marcos said she believed that if Spanish viewers were to find themselves deprived of their favourite British shows, many would not hesitate to resort to illegal means, such as VPNs – encrypted connections over the internet which help circumvent geographical locks.

 

Gabriele Niola, a film critic and Italy correspondent for Screen International, agreed. “I don’t think the impact will be too significant as people will still find ways of accessing shows if they really want to,” he said.

 

But post-Brexit, politically the will is there to challenge the dominance of British TV and film.

 

When the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Rome this week to formally approve Italy’s spending plan for its share of the EU’s recovery fund, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, hosted her at the Cinecittà film studios in Rome, where €300m (£257m) of the funds are to be invested in development.

 

“It’s obvious that if Britain leaves the EU, then its productions no longer fall within the community’s quotas,” the Italian culture minister, Dario Franceschini, told Corriere della Sera. “Europe will have to respond on an industrial and content level, and Cinecittà will be strategic on this front.”

 

Sten-Kristian Saluveer, an Estonian media policy strategist, said EU plans to reassess the amount of UK content – in particular on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon – were inevitable.

 

“A big catalyst is the increased trade tensions between the UK and France, as well as the EU’s anti-trust procedures,” he said. “The question is not so much about original content produced in the UK as it is about studios in the UK connected to platforms like Apple and Netflix, which are very well positioned to utilise the good relations the UK has with the US – as well as exploiting the European capacity, including everything from work permits to subsidies,” he said.

 

“When Britain was in the EU there were spillover effects for the rest of the bloc. But now it’s not, the question is why should these platforms be able to exploit the same benefits?”

 

Saluveer said smaller EU members could stand to benefit from a reduction in UK content, as it could allow more room for their content. He cited the box office success Tangerines – an Estonian-Georgian co-production which was nominated for a Golden Globe – or the Oscar-nominated The Fencer, a Finnish-Estonian-German collaboration.

 

Thomas Lückerath, a leading TV industry journalist in Germany and editor in chief of the media magazine DWDL, said he believed the EU had “no alternative” than to refocus its definition of what was a “European work” now that Britain had left.

 

The EU’s audiovisual media services directive – according to which a majority of airtime must be given to European content on terrestrial television and must constitute at least 30% of the number of titles on streaming platforms – was introduced to create a distinction from works from the US which would otherwise dominate, he said.

 

“This is about ensuring that works are made in the EU – that the streaming services use EU talent and don’t just grab the money. And it has certainly led to more investment flowing into the creative scene,” he said.

 

Since Brexit, he said “the political agenda hasn’t changed. The 30% quota was simply to boost creativity and that’s what it’s done.”

 

He said he believed the knock-on effect of this might even lead to more British content, not less. And German TV – which recently showed Sherlock in a prime-time slot, and where series such as Midsummer Murders and Line of Duty have cult followings – would continue to show as many British series as it ever had, he said. “There are no plans to cut what people like to watch.”

 

Even in France, notoriously protective of its cultural heritage, British TV draws big audiences and dedicated followings. Costume crime such as Peaky Blinders and Ripper Street, and contemporary cop shows such as Luther, Killing Eve and Bodyguard are recent examples.

 

“British television fiction is of a very high quality, there’s a lot of it, and it consistently has a great deal of success in France,” said Laurence Herszberg, director of the international Series Mania festival, adding that several leading French production houses now had British subsidiaries.

 

Any decision by the EU to cut the amount of British content on screens would certainly be felt. But a recent decline in French interest in US-made series could reduce that impact.

 

“My impression is that if UK-made content is no longer classified as European, British product will be able to compensate for the shrinking share of US output,” she said. “There will be some fall-off, but I think maybe not as much as people might fear.”

 

EU prepares to cut amount of British TV and film shown post-Brexit

 

Exclusive: number of UK productions seen as ‘disproportionate’ and threat to Europe’s cultural diversity

 

Daniel Boffey in Brussels

Mon 21 Jun 2021 12.58 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/eu-prepares-cut-amount-british-tv-film-shown-brexit

 

The EU is preparing to act against the “disproportionate” amount of British television and film content shown in Europe in the wake of Brexit, in a blow to the UK entertainment industry and the country’s “soft power” abroad.

