h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. - A5769985
Author: Galaxy Babe - U128652

Here starteth the War between the Monarchists and the Republicans.

*ducks*

He has quite a natty little website of his own here:

http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk

Are you going to do ALL the Royal family

Oh yes.

Added thanks, can't believe I omitted that.

The Queen's well on the way, and so is the next Queen. Also sharpening my fingernails to tackle Princess Anne

Hi, Galaxy Babe!

This is an interesting read, but I think there's a problem of balance between what you've included and what you've simply referred to other entries. I think all the basic information should be included here--in particular, when he got married, separated, divorced and married again. You say, for example, that William was born a month before their first wedding anniversary, but since you don't say when the wedding was, this isn't very helpful.

On the other hand, the whole bit about photographing Diana in a seethrough skirt seems quite trivial, and more suited to the entry on Diana than here.

A few nitpicks:
"At the time of his birth, his mother was Heir apparent to the throne."
Technically, she was heir presumptive, not heir apparent: her mother could have died, her father married again, and a hypothetical younger half-brother replaced her as heir. Better just to say "his mother was Heir to the throne."

"The comment was especially unfair as his own ancestor, King Henry VIII, was a redhead." Henry VIII is not a direct ancestor of the present Royal family, who are descended from his sister. "Especially unfair" is going way over the top referring to one uncle in the family 400 years ago. I think you should remove that sentence altogether.

I think you're exaggerating the problems with Camilla becoming "Princess Consort". Wasn't the Queen Mother a new title made up specially because she didn't want to be a Dowager--if they could make up a new title 50 years ago I'm sure they can do it now. Haven't they already adopted some kind of regulation to say that Prince Edward's daughter is by title only Lady Louise, even though legally she should be a Princess? Seriously, I don't understand why anyone makes such a a big deal of this--even if a law was needed it would be the kind of one-paragraph thing Parliament could pass in a day.


Azara

I also don't like the reference to Diana's death as 'killed Princess Diana' in the sidebar.

You can change that by adding TITLE="Diana's Accident" to the link. (or some other title other than 'killed Princess Diana)

<>
That's because I removed whole chunks of repeated material from my other edited entries, which I was told was bad form to leave them in.
I've done as you requested and put the relevant dates in.


<>
It's Charles' quote which I think it "very" relevant. A lot of people think he only married her to produce an heir, but that quote shows his support of her, it's one heck of a compliment.


<<"At the time of his birth, his mother was Heir apparent to the throne."
Technically, she was heir presumptive, not heir apparent: her mother could have died, her father married again, and a hypothetical younger half-brother replaced her as heir. Better just to say "his mother was Heir to the throne.">>
Changed


<<"The comment was especially unfair as his own ancestor, King Henry VIII, was a redhead." Henry VIII is not a direct ancestor of the present Royal family, who are descended from his sister. "Especially unfair" is going way over the top referring to one uncle in the family 400 years ago. I think you should remove that sentence altogether.>>
Removed


<>
Just the other day I read something about someone threatening to "leave the country if Camilla becomes Queen" or words to that effect. I don't think I'm exaggerating the problem at all!


Thanks for the review, Azara

You could do the same with the 'wedding' and 'memorial for Battle of Britain' hyperlinks too. It's just a pet of mine

MJ

Thanks MJ

I noticed the address to write to if you want to visit HIghgrove House. Is there an email too? and a website? And should it be broken into address lines using the tags? Not sure of that.

Oh and another dislike of Charles is to be referred to as 'short'. Take it from one who knows

I'm told sub-eds "hate" tags! I now use them as little as possible, so as not to annoy.

No, there's only an address given. Cuts out the riff-raff, I guess

Oh, you've met him too? He came all the way to Cleethorpes to meet me

What's the PC version of "short"? Vertically-challenged?

What's the PC version of "short"? Vertically-challenged?

Reply

Yes. He is also 'follicularly-challenged'

Yeah, I've seen him a few times. And he is short and what is it with tweed?

Well he's taller than me and he does look really short when photographed with his sons, guess that's why he has them sitting either side if he can ingineer that. I'll add the 'follicularly-challenged' although I rather think that's male-pattern baldness, as he has a good amount of hair for a man his age

ingineer? = engineer.

"Dislikes: Monstrous carbunkles, anyone sitting on the bonnet of his beloved Aston Martin, certain newspaper photographers, being 'follicularly-challenged' and being referred to as vertically-challengedHaving to be photographed with two six-foot-plus sons doesn't exactly boost one's ego..

How's that?

I probably wasn't clear enough about the "Princess Consort" thing:
--It's obvious that lots of people hate the idea of "Queen Camilla"
--The Prince's office have announced that she will be known as "Princess Consort", not Queen
--I don't see any reason not to believe this. "It's not a morganatic marriage" and "It would take an Act of Parliament for her not be crowned Queen" don't count much as objections, as far as I'm concerned.

