Wednesday, April 27, 2011

One Had Me At Hello

Unless you have the cultural ignorance of a single mother from Canvey Island, you'll know that there is a little coming together on Friday. A wedding, and thank god, one that Hello Magazine hasn't been invited to.

...because thats all most of us are excited about right?

The wedding of Prince William and Kate (although it feels we are all contractually obliged to call her Catherine at the moment) Middleton is quite simply and in my opinion, fantastic. Who in Britain doesn't like a good wedding? One of our King's loved them so much, he had six of them. And tomorrow's groom is the son of someone who bumped off their own ex-wife just so he could have another wedding, therefore proving outright that the Monarchy loves a wedding.

Alright, maybe the evidence just presented does have a few holes in it, but still, in an age where weddings are about as fashionable as flare-ups and Nazism, its good to see the Royal Family showing us all how its done.

I know a lot of people who think marriage is dated and old hat. But as a particularly traditional soul, I see no problem with the art of getting married. Not only does it cement all those lovely values of love and happiness (debatable I digress) but it also means middle-aged women can go shopping for a lovely new hat that comes in a box bigger than Jupiter. And who am I to deny that?

But the Royal Wedding is a proper wedding. None of this half-arsed Camilla and Charles crap where the only smile you saw on Charles' face all day was when he was standing 3 inches away from Cam with a knife (bollocks it was to cut the cake, more like cut her face the scheming git).

The whole thing restores my faith in the British public as well. In a previous post, I had a bit of a rant about over-zealous patriots going bat-shit crazy over the national football team by displaying flags and painting everything down to their eyelids in the colours of St. George. But this is different. Whereas we're eternally hopeless at football, no one celebrates moments of national pride better than us Brits.

Take a look at the end of World War 2. How did we celebrate? Well, we had street parties, with tables longer than Jordan's dating record and the whole thing reeked of pride for our achievements. How did our allies celebrate? Well, the Russians raped and pillaged their way through east Germany, the Americans dropped armageddon on some Japanese and the Australians, ermmm....*realises personal knowledge of Australian history is limited so looks in the drawer marked 'stereotypes'* they probably had a barbecue on a beach.

But the point is, regardless of how much we criticise ourselves, British people are good at this stuff. While the cynicism instilled in us Brits wants there to be some kind of terrorist attack so we can all have a good moan about the police force and security, for once, there is an over-powering sense of being the centre of the world again, and as a result, should probably try and make sure it all goes down with minimal cock up.

Its going to be the same this time next year too, when the nations of Earth descend upon East London for the Olympics. Here again, we will see the people of Britain doing what the people do best. Which is pretend to be like the proud smug mum and dad of the cleverest kid in the class at parents evening, when really, you're still disappointed little Billy didn't get top marks.

There have been outcries of 'oooh Kate's far too common' and other protests of a similarly strange nature. 'Catherine' has parents who sit around all day in a £5million house. The only way she could be less common is if she slept on a bed of hippogriff feathers and was driven around by a steam-powered mechanical unicorn. Can you imagine the outcry if Harry got hitched to Chelsey? The Queen would probably think she was from The Only Way Is Essex (which we all know The Queen watches on a regular basis, or at leasts Sky+'s when she's out opening a museum or something).

And so as one sits here writing this totally unorganised assortment of words, you have to wonder if this is indeed it. Whether they'll live happily ever like Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty, or whether William will tell the Parisian taxi driver to go via a narrow tunnel when he's decided he's had enough of Kate being too poor. One's thing for sure, nobody is gonna give a rats arse about anything come Friday. As long as the dress is 'beyond stunning' and the camera shows the Beckhams smiling, us Brits would be quite happy for the world to end as soon as the happy couple disappear behind the doors of Buckingham Palace.

Which is refreshing to say the least.

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