She's famed for her thrifty style when it comes to recycling outfits for official enagements, yet it still comes as some surprise to hear that Kate Middleton is not above haggling for a bargain when she sees something she likes.

For among the visitors to a recent antiques fair at a showground in Wales, not far from where Kate and William live, was the  Duchess of Cambridge, and upon spotting a pair of antique vases that took her fancy, ruthless Kate she beat the stall holder down from £180 to £160.

Nick Bayliss, owner of Ludlow-based Continuity Fairs, who chatted with the duchess, said: "We had sent out complimentary tickets to Prince William and the duchess for our May fair and again in October, and to my absolute delight in she comes with her party on the Sunday morning and had her hand stamped with the green dragon by my daughter, who didn't recognise her."

Poor Prince Charles. 2012 wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It was meant to be a glorious year of royal pageantry, the year of the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, and the year in which the reins of power began to be handed over to Charles at last. A chance to make his mark.

In fact, 2012 will go down for the royals in general as a year to forget after two humiliating sets of naked photos of the Young Royals completely eclipsed the summer of celebration.

Maybe it was nearly losing him that made us finally realize how cool he is.

But one of the big surprises of a wide ranging Mori poll undertaken this week to gauge attitudes to the Royal family was the surge in Prince Philip’s popularity – a decade ago just 5% of the population named him as one of their favorite members of the Firm, today, it’s 11%.

The palace got into a dreadful panic yesterday after pictures of Prince William at his RAF base were released showing details  of his co-workers logon IDs on computer screens in the background.

This prompted the Royalist to study the backgrounds a little more closely. And look what we found! This picture of the Queen and Philip pinned up on the noticeboard behind William as he has a mug of tea, next to a container of roach killer.

And, upon enlargement by the Daily Beast's photo team, we can even see that a SPEECH BUBBLE has been stuck into Philip's mouth! What is William's famously outspoken grandfather saying? I do hope the workmates of the heir to the throne are not MOCKING the MONARCH!!

Well, there are no topless shots, but what did you expect?

As part of its PR drive to launch their new website - which has already informed us that Prince Charles does not demand seven eggs be boiled for his breakfast and just eat one, that Camilla will never be queen and accidentally disclosed the passwords of William's RAF pals - the palace today released these pictures taken by Kate during the royal tour in Borneo.

And what do we think?

Earlier today Prince William’s press team published a series of ten photos showing Prince William’s working day as a search and rescue pilot at RAF Valley. The pictures showed him engaged in tasks such as making the single bed he sleeps in at the base when he is on duty, chatting to his mates and sucking a Biro as he peered intently at a computer.

The pictures were published as part of a PR drive by William’s team to promote the young royals new website – but alas the exercise has now ended in farce after the Ministry of Defence was forced to reset user names and passwords used by its staff on computer systems which were visible in the background of the shots.

St James’s Palace has now said that, amazingly, an "administrative oversight" led to the series of 10 candid shots published before they had been cleared by the MoD.

The palace have released a set of pictures of Prince William - now officially the UK's most popular royal - at work at his search and rescue base.

See the future king intently sucking on a Biro as he plans the day below.

Prince Charles recently stated on his new website that his wife Camilla will never be Queen, taking the title of Princess consort instead on his accession to the throne.

But now the inevitability of Charles's coronation is being called into question once again, as a new poll shows that public support in the UK for Prince Charles is still declining, despite his intensive efforts to rebrand himself as a modern monarch in waiting, with just 21% of people now naming him among their two or three favorite members of the royal family in a new national poll. To make matters worse, his rating has actually slumped from 38% in 2001, suggesting that the Charles’s decade-long PR offensive has actually been counter-productive.

In a further blow for the monarch-in-waiting, just 2% of the public named his wife, Camilla as one of their favorite royals, shattering dreams that she may be taken to the hearts of the British people in the way Diana was. The rock-bottom rating may also go some way to explaining why Charles recently publicly stated on his website that Camilla will never be Queen.

An Australian gossip mag is reporting that Kate Middleton is pregnant, citing as their source one of Kate’s ‘oldest friends’, Jessica Hay, who tells New Idea that her old school pal Kate has ‘wonderful, happy news’ to share, ‘with next month tipped as the deadline for the revelation’ that she is pregnant.