 

The UK is Europe’s biggest producer of film and TV programming, buoyed up by £1.4bn from the sale of international rights, but its dominance has been described as a threat to Europe’s “cultural diversity” in an internal EU document seen by the Guardian.

 

The issue is likely to join a list of points of high tension in the EU-UK relationship since the country left the single market and customs union, including disputes over the sale of British sausages in Northern Ireland and the issue of licences in fishing waters, which led to Royal Navy patrol boats being deployed to Jersey earlier this year.

 

Brussels’ target this time is the continuing definition of British programmes and film as being “European works”.

 

Under the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, a majority of airtime must be given to such European content on terrestrial television and it must make up at least 30% of the number of titles on video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

 

Countries such as France have gone further, setting a 60% quota for European works on VOD and demanding 15% of the turnover of the platforms is spent in production of European audiovisual and cinematographic works.

 

According to an EU document tabled with diplomats on 8 June, in the “aftermath of Brexit” it is believed the inclusion of UK content in such quotas has led to what has been described as a “disproportionate” amount of British programming on European television.

 

“The high availability of UK content in video on demand services, as well as the privileges granted by the qualification as European works, can result in a disproportionate presence of UK content within the European video on demand quota and hinder a larger variety of European works (including from smaller countries or less spoken languages),” a paper distributed among the member states reads. “Therefore the disproportionality may affect the fulfilment of the objectives of promotion of European works and cultural diversity aimed by the audiovisual media services directive.”

 

The European Commission has been tasked with launching an impact study on the risk to the EU’s “cultural diversity” from British programming, which diplomatic sources said would be a first step towards action to limit the privileges granted to UK content.

 

Industry figures said a move to define UK content as something other than European, leading to a loss of market share, would particularly hit British drama, as the pre-sale of international rights to shows such as Downton Abbey and The Crown has often been the basis on which they have been able to go into production.

 

Adam Minns, the executive director of the Commercial Broadcasters Association (COBA), said: “Selling the international intellectual property rights to British programmes has become a crucial part of financing production in certain genres, such as drama.

 

“Losing access to a substantial part of EU markets would be a serious blow for the UK TV sector, right across the value chain from producers to broadcasters to creatives.”

 

The sale of international rights to European channels and VOD platforms earned the UK television industry £490m in sales in 2019-20, making it the second biggest market for the UK behind the US.

 

According to the leaked EU paper, entitled “The disproportionate presence of UK content in the European VOD quota and the effects on the circulation and promotion of diverse European works”, it is thought necessary for the bloc to reassess the “presence of UK content in the aftermath of Brexit”.

 

“The concerns relate to how Brexit will impact the audiovisual production sector in the European Union as, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory, the UK provides half of the European TV content presence of VOD in Europe and the UK works are the most actively promoted on VOD, while the lowest EU27 share of promotion spots is also found in the UK,” the paper says.

 

It adds: “Although the UK is now a third country for the European Union, its audiovisual content still qualifies as ‘European works’ according to the definition provided by the AVMS directive, as the definition continues to refer to the European convention on Transfrontier Television of the Council of Europe, to which the UK remains a party.”

 

It was long feared in the industry that the EU would seek to undermine the UK’s dominance of the audiovisual market once the country had left the bloc. The government had been repeatedly warned of the risk to the British screen industry.

 

Industry sources said they had believed it was a matter of “when not if”, with the government appearing to have little leverage over Brussels on the issue.

 

EU sources suggested the initiative would probably be taken further when France takes over the rolling presidency of the union in January, with the backing of Spain, Greece, Italy and Austria, among others. There is a midterm review of the AVMS directive due in three years’ time, which sources suggested may be the point at which changes could come into force.

 

A UK government spokesperson said: “The UK is proud to host a world-class film and TV industry that entertains viewers globally and which the government has supported throughout the pandemic, including through the film and TV restart scheme.

