It isn't the most popular view amongst my friends, who have in recent weeks mostly been revealed to be spitting Republicans, but a) I'm looking forward to watching the wedding tomorrow, and b) I don't consider the Royal Family as a parasitic drain on our taxes.
Yes, the Royal Family is an anachronism, but it's an endearing one and to me it perfectly showcases the slightly mad and idiosyncratic nature of our nation, that we still have this collective of rich people in palaces for us all to look at. But then even republics have such a collective - the Americans had to invent Hollywood for their one, and deep down inside they know it's a bit rubbish. The most glittering Oscar-red-carpet coverage fails miserably in comparison with pictures of Camilla Parker-Bowles going to the hairdressers in preparation for the wedding (here you've got to love the Daily Mail, who printed a picture of the salon and reported it with a caption stating 'Camilla must have been relieved to have had a nice trim and to get those noticeably grey roots touched up'. Bless). That's no mean feat, and besides in two thousand years' time will there be any David Starkey-style documentaries all about the dynasty of Tom Cruise? (OK, bad example - but the E! Channel's 'Worst Mistakes of Ancient Hollywood' hour isn't going to count).
Dare I say it, but I find the British Republican argument a teensy bit dry and self-righteous. I don't want a sanitised President-Cameron-led country. I don't mind that the Royal Family don't appear to do much these days other than get photographed at Ascot, or meeting the commoners at a boat launch. For some mad reason or another, pictures of them always make me smile a bit. Like it or not, they're a uniting force as well, even to the die-hard Republicans of Britain, simply because you can't escape them, nor fail to acknowledge that the story of our Kings and Queens over the centuries is a rich and remarkable one, even if it is a bit blood-soaked and potty in places (to get a real, entertaining and funny flavour of the whole thing, I would heartily recommend one of my favourite books; John O'Farrell's 'A History of Great Britain - 2000 Years of Upper-Class Idiots in Charge' which is written in a way that makes everybody seem wonderfully human - even the syphilitic misogynist Henry VIII - and is so very much better than any of the dry history books I read at school. But anyway...)
When I see the news reports of all those people from all corners of the globe camped out at Westminster Abbey, I think it's bloody great. Do I think they're mad? Oh yes. But though I'll be watching the wedding from the comfort of my own home with a box of flapjacks and a vat of gin, I think I might actually be with them in spirit.
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