But don’t get too excited, as Miss Hay may not be the most well-informed of sources.

She is the ‘best pal’ who claimed that Kate had posters of William on her bedroom wall at boarding school – a story categorically denied by Kate on air in her engagement interview, and Hay was also behind a bizarre story, subsequently withdrawn, that Kate had faeces smeared on her bedsheets as part of a bullying campaign.

Prince Charles has agreed a secret out-of-court settlement with a former butler who claimed he was unfairly dismissed, reports the Daily Mail.

Under-butler Grant Harrold claimed he was forced to quit his £24,000-a-year job looking after Charles and Camilla  last year. He refused to go to work for them at Clarence House, their official residence in London, after claiming he suffered panic was said, caused him to suffer panic attacks when he was in a big city.

Mr Harrold told the Mail that while he could not discuss details of the case, he wanted to make clear that he had the highest regard for Charles and Camilla personally.

Since the conclusion of his action against the royal household he has started his own business, Nicholas Veitch, which organises fine dining events, etiquette dinners and butlering tuition.

Naomi Watts, the star of a new film about the last years of the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, has said she hopes the new movie, which does not yet have a release date, will not upset Princes William and Harry.

"Is it going to open it all up again? We’re certainly not trying to upset the boys, though they’re men now," she told the Daily Mail referring to Princes William and Harry. "I hope they’re OK with it."

"Diana" - the film was originally title 'Caught in Flight' - focuses not he last two years of the Princesses life, and, in particular, her affair with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. In many ways they were the most 'showbiz' years of her life, as, freed from royal protocol by her divorce to Charles, she went out of her way to promote herself in the service of her charitable endeavors, particularly the anti-landmine campaign.

Fantatsic news for classic automobile-loving Royalists - the Queen's old landrover is up for sale.

They were the naked pictures of Prince Harry that went around the world in a matter of hours on the internet – but that the once-fearless British press were too frightened to publish.

Even the soaraway Sun initially printed a mock-up of the photograph on its front page  before folding to public pressure and finally running the Harry photo a few days later – under the headline ‘Heir it is”.

Now the UK’s  Press Complaints Commission (PCC), the U.K’s famously toothless self-regulatory press watchdog, has issued fresh guidance on using photos posted on social media – and its just as out of date, vague and jargon-filled as long-time fans of the PCC would expect.

The PCC said the publication of the shot of the Prince partying hard in Vegas "raised an issue that has been growing in importance with the increasing use of social media as a means of communication by the general public and as a journalistic tool," and said they would produce guidance designed to provide practical advice to editors and journalists "when considering whether or not to publish material that has entered the public domain."

Just when Harry thought it was safe to come back from the war, a former model who claims she was one of Harry's Vegas party pals on the night of the infamous game of strip billiards has said she is planning to write a book about her night with Harry - and she says she has more unseen photographs of the boozy Vegas Royal rager.

Celebuzz is reporting that Carrie Reichert, a former beautician from San Diego, is planning to write a “steamy” account of her 20 minutes alone with the prince in his hotel bedroom.

“Carrie’s journal is being turned into a book and it will answer the question once and for all: did she have sex with the prince,” Celbuzz reports an insider saying. “The book will blow the lid off exactly what happened.”

Reichert, who says she is 32, but, according to police records, is 40, told British tabloid The People: “We kissed, he was naked at the time and pretty open. It was a drunken fumble. It wasn’t romantic, just fun. He was a gentleman, but he was so wasted. The alcohol affected him. I was there for 15 to 20 minutes.”

Kate Middleton’s favorite beautician, Deborah Mitchell, is in New York today, launching her ‘Black Label Bee Venom Mask’ at fancypants uptown apothecary Clyde's on Madison Avenue.

The mask – made by using venom extracted from bee stings (no bees are harmed in the process, Mitchell asserts) - was made famous when it emerged before the Royal Wedding that Kate was treating her skin with the $350-a-pot mask, on the recommendation of her step mother-in-law, Camilla Parker Bowles, who had been a Mitchell fan for many years.

It is sold under Mitchell’s beauty product brand name, Heaven Skincare.

Like all those who work with and around the royals, Mitchell seems permanently tortured by what she can and can’t say when the subject of her most famous customer comes up in a chat with the Royalist.