They're everywhere. You can't escape them. People's opinions about the Royal Wedding are abound. You can almost physically pluck them out of the air, or try to bat them away like an irritating fly buzzing constantly around your head. Everybody's in on the act - even the ones who say they don't care. In fact, the ones who say they don't care are usually the ones who shout the loudest, all about how they don't care. But I have visions of these people sitting in on 29th April, having refused to go to the local street party and channel-hopping fruitlessly before admitting defeat and settling on the wedding just as "something to have on in the background". That wedding'll get all of us eventually. Even those, like a friend of mine, who have opted to spend the wedding weekend in France as a sort of protest move. But they'll be back home by Monday....just about right for the Daily Mail's full in-depth dissection of Kate's dress and the national outrage generated by someone on the bride's side of the Abbey wearing something from TK Maxx.
There was a programme on last night, called 'Meet the Middletons'. You could almost hear the bottom of a barrel being scraped as the preview clips were shown last week...in which a fat woman with dyed red hair said she was going to ask people to curtsey to her from now on (here she misses the subtle but all-important elements of context and relevance) and an old woman staring into the pages of a magazine and spluttering about how she likes Harry..."he's a lovely boy" she said, as though she spent every Wednesday night reading him bedtime stories. It turned out that most of these family members had never met Kate Middleton, let alone realised they were related until they'd been told they were by the TV company. "We'd better be invited to the wedding!" spluttered a heavily tattooed fifth cousin thrice removed, and I don't think she was joking. In fact her tone was slightly threatening. I have a premonition of her storming the Abbey in badly-fitting Primark on the day, demanding she be let in so she can sit next to Victoria Beckham and chat about what it's like to be a mum-of-four. That TV company doesn't understand what sort of Pandora's Box they've opened.
But I have to admit to loving all the merchandise on the market. Despite this being the age of the internet all the stuff is endearingly old-fashioned; tea towels, mugs, china, stamps and coins. Fairly standard stuff, although there are a few little gems here and there, such as the 'Sylvanian Families Wedding Collection' which depicts Kate and William as furry dormice and the Archbishop of Canterbury as a stripy-tailed weasel, and a 'Special Royal Wedding CD' featuring '16 classical tracks the couple might be listening to at their wedding!'. I love that as a tagline, because it's obvious the record company have no idea what the couple have elected to listen to at their wedding. They could have said the same line about a CD full of tracks by The Prodigy and Bros (why didn't they - it would have been far more fun).
Anyway, I've been invited to a street party on 29th April, but I won't be going to it. Not because I'm a die-hard republican, but because I don't really know my neighbours and I'm not interested in making small-talk with them about what a shame it is that Princess Diana didn't live to see her son get married and how cheap the boxed wine was when you bought it in bulk (most of my neighbours are over fifty; these probably will be the topics of conversation). But I probably will watch the wedding on the telly, no doubt accompanied by some very un-Royal snacks and drinks, before going out later that evening to an over 30's disco. Never let it be said that I don't know how to spend a Bank Holiday.
No comments:
Post a Comment