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ជនជាតិខ្មែរកើតនៅលើដីខ្មែរ ត្រូវចេះខំថែជាតិឲ្យបានរុងរឿង កេរ្តិ៍ឈ្មោះជាតិ យើងបានថ្កុំថ្កើង លុះត្រាតែយើងចេះថែរក្សា។ ទោះបីខ្មែររស់នៅប្រទេសណា ចូរកុំភ្លេចថាខ្លួនកើតមកជាខ្មែរ កុំឲ្យបរទេស គេមកបង្វែរ ឲ្យខ្មែរនិងខ្មែរ បែកសាមគ្គីគ្នា ថ្វីបើគេហ៊ានចំណាយ ប្រាក់កាសចាយហូរហៀរយ៉ាងណា ចូរកុំភ្លេច កេរ្តិ៍ឈ្មោះខេមរា រុងរឿងថ្លៃថ្លា តាំងពីបុរាណ ព្រលឹងជាតិនៅគង់វង្សបានយូរ ទាល់តែយើង ស៊ូរួបរួមគ្នាគ្រប់ប្រាណ កសាងជាតិដោយក្តីក្លាហាន នោះជាតិយើងបានស្គាល់ក្តីរុងរឿង។

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Friday, February 8, 2013

Royal wedding invitations galore and how Kate's mum became queen of Mustique


  • Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are enjoying a 'Babymoon' on the island
  • Lord Glenconner - Colin Tennant - bought the island in 1958 for £45,000
  • Kate's parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, regard it as a home from home

Romantic break: Kate and Prince William are enjoying their seventh visit to the island of Mustique for a 'Babymoon'
Romantic break: Kate and Prince William are enjoying their seventh visit to the island of Mustique for a 'Babymoon'
On the Caribbean island of Mustique, a warm, salty breeze blows through the trees and the white sand is as fine as Johnson’s baby powder. Only tree frogs and chirruping crickets disturb the silence. Turquoise water laps the shore of Macaroni Beach.
Above the shoreline stand the island’s villas, built in a kaleidoscope of styles. There are colonial houses, mock palazzi, Mexican ranches, French chateaux, pagodas and sprawling cod-Balinese palaces.
They are owned, or sometimes rented, by the international super-rich who come to this paradise island seeking peace  and privacy.
Here, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been enjoying a ‘Babymoon’ — a last romantic getaway before the birth of their first child in July. They are staying in a £19,000-a-week villa — one of the most luxurious on the island. And they are familiar faces on the  island now, for this is their seventh trip to Mustique.
The patrician playboy Lord Glenconner — Colin Tennant — bought the island in 1958 for £45,000 and sought to associate the place with the Royal Family by giving Princess Margaret a plot of land as a present on the occasion of her marriage two years later.
Since then Mustique, three miles long and one-and-a-half miles wide, has been a magnet for celebrities and royals — and their relatives. Kate’s parents, Carole  and Michael Middleton, have come to regard it as a home from home.
They are staying in a villa near their daughter and her husband. Their other daughter, Pippa, was happy to pass up the opportunity to run a marathon in New Zealand to join them.
It was once rumoured that the Middletons were going to buy a place on Mustique. They haven’t — but then they hardly need to.
At any time about three-quarters of the island’s houses are available to rent via the Mustique Company office. How much more fun to try different places!
Tennant’s genius was to make Mustique a workable business for himself by turning it into a society playground. And yet he ended up hating Mustique because, as the prices rose (which had always been his aim), louche aristocrats and rock stars were joined by international financiers with whom he had little in common.
Bankers, venture capitalists and hedge-funders now constitute most of the island’s owners and many of those who rent the villas, too.
But it is this fact that has played into the hands of the Middletons. Fifty years ago, a former air hostess and flight dispatcher would not, perhaps, have been welcomed with open arms by the cabal of aristos who haunted the place.
Indeed, so capricious was Tennant when he was alive that he once excluded some guests who  complained about the ‘crocodiles’ — actually lizards — running over the walls.
Getaway for the rich and famous: Mustique was bought by Lord Glenconner - Colin Tennant - in 1958 who then worked to make sure the island was associated with the Royal Family
Getaway for the rich and famous: Mustique was bought by Lord Glenconner - Colin Tennant - in 1958 who then worked to make sure the island was associated with the Royal Family
But in these days when money talks on Mustique, the multi- millionaire Middletons seem to feel right at home. And having Prince William for a son-in-law gives them a cachet that goes a long way in a place like this.
That said, they don’t tend to gravitate towards the island’s more high-profile owners such as Mick Jagger, publishing tycoon Felix Dennis and American designer Tommy Hilfiger, but rather to the self-made but unflashy set of which they consider themselves part. Their Mustique friends include the British hedge-funder Mark Cecil and his wife Katie, whose villa Aurora they have rented in the past.
 

