hen Prince Harry was asked what he thought of his first official portrait, he jokingly replied that the likeness was accurate in all but one respect: it made him look too ‘ginger’. He then added he thought William had been given more hair. Hardly the most gracious response, but the young princes are famous for gently mocking each other in public. It is their way of putting people at ease and was certainly not meant as a criticism of the artist Nicky Philipps (see our interview on page 34).    Nicky painted Prince William two years ago when he had more hair and, despite him being sensitive about his thinning thatch, she certainly didn’t add any. It is unusual for sitters to be completely satisfied with their likeness in a portrait as they are used to seeing themselves as a mirror image or caught in a split second on camera, and it nearly always takes time for them to appreciate the work. I often wonder what the Queen thinks of her various portraits, especially the one by Lucien Freud. One of Freud’s sitters disliked his portrait so much he destroyed the canvas, but of course the Queen would never comment, even in jest.    The Prince of Wales continues to battle hard on issues close to his heart despite facing what he describes as the ‘unbelievable abuse that’s heaped on me every time I open my mouth’. His alleged dispute with architect Lord Rogers, who wanted to build a nine-storey block of flats alongside the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, one of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpieces, simmers on. The site remains derelict for now after the prince wrote to the investors, the Qatari royal family, saying he thought the design was ‘unsympathetic and unsuitable’.    Constitutionally there is no reason why Prince Charles can’t express an opinion, but of course his detractors jump up and down squealing every time he wields his obviously powerful influence. The prince’s latest idea is that bird boxes should be built on new houses on his Duchy of Cornwall estate. And why not? He has always had a passion for the natural world and wants to work together with nature. New houses have no eaves for birds to nest in and it is not an expensive or politically incorrect idea. Charles obviously feels unappreciated, so much so that he recently remarked that it would probably only be after his death that people would realise what he was trying to achieve.    Everyone loves to see the Queen travelling by train, but because of the prohibitive cost of the Royal Train she has for some time been using scheduled services, with a small first-class compartment reserved for Her Majesty and her aides. Historically the monarch and her immediate family used the Royal Train to get to and from Scotland or Sandringham, but in the last few years she has opted for commercial trains as a more economic method of travelling.    The Queen has, as always, a very busy spring and summer ahead of her, and after a visit to Canada in late June/early July she will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time since 1957.