 

“European works status continues to apply to audiovisual works originating in the UK, as the UK is a party to the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT).”

Prince Charles paid 'substantial sum' to Harry and Meghan after Megxit

Did Prince Harry Lie About Being "Financially Cut Off" After Royal Finan...

Charles won't let Archie be a prince

 

Charles won't let Archie be a prince: Prince of Wales's plan not to include grandson among slimmed-down, lower cost frontline royals is revealed as row that ignited Oprah outburst

 

• Prince Charles made it clear Archie will have no place among frontline Royals
• The move incensed the Sussexes and is thought to have prompted their outburst
• A grandchild of the sovereign has long had the right to be a Prince
• Charles wants to change legal documents in order to limit the number of Royals

 

By KATE MANSEY FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 22:00, 19 June 2021 | UPDATED: 02:49, 20 June 2021

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9704475/Prince-Charles-wont-let-Archie-prince-plans-slim-monarchy-save-costs.html

 

Prince Charles is to ensure that his two-year-old grandson Archie will never be a Prince, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

 

The heir to the throne has made it clear that Harry and Meghan's son will have no place among frontline Royals as he plans a slimmed-down Monarchy after he becomes King.

 

The move has incensed the Sussexes and is thought to have prompted the series of bitter accusations the couple have levelled at Charles and the Royal Family from across the Atlantic.

 

A grandchild of the sovereign has long had the right to be a Prince, but Charles is determined to limit the number of key Royals, believing the public does not wish to pay for an ever-expanding Monarchy.

 

Charles has told the Sussexes that he will change key legal documents to ensure that Archie cannot get the title he would once have inherited by right, according to a source close to the couple.

 

The decision, which follows months of fraught discussion behind the scenes, has plunged relations between Harry and his relatives to a dangerous new low.

 

'Harry and Meghan were told Archie would never be a Prince, even when Charles became King,' confirmed the source.

 

The revelation comes amid a series of explosive claims by respected Royal biographer Robert Lacey whose newly revised book Battle Of The Brothers states:

 

Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday has learned that Harry demanded the right to approve at least one writer or journalist to work alongside the usual 'press pack' of Royal reporters at the unveiling of the statue to Princess Diana next month, so deep is his distrust of the British media.

 

The full details of Charles's plan for a slimmed-down Monarchy have never been revealed, but it has been speculated that only heirs to the throne and their immediate families will receive full titles, financial support from the public purse through the Sovereign Grant and police protection funded by the taxpayer.

 

Charles and his younger brother, the Duke of York, have already been at loggerheads about what security Andrew's daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie should receive in future. Now Harry and Meghan have found themselves caught up, too.

 

Insiders suggest they hadn't seen the move coming, and were shocked to find that Charles will take the active step of changing legal instruments known as the Letters Patent in order to exclude Archie and others.

 

The loss will be all the more galling as the Sussexes havemade a point of refusing to use another, lesser title for their son, who is technically the Earl of Dumbarton. They took that decision safe in the knowledge that Archie would become a Prince in due course. Or so they thought.

 

Earlier this year, a source close to the Sussexes confirmed they did indeed expect Archie to be named a Prince when Charles, Archie's grandfather, acceded to the throne. Their spokesman at the time was even instructed to remind journalists of that 'fact'.

 

The Sussexes finally learned that would not be the case just before sitting down with Oprah Winfrey for their first bombshell interview in March.

 

Insiders suggest the issue was still raw at the time of the recording – which might help account for the devastating criticisms they unleashed on the show, including the damaging implication that an unnamed senior member of the Royal Family had referred to Archie in a racist way.

 

It also throws a spotlight on one section of the interview which had raised eyebrows at the time. Speaking to Oprah, Meghan recalled how, when she had been pregnant, 'They [the Royal Family] were saying they didn't want him to be a Prince or a Princess'.

 

She continued: 'You know, the other piece of that convention is, there's a convention – I forget if it was George V or George VI convention – that when you're the grandchild of the monarch, so when Harry's dad becomes King, automatically Archie and our next baby would become Prince or Princess, or whatever they were going to be… But also it's not their right to take it away.'

