The Duchess of Cambridge does not keep a full schedule. She never has. She can go weeks, sometimes months, without making an appearance at a charity event, red carpet event or royal-family event. We’ve known this about Kate for years. But did the royal courtiers and website-makers decide on their own that Kate should not be regarded as a full-time royal? Apparently, Kate was excluded – for MONTHS – on the online Court Circular. The Court Circular is the list of scheduled upcoming events for royal family members. The Court Circular is the way Buckingham Palace determines the year-end numbers for working royals. And Kate was excluded. Technical glitch or something else?
She’s already been criticised for being workshy and now bungling Palace aides have added to the Duchess of Cambridge’s woes – by omitting her name from a list of Royal Family members on the Monarchy’s own website. When the site was expensively revamped back in April, Kate’s name did not appear on the Court Circular section due to a ‘technical glitch’.
It meant well-wishers could not check the events Kate had attended, or see her future engagements. Fans took to Twitter to complain about the error and alerted officials, but the situation has only now been rectified. To add insult to injury, the page does record for the first time engagements carried out by far less high-profile Royals Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
Last night the Palace conceded it took almost three months to get Kate’s name back on to the site.
My conspiracy theory is that this was less a technical glitch and more of an effort to keep Kate’s schedule as private as possible. No one at Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace wants a written reminder of just how little work Kate does, nor do they want people to see the weeks-long and months-long gaps between events. Also, the royal reporters would notice how certain events are half-assed and thrown together at the last minute for Kate, which has happened a lot this year. Nothing will be on her schedule and then suddenly a quickie charity appearance will be thrown together in a day. Oh, and the Court Circular still doesn’t include all of Kate’s “private meetings,” right? Anyway, now the “glitch” has been fixed. Just in time for a much-needed holiday, I would assume.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
I agree…they tried to keep how little she works out of sight of the public who funds the Royal family. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.
Technical glitch my ass. This was deliberate.
It’s way too obvious to be intentional. Plus I think rank is important to both of them. They would never tolerate her being left off. Why it took three months to fix is anyone’s guess, but it does feel like a passive aggressive swipe at them.
I just looked at the court circular for the first time–it’s written up like diary entries so it read sometjing like ” On June 12, Her Highness the Queen attended a memorial service at St Swithins on the Green. Also in attendance were Princess Eugenie and the Dutchess of Cambridge.”
It looks like the site is managed with simple tags for everyone mentioned in the daily write up, so you could always see Kate being mentioned, you just couldn’t filter for the engagements she attended (because she was not taggable).
Having said that…now that the tags are fixed, searching for events in which she has been tagged shows gaps of days or weeks. But I think we all knew that already.
Oops! We left out something that wasn’t there! Glitch!
Tee hee hee.
Can we call technical glitch on all the retouching done in these pictures? Chica does not look that glowy and fresh. Holy Mother of Photoshop, Batman!
ikr? she suddenly looks 20 and dewy as a rose—gimme a break!
plus, what is up with the serene, straight ahead painted on, “let them eat cake” smile as her teething baby is seemingly crying in her arms?….the two just don’t seem to match up there in expression or gesture.
Oi, Maria!?
I have a friend who does that to all our photos. I got a lot of compliments once. Just one old friend couldn’t not ask me what had I done to my face to look so different. I noticed then that I didn’t look like the real me but man i looked good.
She has all the time and money in the world why not look fresh and engaged for the few engagement she has. I mean i work 8 hours plus 2 driving and after a good night sleep i look 5 years younger. Imagine how would I look with the expensive treatments she can afford. Also weight loss and stress…who knows what’s going on there? When I lose weight, even only 2 kg the first to go it\s my face and the last my ass
Perhaps she’s on a zero hours contract?
Oh, PERFECT comment ! You win the internet today 🙂
You know the casualisation of labour is complete when it reaches the BRF!
The check’s in the mail.
My dog ate my homework.
Technical glitch.
They were hacked!
Let me see…so there’s a sort of Royal mailing list to keep all the royals updated about the events… my question is do they use doodle too ??
I don’t believe for a second she was cut out because a technical glitch. It’s a lame excuse.
Once in a while it can happen, but for so long ? No way.