So close is food stylist Katie to the Middletons that she even styled some of the pictures in Celebrate, Pippa’s much-mocked book of party tips.
Aurora is, of course, beautifully styled itself. It is a tradition at the villa that tenants — leading designer Tom Ford has stayed there — plant a tree when they leave; apparently the tree the Middletons  planted last year died. But no doubt they will return at some point and plant another.
The Middletons’ invitations to the Royal Wedding included a sizeable Mustique contingent and, naturally, if you have been invited to the  wedding of the decade, you will be keen to reciprocate with the best hospitality you can muster.
Aside from the Cecils, there was Richard Schaffer, the tennis pro who has run the tennis club on the island for 15 years. Gregory Allen, the island’s yoga teacher, was there. Jeanette Cadet, who has run villa rentals on the island for 25 years. Liz Saint, who runs the equestrian centre — surprisingly for such a small island, there are ten horses and three ponies to ride — attended, as did Roger Pritchard, the current managing director of the Mustique Company which oversees the place.
Home sweet home: Kate's parents Michael and Carole Middleton, pictured at Wimbledon tennis tournament last year, have come to think of Mustique as a home from home
Home sweet home: Kate's parents Michael and Carole Middleton, pictured at Wimbledon tennis tournament last year, have come to think of Mustique as a home from home
The Hon Brian Alexander, heir to his brother Earl Alexander of Tunis, who used to run the island, and the celebrated Basil Charles, an island fixture and the owner of Basil’s Bar, were also at the wedding.
Basil grew up on neighbouring St Vincent and started his bar when Lord Glenconner pulled him out of a ditch after a motorbike crash. He stills runs ‘Jump Up’, a live music and lobster night on Wednesdays.
William and Kate first visited Mustique after a fortunate conversation at a society wedding in 2006 when he told a friend named Lotty Bunbury that he would love to go to the island, but that he ‘couldn’t possibly afford to’.
It so happened that Lotty is married to Mustique’s only doctor, Michael Bunbury. Thus, she arranged for William and Kate to be lent the beautiful Villa Hibiscus (in the end, they made a donation to charity in return), belonging to John and Belle Robinson, the owners of fashion chain Jigsaw.
Later, Kate worked as an accessories buyer for Jigsaw in the only job she has ever had that wasn’t under the umbrella of Party Pieces, her parents’ firm. So Mustique, to a certain extent, forged her short career, just as it helped shape Pippa’s book.
That first stay, as we now know, was the start of a family love affair with the place that shows no sign of abating, not least because the Middletons do love to socialise — and Mustique is a very social island, though not in the same way it  once was. Lord Glenconner celebrated his 50th birthday in 1976 with a wild bash on the theme of Croesus, at which everyone wore gold. For his 60th birthday he held celebrations that lasted a week and ended with a grand ‘Peacock Ball’.
These days, the parties are rather more private, usually taking place behind the high walls of the villas, although open-minded types such as Mick Jagger are still known to set up tables on the beach  for dinner.
Now that the qualification to this exclusive club is neither class nor status but, simply, wealth, there  are 17 different nationalities who own houses on the island. Though there are scions of the grand families of England, Scotland and  Ireland, they are now definitely outnumbered. 
Paradise: Mustique is a private island in the Caribbean where Princess Margaret once had a holiday home
Paradise: Mustique is a private island in the Caribbean where Princess Margaret once had a holiday home
There is a growing American-style emphasis on who has earned what, though unlike the real attention-seekers who go to nearby St Barts, Mustique is still for those avoiding rather than seeking publicity.
When the Middletons first started going, there was a bit of grumbling about the newcomers. Like an English village, in Mustique, the longer you have been coming,  the better. 
And there are still complaints about the change that comes over the island when there is a Royal visit. The security presence is  irksome to those not welcomed into the Middleton inner circle. Last year, security tried to restrict use of ‘mules’ — the island vehicles which resemble suped-up golf carts — to the island’s only hotel,  called the Cotton House, and Basil’s Bar, and annoyed visiting millionaires by quizzing them about what they were doing with the cameras on their mobile phones.
As everybody who lands on  Mustique feels they are a ‘somebody’, treating them like the great unwashed was never going to go down well. But for the most part, according to one regular visitor, the Middletons ‘have been welcomed with open arms’.
The staff, as we have seen from the Royal Wedding guest list, are all enthusiasts, and so are the  property owners; nothing sends  the prices up quicker than a bit of Royal patronage, as Lord Glenconner knew.
This then, is the place where the newest addition to the Royal  Family will, with luck, find themselves toddling in the waves in years to come, and dozing in their cot under the obligatory mosquito net.
That’s once they have negotiated the eight-hour flight to Barbados followed by a nerve-testing short hop on a light aircraft, or possibly by yacht.
Mustique has never had convenience in its favour. But as the new Prince or Princess will learn over the years, and as their great-great aunt Margaret discovered, it has many welcome compensations.
Carole Middleton and her daughter Kate, pictured together shopping, both enjoy holidaying on the island
Carole Middleton and her daughter Kate, pictured together shopping, both enjoy holidaying on the island

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