 

This puzzled Royal watchers, who reminded the Sussexes they had very publicly declared that they didn't want a title for their son, who would be known as Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

 

Some pointed out that a son of Prince Harry's – a great-grandchild of the Queen – had no automatic right to be titled a Prince, or receive a security allowance. But that was to ignore the real drama taking place behind the scenes. Because Meghan was actually referring to the secret news that Archie would never become a Prince, not even when Charles was King.

 

A source said: 'This is what nobody realised from the interview. The real thing was that Charles was going to take active steps to strip Archie of his ultimate birthright.'

 

The existing rules for Royal titles were established in Letters Patent dated November 20, 1917.

 

In these, King George V, the Queen's grandfather, allowed the title of Prince and Princess to be given to the children of the sovereign, the children of the sovereign's sons and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales – in this case, Prince George.

 

Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, William's daughter and younger son, received their titles not by right but as gifts of the Queen, who issued new Letters Patent to that effect in 2013. Similarly, when King, Charles will have the power to change George V's Letters Patent how he sees fit – and so streamline The Firm.

 

An insider said: 'Charles has never made any secret of the fact that he wants a slimmed-down Monarchy when he becomes King.

 

'He realises that the public don't want to pay for a huge Monarchy and, as he said, the balcony at Buckingham Palace would probably collapse.'

 

Even now, not all grandchildren of the Queen are titled Prince or Princess. As she is a daughter, not a son, of the sovereign, Princess Anne's children had no automatic right to the title but out of choice she also declined lesser titles for her children Peter and Zara.

 

The Queen's youngest son, Prince Edward, thought it prudent not to name his daughter and son as Princess and Prince. Instead, they are titled Lady and Viscount respectively.

 

A Royal source said last night: 'We are not going to speculate about the succession or comment on rumours coming out of America.'

 

Sitting side by side, leafing through a photo album, William and Harry are sharing cherished memories of their mother. Their conversation is easy, unconstrained, charming. It is a rare window on a fraternal dynamic and evidence, if it were needed, of an unshakeable bond.

 

That was four years ago, the occasion a TV documentary on the 20th anniversary of Diana's death. Today, with the publication of a book revealing extraordinary new details of their toxic rift, the gulf between the brothers seems unbridgeable. Quite how it has come to this seems bewildering.

 

In less than two weeks, on what would have been Diana's 60th birthday, the brothers will reunite for the unveiling of her statue, but what should have been a simple, unfussy act of commemoration will doubtless turn into something altogether different.

 

Take Harry's approach to the event. The Mail on Sunday has learned that the Duke of Sussex now wants his own journalist to cover the day.

 

Harry and Meghan have long decried the coverage they receive from the British media, claiming it is UK-biased and lacks diversity. Not wishing to leave the statue unveiling at Kensington Palace to the official 'Royal Rota' of journalists, they are now expected to 'appoint' at least one approved writer to work alongside them.

 

It is just the kind of imperiousness that rankles with the Duke of Cambridge.

 

The Times reported yesterday that a blistering row between the Duke and his brother over bullying claims led to them splitting their households, with a friend of the future King noting: 'William threw Harry out.'

 

Previously, it was assumed that Harry precipitated the separation.

 

The account of how William and Harry fell out appears in the paperback edition of Battle Of Brothers by historian and biographer Robert Lacey, which is being serialised in The Times.

 

The newspaper revealed in March how Jason Knauf, communications secretary to the Cambridges and Sussexes, claimed in October 2018 that Meghan had been bullying members of staff. Lawyers for the Sussexes have denied the allegations.

 

After William heard the bullying allegations, he rang Harry, according to Lacey. The conversation was heated and Harry 'shut off his phone angrily' so William went to speak to him personally.

 

Lacey writes: 'The Prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan's alleged behaviour, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say. The showdown between the brothers was fierce and bitter.'

