The Middletons and British Airways (thinkdrafts)

submitted ago by letsdothis3

Hmm.. Middleton family online business in trouble? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6833005/Party-supplies-company-run-Kate-Middletons-mother-Carole-laid-staff-fears-future.html

Carole and Michael Middleton founded Party Pieces in 1987 and have 40 staff. But they have reportedly laid off three members of staff over anxieties ahead 

Uh huh..let's take a look..

The company's web designer, PR agent and 'search engine optimisation' employee were among the recent firings. ..The firm, whose slogan is 'magical parties for over 30 years', says on its website it has 40 staff 'as well as a dedicated customer service team'.

There's that reference to Magic again...

The company began when the family returned to the UK from Jordan, where Mr Middleton had been managing an international air station for British Airways.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/how-kate-middletons-parents-met

According to The Daily Beast, Middleton likely got her penchant for traveling from her parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, who met when he was working as a flight dispatcher and she as a flight attendant with British Airways in the mid-1970s. The pair then dated, and traveled, for a number of years before marrying on June 21,1980 at the Church of St James in Buckinghamshire.

In May of 1984, the Middleton family moved to Amman, Jordan for Michael’s job. There, the Telegraph explained, Carol took her extended maternity leave from British Airways to spend time with her two girls. …

As Town&Country explained, in 1987 Carole left the travel industry behind and founded her company Party Pieces, which started as a small mail order party supply and decoration company. Now that company is estimated to be worth more than $50 million.

That's a whole lot of paper cups and balloons..

Jordan

Prince William visits Jordan ruins where Duchess of Cambridge was pictured as child http://archive.is/Dfm6z#selection-2145.1-2145.84

He was joined by Jordan's Crown Prince Hussein

Prince Hussein is a graduate of Georgetown University.

During William's visit, the site hosted a celebration for young people benefiting from the Makani programme, a nationwide charity that works with those from deprived backgrounds, especially refugee communities.

Makani Unicef https://www.unicef.org/jordan/overview_12172.html

Any relation to this Makani of Royal Dutch Shell and Google X? https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/alphabets-energy-moonshot-startups-makani-dandelion and https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2019/02/13/shell-invests-in-google-kite-flying/

Needs further invesitgation.. Reminds me of the Polaris question

Amman https://voat.co/v/JuiceTown/2406950/11975029

'In January, the Trump administration closed the operations center the CIA ran in Amman, the Jordanian capital, which coordinated aid to rebel organizations in southern Syria. '

Party Pieces website https://www.partypieces.co.uk/about-us

My first big break was after we distributed flyers with Red House Book Club. We grew quickly, and it wasn’t long before we had to find somewhere bigger to move to.

Red House Book Club from the Book People https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/help_topic?topic=about&storeId=10001&langId=100

The Book People, another multi-million company started out of a garage by an ex-policeman https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/04/society

Behind these great offers lies some controversy: several sectors of the book trade are doubtful about The Book People's working practices. Agents and some authors complain that their deals are too tight. They talk of how the company is 'tolerated' only on the grounds that it is reaching an otherwise untapped market. Orders from The Book People appear on a writer's royalty statement as 'special sales' and are not subject to the standard contractual conditions an agent agrees with a publisher. 

Company information on Red House Book Club – has all the usual Finchley Road addresses – needs further scrutiny : https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/03306973/officers

One of the listed officers, for example https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/B0GHP8rkHXwMGOElCSeIWrFbLno/appointments

is affiliated with something aclled the Chicken House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_House

Founded in 2000 by Barry Cunningham and Rachel Hickman as Chicken House Publishing,

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition was launched in 2008 by Chicken House and The Times newspaper. … 2015 winner 2015: Laurel Remington, The Secret Cooking Club

The Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition judging day! (at Savile Club)

Yes, @kestrel9, the membership list of the Savile Club does raise eyebrows. One of those members was WB Yeats, I came across this recently:

The Monster in the Rainbow: Keats and the Science of Life - https://www.jstor.org/stable/823143?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Need to dig out my notes to connect it with the other thread I was working on. Have to dash now .. family duites call..more later...

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letsdothis3 ago

Something odd about this story : Concorde captain who flew the Queen and Princess Diana is found dead with dementia-suffering wife in 'murder-suicide' at their £800,000 farmhouse in Kate Middleton's home village

The Queen's former pilot and the first captain to fly Concorde from London to New York has been found dead alongside his wife in a suspected murder-suicide. Tony Meadows, 84, and his wife Paula, 83, were found dead at their £800,000 home in leafy Bucklebury, Berkshire - less than three miles from the £5m home of the Duchess of Cambridge's parents.

.. Mr Meadows was part of the flight crew on the first London to New York Concorde flight for British Airways in December 1977 and was then at the controls of the inaugural Concorde flight to Singapore, two weeks later. He also also a pilot for Princess Diana, and flew the Queen on Concorde in 1979.

..The Duchess of Cambridge's parents live less than three miles away in Bucklebury Manor, a £5million Grade II-listed pile with vast grounds. Mr Meadows started as a mathematician, before signing up for National Service in the Royal Air Force and going on to work as a Concorde Pilot.

The British flight crew for the inaugural Concorde service pose with the statue of aviators John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who made the very first Atlantic crossing by aeroplane in 1919. From left to right: Captain Tony Meadows; Captain Brian Walpole; Captain Leo Budd; Senior Engineering Officer George Floyd...

Captain Meadows is pictured here in May 1988 with Norman Parkinson with the 'first sausages served on Concorde'..

In December 2017, Mr Meadows recalled the thrill at being part of the flight crew on the first scheduled LHR-JFK Concorde service for British Airways. Writing in Mach2Magazine, he revealed all about the 'spectacular' flight, adding: 'The 22nd of November 1977 was to be an exciting day – we were at last going to fly passengers to New York.' Mr Meadows was then invited to 'fire the 'Eastern Bullet' to Singapore.

Speaking in 2017, he said: 'Life for me was very exciting in 1977. David Leney flew myself and my crew to Bahrain on the 7th of December – two weeks after I had flown the New York inaugural – to be ready to operate the inaugural flight to Singapore on the 9th in GBOAD.'

He was part of the Nucleus Group of pilots and flight engineers who were trained by BAC at Filton and by the Concorde test pilots. He then took part in the Endurance Flying program to the Far East and Australia. Prior to Concorde's entry into service, Mr Meadows' responsibility was to develop subsonic noise abatement techniques for the take off and climb phases; and a training program for the crews to implement them.