I like Kaiser’s conspiracy theory. The flip side is it’s a swipe at her laziness from the powers that be – ie “we see you’re not pulling your weight so you’re not included”. Either way she’s slothful.
I was reading sometime ago a book on Diana and how she was exhausted after three royal duties a week, so royal duties are obviously hard work when you actually do them. So the Queen and Duke of E need a medal for they are in their 90s
I agree with your article I would think that the glitch was possibly a deliberate oversight. Wimbledon soon so I wonder how many days Kate will attend and with the Midds of late totally out of the media will they be in attendance in the Royal seating area mind you Ascot this week that will be interesting re who will be in attendance although the races aren’t duties but a jolly good day out.
If Kate is (or Diana was) an introvert, then she would absolutely find Royal work exhausting. Introverts hate small talk and interacting with too many people grinds us down. If I had to spend my days having inane superficial chats to crowds of strangers I would want to shoot myself in the head. I say this not necessarily to excuse Kate but to try to understand her.
Then. Why. Did. She. Pick. This. Job.
I work as an engineer on airplanes. I am terrified of flying so when it came time to specialize my career I chose ground-based work instead of piloting. Because I am a rational human being.
If Kate really is introverted, then I have only limited sympathy. To be fair, she had a ten year ‘trial’ period of being attached to a royal and plenty of time to get out if she couldn’t withstand the social pressures. She has since had five years to work on some coping strategies for her introversion.
Similarly, I’d question how introverted she really is – as others have pointed out, she is very happy to spend hours at a sailing event with Ben Ainslie, or go to a huge Hollywood gala organized specifically for the honeymoon tour, but her other engagements can be as brief as half an hour.
I agree profdanglais. However, I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to realize (while waiting for William to propose, or maybe even by looking at every royal) that their lives consist of interacting with the public.
However, she herself said that the family told her she spends too much time talking to people when she’s doing a walkabout. That doesn’t sound like someone who struggles to talk. Although it does contradict something said about her by a cousin? of hers, that she finds it difficult to talk to people because she can’t find anything interesting about them (or words to that effect).
She is absolutely not an introvert. She definitely loves attention of papz and other people, but only when she want it and in a way she want it. She just absolutely selfish, stupid and lazy. She want more money, title and to see herself in magazines in expensive clothes in the palaces. And after 10 years of waiting and 5 years been married she still doesn’t know how to act right, how to talk with people, how even look interested, that crazy faces, smiles and whinny, when you can see all her fake teeth and gland in her throat. And 1-2 days ago what did she do? She pushed away Camilla and PC from Q! Kate is absolutely disgusting.
@Rachel, introverts do much better in one-on-one situations than in crowds. If she knows Sir Ben and likes him then of course she would be happier talking to only him than to loads of strangers. @bluhare, she may be trying to get past the small talk stage and get to know people better. It’s small talk introverts hate, not people and not conversation. I am a super-introvert, loathe crowds, am awkward with strangers, yet I work as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language. My job is literally to talk to people, and more importantly to get them talking. I am good at drawing people out, at asking them questions about their lives, and I am genuinely interested in their answers. It’s a myth that introverts are shy or don’t like people but absolutely true that we find too much interaction with too many people exhausting and need time alone to recover after extensive socialising.
As for why Kate “chose the job,” take your pick: She was caught up in the princess fantasy, she had her mother pressuring her, she didn’t realise it would be so difficult for her, she’s not too bright and just didn’t think about what it would entail, she loves William and that was her only focus, etc etc etc. Being introverted doesn’t necessarily mean you’re introspective, and not everyone understands themselves well enough to be certain of what they’ll be good at or not good at. Like I said, I’m not trying to make excuses for her, just offer a possible perspective on what she’s dealing with.
Her cousin said she struggles to find other people interesting. Nothing about her being an introvert.
She had 10 years to decide, she chased him hard those 10 years and wasn’t an introvert during those years. She is 5 years into this job. Her behavior does not scream introvert to me. She is comfortable with Ainslie because she is comfortable flirting with any man, and that is what she does with him. It is only when it is something like “work” that she is somehow to be excused for behaving inappropriately with the excuse of being an introvert?
Just more excuses that don’t wash given her observed behavior in the last 15 years.