 

Separately, The Mail on Sunday has been told there have been other, equally intense clashes. None more so, according to a source, than on the eve of Harry's wedding. Details are sketchy but this row was said to have been particularly ferocious.

 

The Princes had already fallen out before Harry and Meghan's engagement after William had expressed doubts about the speed at which their relationship was progressing. Lacey writes that William believed Meghan was following an 'agenda' and Kate, too, according to a friend, was wary of her from the outset.

 

The author quotes one Kensington Palace staffer as saying: 'Meghan portrayed herself as the victim, but she was the bully. People felt run over by her.

 

'They thought she was a complete narcissist and sociopath – basically unhinged.'

 

According to the book, jealousy is at the heart of the brothers' rift. Or at least that is how Harry sees it. The Duke views his triumphant October 2018 return with Meghan from their Australian tour as a defining moment in their deteriorating relationship.

 

William, of course, would reject any notion that he and his wife resented the Diana-like popularity Meghan enjoyed at the time. In any case, the book says, the brothers were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia, owing to William's anger over the bullying allegations.

 

PR man Knauf, 34, was concerned by stories of mistreatment brought to him by colleagues and resolved to set down the facts, as he saw them, for the record.

 

In an email to William's private secretary, Knauf wrote: 'I am very concerned that the Duchess was able to bully two PAs out of the household in the past year.'

 

His office had received 'report after report', he wrote, from people who had witnessed 'unacceptable behaviour' by Meghan towards this member of staff.

 

As early as 2017, around the time of the couple's engagement, according to a report in The Times, a senior aide had spoken to the couple about the difficulties caused by their treatment of staff. 'It's not my job to coddle people,' Meghan was said to have replied.

 

It is significant that it was Knauf – whose PR expertise Meghan valued and who was one of her most senior advisers – that raised the issue. Until this point, Lacey says Texas-born Knauf had taken 'considerable stick from some of his non-royal contacts' who criticised him for being overly protective of the Duchess.

 

But numerous colleagues were bringing stories of what they said they had suffered at Meghan's hands, including emotional cruelty and manipulation, and he could not remain silent.

 

The Times reported that several people maintained they had been 'humiliated' by the Duchess, and that criticism also extended to Harry. 'I overheard a conversation between Harry and one of his top aides,' one Kensington Palace courtier told Lacey. 'Harry was screaming and screaming down the phone. Team Sussex was a really toxic environment. People shouting and screaming in each other's faces.'

 

It is unclear whether Knauf brought his dossier to William personally or whether it was submitted via an aide. Either way, the troubling stories astonished and horrified the Duke, who knew and liked all the individuals named in the dossier. After all, they were his staff too.

 

Taking their cue from the Queen, William and Kate had always treated their staff like family. What William heard, or possibly read, crystallised a long-held suspicion –that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the Royal system.

 

This interpretation, said Meghan, was wholly wrong.

 

In a statement issued to The Times early in March this year, her lawyers denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and defamatory and the product of what they called a 'smear campaign'.

 

The Duchess wished to fit in and be accepted, they insisted. She had left her life in North America to commit herself to her new role.

 

Lacey stresses that his account of this period is based on Knauf's written accusations and 'William's personal account of these events to one of his friends, who then spoke to this author'.

 

He writes that while the showdown between the brothers was fierce, William's pre-engagement questioning of Meghan's suitability had been quite reasonable. Some of William's reservations chimed with the allegations in Knauf's dossier. Lacey says William felt that Meghan was 'undermining some precious principles of the Monarchy if she really was treating her staff in this way'.

 

Not only that, she seemed to be stealing his brother away from him. Courtiers would later coin a hashtag – #freeHarry.

 

William felt deeply wounded. 'Hurt' and 'betrayed' were the two feelings he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry.

 

'At the end of the day, the British Crown and all it stood for with its ancient traditions, styles and values – the mission of the Monarchy – had to matter more to William than his brother did,' writes Lacey.

 

Fiercely combative in his wife's defence, Harry meanwhile was equally furious that William should believe the accusations against Meghan. Whether claims of racism surfaced during these heated discussions is not known.

