Kate played ‘brilliant waiting game’

by Allison Pearson, The Daily Beast

NEW YORK -- Here comes the smart, sexy, grocery-buying, blessedly normal commoner who could save William—and the royal family. In this week's Newsweek, Allison Pearson offers an intimate look at the unconventional royal couple.

When Catherine Elizabeth Middleton marries Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor in Westminster Abbey on April 29, she will be scoring a number of firsts. Kate will be the first royal bride to have a university education, the first to live with her husband before marriage, the first to have a mother who used to be a flight attendant, and the first queen of the realm to have fallen over at a roller disco in a pair of yellow hot pants.

Over eight long years as William's girlfriend, that roller-rink tumble is one of the very few times she put a foot wrong. Far from lowering the tone of the monarchy, the middle-class girl who endured the longest job interview in history could well save it, Allison Pearson writes in this week's Newsweek.

Catherine Middleton is the eldest of three children born to Michael, 61, and Carole, 56, a former British Airways officer and flight attendant who made their fortune when the driven, immaculately groomed Carole set up a mail-order