Brief stories from Britain’s royal wedding

This photo taken on on June 13, 2009 shows members of the British Royal family watching the Red Arrows display team fly over Buckingham Palace following The Queen's Birthday Parade, “Trooping the Colour” at Horse Guards Parade in London. Prince William will marry Kate Middleton on April 29 in Westminster Abbey in London. – AFP Photo
LONDON: A round-up of brief stories Wednesday about the marriage of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29:
LONDON: Officials at Westminster Abbey have denied media reports that they risk losing electricity on the wedding day, after a blackout caused by an outage in the church and the surrounding area.

“We’ve spoken to our power supplier and we are guaranteed power on the day,” a spokesman told AFP. “We have absolutely no problem with power at the abbey.”In the worst-case scenario, there are lots of windows in the church to light Kate’s path up the aisle. (AFP)

LONDON: William and Kate will spend their first night as a married couple at Buckingham Palace, according to the British press.

They will then head off to a secret honeymoon location for two weeks — the time the prince has off from his job as a search and rescue pilot. (AFP)

LONDON: Buckingham Palace has agreed to keep the floodlights on for an extra hour and a half on the wedding day to help foreign television networks, who risk broadcasting live on primetime evening shows against a dark backdrop.

Time differences will play havoc with the global coverage of the wedding, particularly in the United States, where evening programmes are on just as everyone in Britain is going to bed.

The palace floodlights normally go out at 11:00 pm (2200 GMT) — 6:00 pm in New York — but this will be extended by an hour for the four nights running up to the wedding, and by an hour and a half on April 29, to 12:30 am (2330 GMT).

Officials refuse to go later, however, because staff living inside the palace have to sleep. When the lights are on, “it’s a bit like having a streetlight right outside your door — it’s bright,” a source told AFP. (AFP)

LONDON: William should be careful when he thinks about Kate while flying his helicopter because it might prove so distracting that he crashes, his godfather the former king Constantine of Greece has warned.

“I did actually mention to him in my letter to him when he got engaged — because I went through that experience myself — that it’s quite dangerous to fly a helicopter when you’re in love because you have to concentrate on keeping that machine in the air,” the former king told BBC television.

“I said ‘Be careful, concentrate on that helicopter now and think of Catherine later on’.”William works as a helicopter search and rescue pilot in northwest Wales.
(AFP)

LONDON: Kate might be marrying a prince, but 86 percent of British women do not envy her, according to a new poll.

Of those, 44 percent cited the fact that she will not be able to live a normal life, 18 percent said the public scrutiny would be too much and 10 percent cited the media attention.

For the few who coveted her role, Kate’s future wealth was the main reason. YouGov interviewed nearly 2,000 people in the survey for MyDaily.co.uk.