0 Prince William wakeful before wedding

Britain's Prince William barely slept the night before his wedding.

The future king married his long-term love Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in April last year. The royal wedding attracted interest from people around the world and thousands flocked to see the newlyweds on their special day.

William admits that the well-wishers who gathered in London were in such great spirits that he struggled to get any rest.

"I hadn't slept at all that night because obviously all the crowds were on The Mall," he explained in an interview for Elizabeth: Queen, Wife, Mother, which airs in the UK on June 1. "They were singing and cheering all night long. So, the excitement of that, the nervousness of me, and everyone singing meant I slept for about half an hour, I think.

"So when I did get up in the morning, I can say that I had prepared myself totally by that point. It was a case of just going out there and trying to enjoy the moment and also get through it.

"But it was good fun, it was really good fun."

William went on to reveal that he and his brother Prince Harry had a moment of panic as they were leaving Clarence House for the wedding ceremony.

"The hardest thing was trying to walk down the stairs with my spurs on, sideways," he laughed. "I had visions of myself and my brother colliding and crashing down the stairs."

The royal insists he and Catherine did have control over the planning of their wedding. In fact, William's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II made sure the couple were happy with every decision made.

"There was very much a subdued moment when I was handed a list with 777 names on it - not one person I knew or Catherine knew," he explained. "I went to [the queen] and said, 'Listen, I've got this list, not one person I know - what do I do?' And she went, 'Get rid of it. Start from your friends and then we'll add those we need to in due course. It's your day.'"

William spoke of his admiration for his grandmother - who is celebrating 60 years on the throne.

He is in awe of how she coped with becoming queen when she was "only 25".

"When I was younger and a young boy growing up, I'd say probably queen first, then grandmother. But now it's definitely a case of grandmother first, and queen second," he smiled. "That's really quite something, to be in a man's world and then as a woman to suddenly be thrust into the position she found herself.(Google)

"They're quite hard footsteps to fill. There's not much wiggle room left for me to try and find my own path, but I will do."

Read more: belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/

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0 The Queen and celebrities have celebrated her Diamond Jubilee

IT WAS like a big overseas tour with all the boring bits taken out. Last night the Queen sat down to a multi-national show which captured the flavour of a lifetime of foreign visits without the speeches, banquets and factory visits - and which was dominated by horses.

The first big official celebration to mark the Queen's 60 years on the throne, the Diamond Jubilee Pageant at the Windsor Horse Show, with the floodlit castle as a backdrop, was designed to please an 86-year-old great-grandmother who has loved horses since she was a little girl.

In the space of 90 minutes, 556 horses performed for the Queen: Arab thoroughbreds and Shetland ponies, cavalry and rodeo horses, Australian and Indian horses.

There was a large contingent from Oman and a few from Azerbaijan, right. In front of a stage designed as a mock-up of the front of Buckingham Palace, horses danced, charged at each other, and lay down on command.

Rolf Harris was one of the headline acts on the last night of the Pageant. Others included Susan Boyle and Il Divo. One of the narrators was Dame Helen Mirren, who in 2007 won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role as the woman watching her from the Royal Box.

Other performers included the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who later this month will have the unprecedented honour of guarding the Sovereign at Horse Guards, taking over for the day from the Household Cavalry. The RCMP hold a special place in the Queen's affections. Burmese, one of her favourite horses and a regular at Trooping the Colour until 1986, was a gift from them in 1969.

Last night the Mounties, who include several women, put on their Musical Ride - 32 horses bearing riders with 2m lances performing intricate manoeuvres including a cavalry charge. From Oman, the Sultan sent 110 members of his Royal Cavalry, one of whose tricks involved riders getting their mounts to lie down to order.

The Queen was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh - who had earlier competed in the carriage driving at the three-day horse show - and the Duchess of Cornwall. The Duchess is Patron of the Marwari Horse Society which represents the horses from India which have distinctive inward-turning ears.

There were also 1,000 musicians, dancers and singers, including the Watoto Children's Choir from Uganda, the violinist David Garrett, the Nashville singer Abigail Washburn, the Indian folk musician Raghu Dixit and South African performers from the West End show The Lion King.

Narrators included Alan Titchmarsh, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Omid Djalili and Martin Clunes. A short distance away at the Cowarth Park Polo Club, Ascot, the Duchess of Cambridge, with dog Lupo, watched the Audi Polo Challenge match in which her husband the Duke and Prince Harry were playing.

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0 U.K. government to focus on economy, reform House of Lords

Wearing a crown studded with glittering jewels, Queen Elizabeth II set out Britain's new legislative agenda in opulent style Wednesday -- but announced a frugal program aimed at boosting economic growth and overhauling the unelected House of Lords after decades of delays.

Though the queen read aloud the government's plans in the traditional pageant of power, pomp and politics, she has no role in drafting the content. Each proposed law must also be debated and approved by lawmakers -- with votes in Parliament if necessary -- before it can hit the statute book.

Repairing the economy

Britain's economic woes continue to dominate the government's work -- two years after Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg formed a coalition government with a vow to clear the country's debts.

A four-year austerity program of $130 billion in government spending cuts has angered the public and seen economic growth stall.

Last month, Britain slumped back into recession for the first time since 2009.

New bills will seek to cut regulation for businesses and offer shareholders new powers to curb directors' pay.

Seeking to safeguard Britain's banks from any repeat of the global economic crisis, the government will demand that banks separate their retail operations from riskier investment divisions.

In a statement on their agenda, Cameron and Clegg vowed to "stretch every sinew to return growth to the economy," but critics said they offered few practical steps.

Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said the "meager measures simply tweak round the edges."

Losing the Lords

Cameron will take on a task that has frustrated his predecessors for decades, overhauling Britain's 700-year-old upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords.

The government wants to gradually kick out unelected peers and replace them with fewer, mainly elected members who would serve a maximum term of 15 years.

Currently, Lords are appointed for life and cannot be expelled.

People who receive peerages in annual honors lists would no longer be entitled to a seat in the chamber.

Peers have long opposed any changes, and a new attempt to force through reforms will require lengthy -- and rancorous -- debates in Parliament.

Grassroots members of Cameron's Conservative Party warn that a focus on political reform sends out the wrong message in a time of austerity. They say the leader should instead focus on efforts to create jobs.

Email snooping

Contentious plans to allow spy agencies to snoop on email traffic, Web browsing and social media sites won't be given the go-ahead just yet.

After an outcry from civil liberties campaigners, the plans to allow new snooping on communications data have been published only in draft form.

That means there will be new debate about the balance between personal freedoms and the needs of law enforcement authorities -- who insist they require wider powers as terrorists use increasingly sophisticated methods to communicate.

Cameron says the plan would plug "significant gaps in our defenses." Human rights groups say it would create unnecessary intrusion.

A separate planned bill would introduce secret court hearings to protect intelligence shared by the United States and other allies and other sensitive national security material.

Other proposals will see TV cameras allowed into some British courts for the first time, while Britain also plans a new FBI-style crime fighting agency.

Bring out the bling

Bucking the gloomy tone of the government's agenda, the queen showcased Britain's love of elaborate pageantry as she arrived from Buckingham Palace for a ceremony featuring sparkling jewels and gleaming horse-drawn carriages.

After she donned the Imperial State Crown, studded with almost 3,000 diamonds, the queen delivered her speech from a gilded throne in the House of Lords, packed with peers wearing traditional red robes lined with gold and ermine.

The crown had arrived in its own carriage, ferried to Westminster with other priceless crown jewels -- the Cap of Maintenance and the Sword of State.

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