 

But Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah Winfrey that he considered his family's response to Meghan to have been essentially 'racist'.

 

Lacey writes: 'William, for his part, felt just as strongly about Meghan and the need for her subversive 'agenda' to be removed from the operations of the British Monarchy, which she did not appear to understand or respect.

 

Harry made clear to the world in his interview with Oprah Winfrey that he considered his family's response to Meghan to have been essentially 'racist'

 

'He certainly wanted Meghan removed, for a start, from the hitherto harmonious joint household that he and his brother had operated together for the best part of a decade. William simply did not want her or Harry around any more.'

 

It is little surprise, then, that Meghan will not accompany Harry to the statue unveiling. Indeed it is far from clear when she will return to these shores.

 

There was some speculation that Archie would travel with his father but that it not now expected to happen.

 

The statue, created by Ian Rank-Broadley, has been years in the making. William and Harry, who were just 15 and 12 when their mother was killed in a car crash in Paris, announced the idea in 2017.

 

At the time, a Palace statement said that it was 'hoped' that the statue would be 'unveiled… before the end of 2017'. Questions over the design and where it should be displayed led to delays.

 

Later that year, when the Princes announced that Rank-Broadley had been chosen as the sculptor, the Duke of Cambridge tweeted that the statue was 'expected to be unveiled in 2019'.

 

The brothers convened a committee to oversee the project and sought funds from private investors. Those with a key role on the committee included trusted adviser Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the Princes' former private secretary and Prince George's godfather; Diana's sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Julia Samuel, a close friend of their mother.

 

Gerry Farrell, co-owner of London's Sladmore Contemporary gallery, was brought in as an artistic adviser. Towards the beginning of the process, he described it as a 'challenging commission'.

 

It would take another two years and many more transatlantic discussions between the brothers before the statue would finally be made public.

 

Mr Farrell said: 'The Princes remember her as a mother, and publicly she meant so many different things to different people. It was important for the princes to convey the depth of her character and variety of her interests.'

 

There were other concerns, too.For William, and particularly young Harry, the public reaction to their mother's death baffled them.

 

William felt deeply wounded. 'Hurt' and 'betrayed' were the two feelings he described to his friend. The elder brother had always felt so protective. He had seen it as his job to look out for Harry

 

In a recent documentary series on Apple+ with Oprah Winfrey, Harry spoke of being unable to 'process' his mother's death. Speaking about walking behind his mother's coffin at the funeral, he said: 'Sharing the grief of my mother's death with the world, for me the thing I remember the most is the sound of the horses' hooves going along the mall. The red brick road.

 

'By this time, both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and walking along just doing what was expected of me. Showing one tenth of the emotion everyone else was showing.

 

'I was like, 'This is my mum. You never even met her.'

 

Worried that the statue might draw crowds and a sea of flowers, the Princes agreed to erect it in the Princess Diana Memorial Garden at Kensington Palace, where the Princess of Wales lived until her death and where Harry and Meghan announced their engagement.

 

The Princes are understood to be 'impressed' with the finished design.

 

Whether they will ever be able to find common ground on the issues that divide them is another matter entirely.

DIANA AT SIXTY Official Trailer (2021) The People’s Princess Documentary

Fabled booksellers in Paris Latin Quarter face extinction | Focus on Europe

Closure of an iconic Paris bookshop alarms French bibliophiles

This article is more than 4 months old

Hit hard by the pandemic, the flagship Gibert Jeune store is closing its doors – one of many booksellers in the city feeling the strain of Covid-19

 

Julia Webster Ayuso

Tue 19 Jan 2021 10.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/19/closure-of-an-iconic-paris-bookshop-alarms-french-bibliophiles

 

Paris, a great literary city, is losing one of its most celebrated bookshops. Gibert Jeune, a popular chain, has announced it will be closing its flagship shop in the Latin Quarter in March – the latest in a series of closures and appeals for help that threaten the future of the city’s booksellers.

