The Royal Wedding

It was quite spectacular, wasn't it. The bride looked beautiful and the groom's smile as his bride came down the aisle was full of emotion - all just as it should be. I confess that by the time of the great day I was just about royalled out. Not that I didn't wish them all happiness. Of course, I did and do wish them that - and I enjoyed watching a happy couple making their vows. What was driving me nuts was the media driven hype. The inane commentary and the pursuit of every sniff of scandal appalled me. Why we - and as consumers of this stuff we, the public, are complicit and just as guilty as the media - feel entitled to pry into private matters I do not understand. Personally I am not interested in anything that is private unless it affects the public good and is therefore in the public interest and I avoid gossip about the famous - which includes the royal family - at all costs.

Because of that I tried very hard to avoid the hype. I was not very successful. If it wasn’t programs about the various royals it was advertisements for those programs and the forthcoming wedding or hordes of reporters - and I use the term reporter loosely - descending on the UK in search of a story, any story (like those wandering around London with a couple of unconvincing royal impersonators - really) and not so much reporting as making desperate attempts to fill their programs or other media with something, anything, however irrelevant. When I mentioned this on Facebook some folk assumed I was anti-royal and that’s not the case. I really have no problem with the royal family. The British model of a constitutional monarchy seems to work very successfully and I admire the Queen greatly for the way she has carried out her obligations. Personally, though, I think it seems a pretty thankless task and all the designer clothes, jewellery and palaces would not compensate for the lack of a private life. It’s certainly not a job I’d like.