Tea with the Royals

Whew! I thought I'd never finish my summer "beach book," Tina Brown's "The Diana Chronicles." I'm a devoted royal watcher, but I probably should have skipped this sad book. I was also distracted by Ms. Brown's writing style. I thought she was supposed to BE an editor, but it seems to me she desperately needs one. The book also flits from past to present to past again with head-spinning frequency. Any attempt at a timeline would look like the recent stock market numbers, up and down and up and down.

That said, the one redeeming quality about the book was its 27 references to tea or teatime. So I thought I'd share some of the highlights:

* When Diana was a child, the Spencer children sometimes played with the Windsor children. A nanny told of walking in to see the Queen playing hide-and-seek with Andrew, 6, and Diana, 5. Charles, 17, walked in at teatime and commented that it looked like "a good party to me."

* After Diana's mother left her family, one of the ways Diana served her father was by following him around the house offering to make him cups of tea.

* Diana's stepmother Raine was known to change clothes three times a day, for lunch, tea and formal dinner.

* "Tea trays for members of the Royal Family all have their own personal map, showing the exact position of condiments, teapots and milk juges."

* It is the Queen's daily ritual to sit with a pot of tea and go through a stack of reading material representing all sides of the political spectrum.

* On July 1, 1996, her 35th birthday and just two weeks before their divorce was final, Prince Charles surprised Diana by dropping by Kensington Palace to see her and, according to the butler, they laughed together over a cup of Earl Grey tea.