EXCITED? NO, NOT REALLY

Gaaaaaargh! It begins!

Royal mugs

Already the fluff pieces are getting broadcast about the carriages and the cars that will be used for the Royal Splicing which is now

“less than a month away”.

“Excited?” says that ridiculously smug and over-indulged Breakfast TV presenter (who has, at least, had the decency to not move north with the programme causing huge sighs of relief on our couch at least…) as they cut back to the studio and already I’m screaming at the cloying hideousness of it all.

Or, when I boot up my internet, the headlines are bustling with all kinds of guff like which fecking diet the Kate Hoozit relatives are on… Sheesh! Another four weeks of this kind of thing, and the inevitable post-splicing retrospectives… I may be getting through an awful lot of shiny discs over the coming month.

I really don’t know why the media have to transform themselves into this fawning, mind-numbing tailspin of coyness whenever one or other of the Royal household decides to get themselves hitched. Personally I’ve spent as much of my life as possible avoiding these Royal Weddings and I’m unlikely to suddenly find a fascination for the wretched things at any point during April. I clearly remember staying out of the way during the 1973 bash, because mum went next door to watch the whole thing on their colour telly, leaving me doing whatever it was I did when I was nine. The 1981 bash was spent driving around Derbyshire with my sister in her little blue Mazda just desperately trying to not have to deal with the whole tiring spectacle. The rest, happily, I’ve managed to avoid completely and have no memories of at all, and I have no recall of the various plantings either, having happily gone about with my business as “the nation” (i.e. everyone else it seems) mourned.

I’m told that the Gods no longer walk amongst us.

Many believe that they never really did and that the Gods of Greece and Rome, Zeus, Thor, Jupiter and the rest were just figments of a primitive imagination, not like our modern Gods who are, of course, much more the genuine article. Also, the days when Emperors, or other authority figures in powerful positions could declare themselves to be Gods and the people would go along with it are thankfully behind us…

Or are they?

The odd tabloid (and the odd drunk, if the two aren’t too dissimilar…) like to declare the occasional ballgame player to be Gods of some description, and certainly, with the language they use, you might well think that when Prince What’s-is-name and Kate Thingummy announce to a less than stunned World that they’re getting hitched, then some kind of pronouncement from the almighty has just been bestowed upon we humble mortals, that the Gods are once more causing the heavens to tremble as they plight their mighty troth.

All this fawning and gushing media really does make me nauseous, and that’s really not the worst of it. There are then also the various descriptions of Kate What’s-er-chuff in the same terms as if she was some kind of breeding mare, and sometime in the very near future I fully expect to see a news report on the viability of her uterus, probably with a live camera set up inside it and possibly with Nicholas Witchell up there with it as well, if they (if you’ll pardon the expression) had their way.

To hear people talk as if these people are their very close confidantes is quite simply bewildering as they spend their time assessing the (soon to be) Royal filly. She’s getting “too thin” or she’s “too common” because she is apparently the first “normal woman” to enter the Windsor fold, which presumably in comparison to all the freaks and weirdos they’ve previously tied the knot with, who the media have told us in the past were so in touch with the ordinary people of the country.

You don’t really know what any of them are like behind closed doors, you media morons, and you never will. Not really, because, no matter how much you pretend to be on first name terms with them, you will never, ever, ever truly know what’s going on, just like none of us ever really know what goes on at number 29 (or wherever) once they’ve closed the front door on the rest of the world. It’s all just idle speculation with a huge spoonful of smugness thrown in and is truly, truly hideous.

So, what does getting hitched to an eligible Prince get the average unemployed graduate these days? Well, you apparently lose the right to the name everyone knows you by, you lose the right to vote or run for high office, and you’re no longer able to basically act like yourself in public. Your every move out of doors will be scrutinised by the international news media, and, if you know what’s good for you, you’d better not start any flirting with any of the burly young soldier boys and bodyguards that swarm about the various palaces. Apparently even a game of Monopoly, a bowl of prawns or being allowed to eat your dinner more slowly than the grandmother-in-law is not allowed any more once those vows have been exchanged, the rings slipped onto the fingers and the whole wretched alliance is consummated (thankfully not - as yet - to be broadcast live to a breathlessly waiting nation).

In return for this you get a certain amount of historical immortality, are set up for life in various big houses, get to breed for Britain (whether you like it or not…) and spend hopefully most of the rest of your days with the multimillionaire possible “love of your life” unless he goes off you and invokes a little known inactive clause in the unwritten constitution and decides to lop off your head in the grand tradition of the post of King. Stranger things have been known to happen.

It’s all horses for courses, I suppose, and I guess that if a youngish couple can manage to find a bit of happiness together, then there’s at least some good coming out of the fiasco of this whole media circus, but personally, I’d run for the hills whilst I still could, if I were you…