Dear Kerry,
We will try again. I keep trying to send messages on this blasted computer and they keep saying I have not logged in. I log in-again- and then the thing goes haywire and it is all a mess. Everything crashes. Yesterday I logged on here six times. With my life what do you expect. Even the RF is contributing to my ongoing nervous break down. My wires are haywire to begin with and I am a computer mongoloid, but I am a sensitive computer mongoloid. Even people with an IQ of 4 have feelings you know. But I will try. You may call me Eyeore
Yes the Westminster Tiara is in MR. Munn's book. That book is a fabulous of mixture of the sublime, the beautiful, the ugly and the ridiculous. That is why I call him the prophet. That seems to be the way it is with every holy scripture no matter of what persuasion.
That picture of Liz Taylor with Richard Burton going to some party or other is almost the living end, but she has so much competition in the tacky, loud and expensive cheap department it is hard to say. All that late 19th century vulgar nouveau riche Amercian vulgarity really is more than just a bit much.
The Westminster tiara, and you will see the original version, has both Arcot diamonds and the Hastings diamond set in a kind of oriental fantasy bandeau. It is quite unusual and I think attractive. Particularly with those rocks in it.
Call them headlights, call them clunkers, call them what you will there is just nothing like a really big well faceted diamond. They are never vulgar, no matter what. Have you seen the picture of Queen Mary wearing her Cullinan headlights. Massive, Brazen, overwhelming. Then there is Liz Taylor wearing her 69 carat Cartier diamond at that uh-certain point on her person-utterly brazen but the diamond will take your breath away.
The Westminster tiara at some point was sold to Harry Winston for death duties. They took out the large stones and replace with them with smaller stones in a pattern and it is not nearly as interesting. Why in the world they did not sell that pearl and diamond horror instead I will never understand.
You are correct most noble RachelD, about the pearl miscarrage which you have dredged up from the lower depths. Have you ever seen such a waste of such gorgeous peals and such beautiful diamonds put to such sorry use in your life? The gems are wonderful. But the idiot who concocted that contraption should be boiled in rancid Canola oil and fed to the Australian Crockodiles. What on earth could the good D of W been thinking when he bought the thing. The Duchess was to wear it to a costume ball or Halloween Party at Windsor Castle????. Of course the good Duke does own the sublime Bagration tiara, now there is something else.
As for the Wurtemburg thinge, it has such a harmless ugliness about it that one almost finds charming. It is just the sort of thing that one would wear in the role of the good witch in Hansel and Gretel or as the Princess Pet on her ice cream planet if one were going to a young child's birthday party. Of course if you were to wear it as part of a costume in drag or to a Halloween party you would run the rish of being run down by on going traffic, plastered to death with Halloween candy or even hunted down and murdered in the street with beer bottles. Cheers. Thomas Parkman
. I think it is quite unique and that Silvia wears it extremely well. She wore it at her wedding and while her wedding gown was very unflattering, her veil with this cameo tiara was just perfect IMO.