If she were an introvert, it would be a difficult job. But I’m an introvert, and from where I sit (American-style middle class, not British-style) I would absolutely take this job! Wealthy, coddled life, and able to make a huge impact on issues that concern me as well as cheer people up and provide a visible “symbol” of national cohesion like the Queen does when she unveils yet another commemorative plaque? Sign me up! Yes, it would take me hours to recover from an hour or two of small talk and a week to recover from a tour. But I think the perks and the power to make a difference would be absolutely worth it!
You don’t have to tell me about introverts, profdanglais. I am a total introvert who learnt small talk (for the most part) out of necessity. I also learnt public speaking out of necessity. I need more downtime than most people I know and I absolutely need some downtime after participating in some events. The ones I dislike the most are cocktail parties or receptions although I am much better than I used to be when I’d just hang around the buffet and eat then duck out the back at the earliest opportunity. 🙂
But Kate is in that boat now, and she needs to step up and take an oar to help row it.
Absolutely…it would be an introvert’s kind of hell.
I’m really not trying to be mean here, but I think royal work is exhausting for people who have no context for what real work is. Most of us here work 40+ hours a week in a job that is downright debilitating of compared to numerous meet and greets
I consider myself a normal person not introvert or else but I have noticed that after all these years of working it gets easier and easier to talk to people and come off as serious and engaged and it’s all due to experience. So I agree with what you said: She has no work experience where you not only need to interact but also get results. So not only make people smile at you or like your look but also do things for you or respond to you. She can’t grasp that that’s why I think she is unprepared for the big world with real problems hence the constant need for her to be taken care of or to rest after doing….ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. She feels lost. Also she is lazy and she feels entitled now more than ever. She reached “The top of the world”, such a shame she can’t be bothered to do more. I know people like her, they do exist and they truly are out of this world. Sorry I feel mean today too.
100% burnsie
I know some people dislike her but I find it had to believe that the general public would throw a fuss because a woman with two young children isnt showing up to ribbon cuttings. Yes, yes .nannies, assistants, tax paid drivers blah blah…..I am talking about the real general public who have no interest in following her day to day life.
I think a lack of transparency of the work taxpayers are paying for (even if waving and cutting ribbons) is what upsets people. Regardless of if they are liked or not liked, not working when you get paid will always upset people.
They’re getting millions (from Charles/QEII via taxes, house grants, and in security presence at 2-3 houses if still at Middleton Manor). To fix this: they could get off their butts to visit the charities they promised as patron to support more than 1x a year.
You are correct, Naya. 99.9% of the UK public don’t give a toss about her, or any of the royals, one way or the other.
Naya, the other royal women (Diana included) all managed to work at least 200 engagements each year when their children were young (infant, toddler, child). The criticism is that W&K have extremely lightweight jobs and they refuse to do them, while taking a massive amount of perks related to those jobs. Plus they keep bashing working parents while pretending to be 24/7/365 parents (with nannies, housekeepers, etc).
Go back and read the criticism of her skipping the Irish Guard. From photos, it appears she spent that day in London getting new highlights instead of working. Many of the general public who *bother* to pay attention are not pleased, especially members of the military and working parents.
If you think the work of royals is only related to “ribbon cutting” you do not understand what they can do when they set their minds to it (Prince’s Trust, Invictus Games) as they are supposed to do. They have to do something to earn their ridiculous keep. Dismiss their work too much (ie. it is only ribbon cutting) and they’re thrown out. Everyone else understands that except W&K and some of their fans.
But aren’t they hugely popular?
Among the obsessed fanbase, not in real life. William’s approval rating has dropped 11 percentage points in three years. Yes, it was a very small sample. Yes his rating is still high. Still any logical person (and their PR hack) would be very concerned about such a drop in a short period.
Wow. The Botox and photoshop in these pics is strong.
I was just wondering about that. For a woman her age she usually looks rough – and the raccoon eyes don’t help – but here she is absolutely lovely. If Botox is all it took – good for her, she looks amazing!
I saw some of her non-photoshop pictures from an event today where she wore a blue and pink dress. Kate looks rough for her age. She had a lot of photoshop here.
Do you guys ever wonder why The Queen barely loans Kate some jewelry?