 

Gibert Jeune once attracted long queues of students in search of cheap secondhand books before the start of each academic year; most students who have studied in Paris will have paid a visit to the six-floor shop at some point to find a book for their course. The family-owned company was founded in 1886 and started out as a bookstall on the banks of the Seine, quickly expanding into several shops in the fifth arrondissement, selling a mixture of new and secondhand books. Its bright yellow awnings along the Boulevard St Michel became a familiar landmark of the Latin Quarter, historically Paris’s literary and intellectual neighbourhood, and home to the Sorbonne.

 

Now, with sales down 60% due to the pandemic, the chain’s most iconic shop – 5 Place Saint-Michel – will be closing as part of a restructuring plan, after the owner of the building decided to sell. It follows the move of Boulinier, another much-loved bookshop, which was forced to leave its historic location due to rising rents (it is now in a different shop on the same street). Meanwhile the centuries-old bouquinistes just across the road on the quays of the Seine are struggling to survive.

 

The pandemic has emptied the area of people for months. “Covid arrived and suddenly there were no more tourists and no more students,” said Rodolphe Bazin de Caix, marketing manager of Gibert Jeune. “We’re talking about a bookshop whose DNA is 80% textbooks, many of them secondhand. This shop was impacted much more than the others.”

 

When France was put into a second lockdown in October, there was a huge outcry from booksellers, who asked to be treated as essential services and remain open. Shakespeare and Company, one of Paris’s most famous bookshops and a neighbour of Gibert Jeune, appealed to customers for help as it faced “hard times”: customers and well-wishers around the world piled in with purchases and donations to save the shop.

 

But it is not just the virus that has weakened Gibert Jeune. Before the pandemic, disruption caused by the gilet jaunes demonstrations and transport strikes reduced footfall in the Place Saint-Michel. Gibert Jeune and its sister company Gibert Joseph have also been slow to react to the threat of Amazon; while the French secondhand book market is booming (book prices are much higher than in the UK, making secondhand books 63% cheaper than new ones on average), trade has mostly been captured by online platforms.

 

“Gibert Jeune is not dead,” said De Caix, but it’s having to reinvent itself. The first Gibert Jeune bookshop, opposite Notre-Dame, is staying put. The company is currently renovating its shop in the 10th arrondissement, after an independent bookstore owner’s project to buy it and make it into a “co-operative of ideas” failed. There are even plans to open at least four smaller Gibert Jeunes, spread out across the city, by April. In any case, the future lies not in the tourist centre, but in residential neighbourhoods, De Caix said: “What we learned from the lockdown is that people aren’t leaving their areas any more. We realised that the shop, which used to be a destination, no longer serves that purpose. It’s our turn to move to where the customer is.”

 

But the imminent closure of 5 Place Saint-Michel, which opened 50 years ago in 1971, has led to mourning among book lovers, who find it difficult to imagine what the square and surrounding neighbourhood will look like after it’s gone. “It’s a historic place” says Laure Davidian, who works in the area and visits the shop to buy comic books for her daughter. “It will be much duller without it.”

 

The Latin Quarter is known for its independent bookshops and for being the home of several publishing houses. But in recent years, the area has been slowly invaded by food retailers and fast fashion brands, which some residents regard as an erosion of its cultural identity. The fifth and sixth arrondissements have around a 100 bookshops each, but the French capital has lost 27% of its bookshops in the past 18 years, according to a study by the Centre for Observation of Commerce, Industry and Services.

 

“It is catastrophic. It’s like the Champs Elysées without the luxury boutiques. They might as well close the Sorbonne,” said Frédéric, a resident of the neighbourhood since the 1980s who declined to give his last name. He had stopped to browse the books in the stall outside Gibert Jeune, which he often passes on his daily walk. “That used to be a cafe that took up the entire pavement, where customers would sit,” he said, pointing to the branch of beauty products chain Sephora across the street. He’s worried the same will happen with the building in front of him. “Who knows what they will replace it with? I expect the worst,” he said. “Every place where there is a bookshop is a place with one less fast food chain, one less Sephora.”