So... Another Royal Wedding.

Front the start of this blant, let me make one ting abundantly clear: I am a loyal Subject of the Crown and an ardent Monarchist; I swore an oath to that effect as well, when I joined the Territorial Army many years back.

Indeed, all British servicemen and women, regardless of their being regular or reservist, swear such an oath. Many of us take that oath to mean a great deal more than the words that we repeat and swear to uphold, even after our service comes to an end, but that's another thing altogether, for another time and probably another blant.

So. Another Royal wedding. Is it me, or is this interest in things Royal somewhat unsettling?

Yes, they're in the public eye. Yes, I suppose that you could make the argument that as they, in large part, are paid from our taxes as members of the Civil List, then we should know more about them than, say, a rock star, or Big Screen Film Actor, for example. But, consider this: we are not citizens as another European country might view the status. We are Subjects of The Crown. As a result, we do not have certain rights that say a Dane might take to be his or her birthright.

But then again, if you or I were put to the kind of scrutiny that they suffer, every day, with paparazzi dogging your every move, with the tabloids printing all manner of rumour, innuendo, and outright lies about us, wouldn't you want to provide some sudden kinetic impetus to their noses (or more sensitive parts, come to that) to strongly encourage them to depart, stage left, rather rapidly, if not sooner, and to not come back?

Of course you would. Don't kid yourself that you wouldn't. It's human nature to tell a busybody to go and poke off (for want of a more colourful and unprintable turn of phrase on here), after all.

Frankly, the idea of such scrutiny, and public demand for such scrutiny, makes me fairly disgusted at those who want such material. In my view, they're little better than stalkers, and we all know what those lunatics can wind up trying to do.

Anyhow, the Royal Wedding that I remember the most clearly, that of Prince Charles and the then (and now late) Lady Diana Spencer, was thirty years back, near as wotsit.

I wasn't in the least bit interested in it. I was a young man, not even remotely interested in getting hitched, let alone watching some other poor sap getting hitched on live telly, and, remarkably, I, with my family (I was in my late teens then) had somehow managed to arrange to be out of the country when it all came off (so to speak).

We were in Canada, to be exact, on a once in a lifetime family holiday. We spend close to a month in that wonderfully sensible land, with those remarkably sensible people, enjoying their wonderfully generous and sensible hospitality, and by God, a great holiday it was.

Of course, being as there was also a Royal Wedding occurring, there was much speculation and discussion about it all (as has been with the current one today between Prince William and Miss Middleton), but back then, we naively thought, naaaah, not over in Canada too.

So, the first morning, what did we find on every bleedin' telly channel in the hotel in Edmonton the morning after we landed?

Yep. You guessed it. The Charlie & Di roadshow.

On ALL THIRTY bleedin' channels ?! Aaaaaaargh! Gawd, it was almost enough to drive a man to drink ;-) We'd forgotten that major swathes of that great commonwealth country were more British than the folks Back Home, if you follow my drift ;-)

Anyway, we got through it, in the end, by ignoring the darn thing. We just turned the telly off, and had a walkabout in Edmonton instead. Much more productive, that :-)

So. This time around, I have the luxury of being nowhere near a telly set. I'm working instead. Not exactly what I'd had in mind, but close enough.

Everyone else will, I sincerely trust, be glued to their tellies instead, thus keeping the roads clear for me :-)

Well, one can live in hope, can't one? ;-)