@Kitty..I wanted to ask also why she hasn’t any of those tittles/medals/names that the monarch gives to people who distinguish themselves, those things attached to the dress that some other royals have. She has none. And yes Jewelry, even Camilla gets a lot of them I have noticed
@Egla, maybe The Queen doesn’t trust. Kate really can’t wear jewelry well.
Kate botched wearing the fabulous Nizam of Hyderabad diamond necklace by obscuring it with her mop of hair so the Queen probably thought, “Damn, girl, if you can’t wear your hair properly to display this magnificent bauble, you’re not getting your hands on my jewels again. I’ll toss you a loaner tiara for state occasions once in awhile, but I draw the line at that!”
If it was deliberate, wouldn’t Prince William have been excluded as well?
He’s a direct heir. She’s a consort. I think it would be much more difficult to explain leaving William out than leaving Kate out.
Also three months ago is March; the month of the Irish Guards fiasco. If I were to put my conspiracy theorist hat on I could spin a tale.
Are these the staff who also prominently posted a picture of them exiting the plane in AU/NZ, just before or after the nude-to-the-waist flashing? It used to be in the upper righthand corner of one of the official sites about them (BP, KP, Clarence House). I wouldn’t put it past them to do something like this deliberately, to see if anyone noticed. She works so little, everyone is used to her not being on the calendar.
Her entire life was/is a holiday. I wish like hell I was exaggerating.
Yeah, but she has to be married to William.
A choice she made after a 10 year campaign. She knew what she was getting.
I think the Brits definitely care about how little Will and Kate do. After all, they’re funded by the British taxpayers.
Was this court circular “glitch” deliberate? If not, they need new webmasters, because 3 months to fix a technical error is ridiculous.
Since they are public funded public figures, why would their entire schedules not be posted, including their vacations? No need for specifics, for those worried about stalkers, but just “Duke and Duchess will be unavailable while traveling on vacation” and the dates. Our city mayor does that. Of course, he works more than the average employee’s 40 hour workweek, so there’s no outcry when he takes a few days off.
Deliberate ploy. Folks aren’t dumb and the Internet is forever. All anyone has to do is Google her and viola, there are her latest appearances. The gaps are evident.
Of course they want Kate’s schedule as private as possible. Per my last post to CB, they (W&K) may very well indeed be planning a third child right now. Sperm washing; not so convinced for the first one (but who really knows for sure?) as changes with regard to gender of first-born had already been tabled and passed. However by early year 2014, William really wanted a daughter. And we all know what William wants (demands), William gets.
William may want a second daughter right now.
Do you honestly think they are doing gender selection pre-implantation? And if they were doing some form of IVF, they’d have all the embryos on ice already. They would not have discarded any from previous attempts, only to start again. That doesn’t require her to be idle for weeks on end, merely to be ready for implantation at the regular portion of her schedule.
She’s the one who has been tipped to want three kids. William wants two.
notasugarhere
I don’t suspect IVF. It’s IUI Sperm Washing. Anyway, I remind you it’s all speculation. I’m certainly no insider with regard to W&K.
Hard to say who’s the real Boss in W&K relationship. Yes, I know some people laugh and say it’s Carole.
So are they having 3 or 2?
Kitty, I would say if another year passes and no pregnancy announcement then it’s 2.
citresse hence my comment “some form of IVF” meaning some form of assisted reproduction (including sperm washing) in which they are selecting the gender.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
…someone needs to let Will and Kate know.
This just makes me sad. This whole family is stealing from the public and there isn’t anything the public can do about it.
Whether she was left off intentionally or not the fact no-one noticed for 3 months shows how little she does. It will be interesting to see if she does more now the glitch has been fixed and people will be able to track her appearances. Somehow, I think our Waity will still manage to find a way to avoid it all.
Is there some *legitimate* reason Kate is not bowing her head like Will and Harry in the first photo? Or is she just very, very inconsiderate?
There actually is. She’s starting her curtsey. Men bow from the neck to greet the queen as William and Harry are doing.
In a proper curtsy (which she has never managed) her head would bow too.
No one is discussing the obvious. Kate really does seem to be a full time mom. She’s been pregnant, for many of the months since she’s been married , or recovering from pregnancy . If she were always out people would accuse her of having too many nannies. I honestly don’t get all the harsh criticism for her. Part of her “job” is to raise future royals, and I think she’s doing a great job.
