Friday 29 April 2011

Royal Wedding - exclusive live coverage!

My German dentist friend has just sent me the above photo, along with his wishes that I enjoy the weekend and the Royal Wedding which has brought it forward by 24 hours and is taking place as I write. I haven't yet worked out the relevance of the image in his Teutonic mind, but I hate to see things go to waste, so I am using it as a header to this post. I have heard of nightclubs where women entertain guests by blowing out ping-pong balls, and up until now have never understood the attraction, but thanks to this picture, all is now clear.

As I mentioned in a comment on the previous post, BBC's Radio 4 has live coverage of the wedding for a full three hours this morning, and the main commentator is James Naughtie - the Scottish presenter famous for making the "Jeremy Hunt the Culture Secretary" gaff a month or two ago. Within the first five minutes, he managed to describe the blue sash that Prince William (soon to be The Duke of Cambridge, btw) as a 'slash' which is British slang for urinating.

Shortly afterwards, one of the female commentators described Camilla Parker-Bowles's dress as a delicate 'ivory' colour, then - having obviously been advised that it would be unacceptably bad protocol for the step-mother of the groom to wear anything which could vaguely be described as a shade of white - admitted to being colour-blind and corrected her description of it as an extremely pallid and delicate shade of 'green'. I'll wait for the pictures before I make my own mind up, if they are not subject to a super-injunction.

Shortly after this, a male Royal Correspondent said, "Nobody but Her Majesty the Queen could get away with wearing canary yellow like that", or words to that effect.

The Prince himself is wearing the uniform of an officer of the Irish Guards, which - as well as being particularly striking with its tunic of red and gold braid all over the place - diplomatically settles a worrying dispute between the RAF and the Royal Navy as to which flag flies over Buck House on the great day. The Queen, being an old hand at settling these issues, made her eldest grandson an officer of the Irish Guards way back in February - wise old bird, if I may say so, Ma'am!

Miss Middleton (soon to be the Duchess of Cambridge, in case you hadn't worked that out) is wearing a dress designed by the woman who was chief assistant to Alexander McQueen - he who sadly committed suicide early this year - and is a delicate shade of ivory, like Camilla's (soon to be her step-mother, in case you hadn't worked that out) is not.

Right, I'm going to have to lower my voice now for two reasons - 1, the service has started and 2, the subject which I am about to broach is of a highly delicate nature. It is not done to discuss money at court.

Mr Middleton (the soon-to-be Duchess of Cambridge's father, in case you had forgotten - keep up) is a very wealthy, self-made man from 'common' stock, so you can imagine how absolutely delighted he was that his daughter was about to marry into Royalty and become the wife of the 3rd in line to the Throne of England, etc. In his own parlance, he was 'over the moon'.

What they didn't tell him was that - sticklers for tradition that they are - he would, as father of the bride, be footing the bill for the ceremony and celebrations, which include taking over the entire Capital for 24 hours, employing a large army to oversee the proceedings on horseback and rooftop, paying the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London (and they don't come cheap) plus the 150 piece choir, etc. - all followed by a ten-course banquet for 2000 guests. You should have seen the look on his face when they gave him the bill!

As I write, they have now been joined together as man and wife, and a ring made from a band of Welsh gold has been placed upon the finger. The choir is now singing 'Jerusalem', which was designed specifically to remind us that we are British, whether or not His feet did actually squash the daisies in ancient times.

Anyway, I'm going to slip out of a side door and take up position by the west front, so that I can get a good view of the exit. I'll keep you informed about the rest of the day later tonight - if I don't get toO drunk!

15 comments:

  1. Tom, I would have expected a guest post from Her Majesty here today - you surely have one lined up?

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  2. mise
    oh i am pretty sure that a few old queens will leave a message!

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  3. Why was Beatrice wearing antlers?

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  4. Cometh the hour, cometh the queen - thanks for filling the gaping omission, John.

    I didn't see any antlers, Sue, but I believe they are called 'fascinators'. Victoria Beckham wore a small blue hat which had been pinned to her head with a nail-gun, apparently.

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  5. forgive my french but Beatrice looked like a twat!

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  6. I thought that welsh gold ring was a bit stingy in size - for a moment I thought he was not going to be able to get it on her finger.
    Enjoyed the whole thing though - pue indulgence and my goodness what a lot of money for the fashion industry.

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  7. They're running a bit short of gold up in the Welsh mountains, Weaver. They have been panning for that much for about 3 years now.

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  8. I thought the wedding was nice, Tom, even if one or two people did make the odd gaff - it's all part of being human. And you've got to admit that Kate, her sister and her mother all looked absolutely stunning.

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  9. Yes, they scrub-up quite well, don't they, Moll?

    If you hold your cursor over the 'Google' logo which is a montage of the Royal do, you will see that they have misspelt her name as 'Catherine' - talking of gaffs.

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  10. I believe Yorkshire Pudding could investigate that ping pong ball thing, he's in Bangkok, where that show is put on nightly. Or so my son tells me. Everyone at work here this morning in Sacramento, California, is talking about your wedding. Many of them watched it in the wee hours of the morning. I've been reading about it on the internet. My favorite quote is about how Kate's dress was so "slimming." Hello? She IS slim. The inevitable copies of the dress that will show up on chubby brides the world over just won't look the same. How nice to have a happy event to talk about for a change.

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  11. I believe that when the Thai girls eject a ping-pong ball, Jan, it makes a noise very similar to your last name! How spooky is that?

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  12. I wonder who is responsible for that extraordinary edifice Beatrice wore on her head?

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  13. Wear a hat Beatrice; it might rain dear!

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  14. My hat off to Cro Magnon! THAT is funny!

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  15. Yes, Iris - he is averaging one joke like that per post these days - very good.

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