Why?
**She wasn't made Princess of Wales when she married the Prince
**The Important Point**Prince Edward's daughter is officially known as "Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor" even though she is legally a Princess under rules that date back to 1917. Legally, she's HRH Princess Louise but everybody has agreed to ignore this.
**Historically, the Royals made up a new title for the Queen Mother just because she felt like it.
(And about the "crowned" part, not only did George IV not allow his wife to be crowned, he had her locked out of his own coronation. )

So I believe that if the Queen dies within the next 10 years, Camilla will become "Princess Consort" without any problems. (If it needs a law, so what--they might drop the anti-Catholic discrimation as well while they tidy up the legal position.) If the Queen lives as long as her mother did, who knows what will happen?

On a separate point, you mention Highgrove and its gardens, but don't explain much about it. I think it would be worth a short paragraph on the lines of:
"Prince Charles bought Highgrove House and estate in Gloucestershire in 1980. It has been his country residence ever since, and he has developed the gardens into a showpiece. The home farm of over 1000 acres is a model of organic farming, and home to a number of rare breeds of farm animals."

I just noticed that the "monstrous carbuncle" reference in the "dislikes" section won't make much sense to a lot of readers. Was this his objection to modern architecture? It would be worth making that clearer.


Azara

Oops!
Technically, Highgrove was bought by the Duchy of Cornwall, rather than by the Prince himself.

Azara

GB in light of his recent marriage it might be worth mentionjing the PoW's other titles in light of the fact that these are being used in conjunction with his second wife.

Duke of Cornwall,Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland he inherited when his mother accended the throne in 1952. Her was created Earl of Chester on the same date he became Prince of Wales 26 July 1958.

He also made a maiden speech in the House of Lords in 1974.

Hi Galaxy Babe! This is a good entry which justs needs a little tidying and a little bit of toning down in one place.



Content:

If you want to make the point that the marriage between Charles and Di was a puppet marriage, you should
state it straight out, rather than implying it with Charles's comments. If you don't want to make this point,
then you should change the formatting of Charles's comment about love: put it in the same paragraph as Diana's comment, rather than out
on a separate line.

>>her lover, Dodi Al Fayed -- since Diana was divorced, you should say "her partner"


>>His sister Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, was born in 1950.

This sentence is in the wrong place, in the introductory paragraph about CHarles. It should be moved to the section which mentions Charles's two brothers.

Defender of the Faith -- this bit is not really relevant to this article, as Charles is not the Defender of the Faith. It should be in an entry about the reigning monarch.

The section on Camilla becoming Queen is also not relevant to this entry, and is covered in the entry on Camilla.


Things I'm not sure of:

TRH Princess Elizabeth - was TRH really her title or should it be HRH?

You say that a BA is an "undergraduate academic degree", but I don't think this is correct. The course is an undergraduate course, because the people doing it have not yet got a degree, but a person who gets the degree graduates from the college and is a graduate, so the it's not right to call it an undergraduate degree.


Choice of words:

Fortunately the Prince has more genteel hobbies --> Fortunately the Prince also has more genteel hobbies

a group of 16 (14 of which were founded by the Prince himself) non-profit-making organisations of which the Prince is President
-- move the bit in brackets to the end of the sentence.

Prince William's healthy birth was much rejoiced
-->
Prince William's healthy birth was much celebrated
or
Prince William's healthy birth caused much rejoicing.

It was on a tour of Australia, which Prince Charles and Princess Diana had insisted they take the infant Prince William with them
-->
On a tour of Australia, Prince Charles and Princess Diana insisted they take the infant Prince William with them



Punctuation:

in memory of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, won a -->
in memory of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, won a

He trained as a helicopter pilot, served in the Royal Navy for several years in the 1970s

Change the comma to "and".

parents' Royal duties --> parents' royal duties.
St Mary the Virgin primary school --> St Mary the Virgin Primary School

Remove the full stop after Old Man of Lochnagar.

to catch her out, while she was holding a child on her hip she didn't realize that
-->
to catch her out while she was holding a child on her hip; she didn't realize that

the photo was published much to Diana's mortification -->
the photo was published, much to Diana's mortification


Typos, mis-spellings etc:

carbunkles --> carbuncles



h2g2 Style:

Remove the full stop from the end of the title

Dates should be in the following format: 12 December, 1960. Note the comma after the month.

The list of the prince's books does not need the and tags around each element, as they are single lines.

Oh, I see now that the monstrous carbuncles was not referring to carbuncles at all to the type of pearl. In that case, you should certainly explain what it is about, and I think it deserves more than a footnote, too! The Prince's views on modern architecture are worth mentioning.