What was the excuse for the two years of marriage before George arrived. It is always something with Doolittle.
Well said, people wouldn’t complain so much about her not taking part in many duties and “spending time with her children” if she had had a full schedule of Royal events before they arrived.
Piper, since you want to play the obvious game, let’s start by getting something very clear: Kate is not the only royal who has ever had to balance being a mother and doing royal duties. I know that is rather difficult for her fans to comprehend but it’s the cold hard truth.
The reality is that that so many women before her (The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne, Diana, Queen Silvia of Sweden, Queen Sonja of Norway, Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, etc) or are her contemporaries (Countess of Wessex, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, Queen Letizia of Spain, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Queen Maxima of the Netherland, among others) have all had to balance pregnancies, motherhood and doing their royal duties. And guess freaking what? None of them appear to share Lazy Katie’s aversion to work. The latter two women had the additional stresses of moving to a different country and learning a new language.
Meanwhile, Kate has been exposed to the expectations of what is required of a member of the BRF for over a decade now. She was Will’s booty call/official girlfriend for ten years and then she’s been married to him for five. She’s not a woman barely out of her teens like Diana was, she’s in her thirties!
Plus she doesn’t seem to have an issue with leaving her children behind when she has to go shopping/get her hair done/flirt with Ben Ainslie. Just when she needs to perform official duties like handing out shamrocks to the Irish Guard.
I honestly don’t see how women can admire her. Yes, she does look pretty from time to time but that’s it. There’s no substance behind her.
+1
Probably because it bring on there is not really different from it being off. There’s nothing to see either way. Per usual, it’s easier to blame everything from Pluto to the Earth’s core on why she doesn’t work.
sooo has kate got something done to her lips…. if so it’s so subtle and awesome and has improved her whole look….
she normally had that slit mouth big tooth look but I see a subtle lip and I like it 🙂
IDGAF. I just want to remove Harry’s uniform.
Do he have a curly ginger chest ?? Yeah baby!!!!
I’ve said this before on here, but I can’t hate on her for not working now. She has two young children, and many women choose to be full-time stay-at-home-mothers. If I were in her position, I’d be with them as much as possible to avoid them growing up solely raised by nannies and then shipped off to boarding school, as has been discussed on this site. She should appear publicly with the kids more, I think it reminds people of how young the kids are (Charlotte is less a kid than a baby!) and what a big job that is. I know she has help, but so do a lot of SAHM’s (taking them to Mother’s Day Outs, family helping out, etc.). All this to say, I think it’s okay for her to focus on her family right now. She’s “produced” the heir and the spare, as they say, but now no one wants to give her the time to raise them? Kids don’t raise themselves — it takes up a lot of your time!
Appearances for Kate often last about 45 minutes to an hour. You don’t think she could handle that a couple times a week for her charities? The ones that do good work with kids that face challenges her children will most likely never face? Someone else could watch the kids while they are napping on those days. They could spend some time Carole and Mike. It’s not like she doesn’t pull herself away for time with the personal trainer and the 3 hour hair appointments.
And as also said before on this site she’d get more slack on this if she worked before the children were born. She didn’t, she didn’t even work before she got engaged. So this isn’t about her quality time with her children, it’s that she doesn’t have any interest in being a working royal, but she wants the perks.
W&K are on a unique form of the dole. They receive all they have because they are government employees. Everything they have via The Duchy (the taxpayers), the taxpayers outright, and even HM’s “private” property loan of Anmer is all because of their government jobs. Lightweight jobs HELPING PEOPLE that W&K refuse to do.
The people paying their bills are working parents, pensioners, 1 in 4 of whom cannot pay their heating bills in the winter. “She is a SAHM” with two housekeepers, two nannies, and one of the kids in preschool 3 days a week but she cannot possibly work an hour a week? How incompetent do her fans think she is?
All that is being asked is they work a handful of hours a week for the millionaire lifestyle provided by the taxpayers. If they are unable or unwilling to fulfill the contract, they can quit or be fired and walk away from it all free-and-clear.
Please see Fire&Blood’s great summary above.
I thought she looked great in the pictures presented. As to her work ethic, I do not believe she has one. I think she just wants to play entitled wealthy man’s wife and raise her children. Nothing wrong with that if the money did not come from the public dole.