Kate in Quebec. Apparently, a British expat has just talked to her about starting a family. My gosh, where are his manners? At least you can’t blame the Quebec school system.
Well yesterday, Kate Middleton __ (what is her full name?) or the Duchess of Cambridge and her husband, William, spent an edgy day in Montreal, what with the well-wishers a bit thin and the separatists singing songs of protests.
I’m sure there would have been many more well-wishers, except Montrealers are well-trained. We know,even, that displaying a Canadian flag on Canada day is kind of iffy business.
Anyway, a stop on their tour was at the school for cooks, at the Institut de tourisme et d’hotellerie du Quebec, which has no English name. The day before CTV news, local edition, the one we used to call Pulse, had a feature on the preparations for the big visit at said culinary school and they showed all the super fancy desserts being prepared for the couple.
Of course, it is a little ironic. Kate likely doesn’t eat dessert. She likely has to pull a Jackie Kennedy in that regard. I once read that Jackie was always presented with a complimentary dessert when she ate out and all she did was dip her fork in it, touch the fork to her lips and say something like, “Lovely.”
Sort of like what I do, before I eat 3 helpings.
Anyway, as a deconstructor of all things media, I recogized that this stop, this PR event, has a purpose, as do all the events on the tour.
And that purpose isn’t just to promote the Institut, which is located right downtown on St. Denis, and not somewhere I would have brought the Royals, since that area is,well, ugly and being dug up big time.
No, I’m sure the visit, at least on the part of Will and Kate, was to promote cooking in England. In England they are really worried about the deskilling of their population. I read they even re-introduced cooking classes in schools, or, were at least, thinking about it. You can thank Jamie Oliver for a lot of this awareness.
Of course every stop, every event on the trip has a purpose. I see Will as The God of War, and Kate as representing the Goddess of Love/Beauty which is why they visited Veterans and thanked the Van Doos and why they planted a tree of LOVE.
The entire trip appears about cementing MARTIAL bonds. Of course, this is what is meant when the Brits talk about their special relation with the US. I guess they want a special relationship with Canada too.
Just like when Williams Great Great Grandfather, the Prince of Wales and future George V, (otherwise known as Colin Firth’s dad) visited Quebec in 1908, for the tercentenary celebrations, arriving aboard a glittering battleship without his wife, Alexandra, this Royal visit seems to me about promoting cooperation should Britain need to start (another) war.
Oh, and about selling magazines.
(Margaret Nicholson attended the celebration which featured a pagent in era dress featuring Henry IV’s court, Jacques Cartier and naked natives (parts played by citizens) as well as a spectacular military review on the Plains of Abraham and (which was in prep for the coming World War to end all wars, I guess) and I’ve written a lot about these celebrations, on this blog. These particular celebrations have been written out of history and I can only guess why. (Were it not for the Internet, I probably never would have figured out why Margaret went to Quebec to ‘see the Prince.’)
That’s how I read it.
And that’s why Prince Charles and Camilla aren’t useful anymore as icons. He’s not Aries; he’s more the God of puttering in the garden and sustainable agricultural (which is probably more important to the future of the human race than fighting over oil and resources, but hey.) And I don’t think I need to mention that Camilla is not Aphrodite, either. She certainly doesn’t sell magazines, or media time, as does the photogenic and preternaturally lithe Kate.
This visit to the Montreal cooking school unintentionally provoked the least complimentary media line of the Royal visit I’ve heard so far. And it had nothing to do with separatists. The cook who supervised the PR event, where William and Kate were taught how to cook a souffle, was asked a number of questions, in an interview on CTV. “Was the lesson a success?” “Yes,” said the sober serious and likely camera-nervous head cook “The souffle rose one and half inches.” Well, that is better than if didn’t rise at all, which is rumoured to have been the case with General Douglas MacArthur’s souffles.
