Queen's party planner reveals royal plan for 'boring' guests
The Queen is also worried her grandchildren cannot make conversation because of too few staff, says Lady Anson
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Your support makes all the difference.The Queen's official party planner - and her cousin - has revealed that "sitting the bores together" is her biggest tip for a successful event.
Lady Elizabeth Anson, who has planned the Queen's parties since 1960, said dull guests could ruin other people's experience and were best seated together.
"They don't realise they're the bores, and they're happy," she told the New York Times.
"It's my biggest tip."
Lady Anson, who is the daughter of the Queen's first cousin, Princess Anne of Denmark and Viscount Anson, said interesting company was more important than the menu.
"It's not about expensive ingredients. It's about people," she said, echoing previous interviews in which she said guests were "sadly" the one element she had no control over.
The Queen also thinks her grandchildren find it difficult to make good conversation with her when they visit for dinner because they "don't have enough staff" and have to interrupt themselves to "help", she added.
"She said to me that she found it really difficult because they don't really know how to talk to each other," said Lady Anson.
"And she said, 'I suppose it's because they're always getting up and down and helping somebody and putting something in a dishwasher or whatever they're doing, because they don't have enough staff'."
Lady Anson is helping plan the Queen's 90th birthday party, which includes a street party held on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace in June, following the monarch's actual birthday on 21 April.
Tickets sold out in hours in November last year - but Windsor Castle faced criticism when it was revealed that each of the Queen's charities was to be charged £1,500 for a table of 10 people.
Her grandchild, Peter Phillips, who had been organising the street party, also stepped down from his trustee role amid a "conflict of interest" with his other job as director of the agency which will be paid to stage the event.
The Royal Family was last estimated to cost the taxpayer £35.7 million a year and bring in about £500 million in tourism.
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