Journalist uncovers royal oddities

Queen Elizabeth's breakfast habits were the focus of UK newspapers this week. PHOTO: EPA

A tabloid reporter's tale of working undercover as a Buckingham Palace footman has deeply shocked British commentators.

That wallpaper! That Tupperware and plastic yoghurt pot on Her Majesty's breakfast table! That "eat, drink and remarry" pillow in Prince Andrew's sitting room!

Thursday's newspapers had plenty of comment on the style -- or lack of it -- inside the palace. Never mind the security implications of servants being hired despite giving false references.

The Daily Mirror's scoop in having reporter Ryan Parry work undercover as a royal footman for two months won the ultimate tribute from rival newspapers, which quoted at length and reprinted several of the pictures that Parry snapped while on duty.

"Have you seen that wallpaper?" Andrew Anthony wrote in The Guardian.

"To gaze at the red and pink flock paper that adorns the walls of Prince Andrew's bedroom is to be transported back to 1973 in the unused upstairs room of your local pub where tuneless rock bands used to practice," Anthony wrote.

Buckingham Palace went to court on Thursday, winning an injunction to stop the Daily Mirror from printing any more of Parry's discoveries pending a full hearing.

But in a statement, Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan said, "At the risk of being sent to the Tower [of London], might I suggest that he and the 11-strong phalanx of palace lawyers who fought so hard to gag us today might be better deployed checking that everyone who currently works in close proximity to the royals is who they say they are?

But as the nation contemplated the wallpaper, the mystique of monarchy died a little bit more. It was all so suburban, so yesterday.

"`Footman' exposes Tupperware secret of the queen's table," said a headline on The Daily Telegraph's front page.

"Chief among the victims were the Earl and Countess of Wessex [Prince Edward and his wife Sophie], who -- it is now known -- share their bedroom at the palace with a wooden wall unit and like to adorn their bed with furry bears and dogs," The Daily Telegraph said.

"The real importance of the story is nothing to do with security," The Independent said in an editorial. "It is that it is yet another example of the Brits' unerring ability to focus on what really matters: in this case, the queen's breakfast habits."