Chez Spud

Despite my cynicism I watched the Royal Wedding. Well of course I did, it’s a moment of history and a spectacle of the sort that only comes along a couple of times in a lifetime. General musings…

• The country might be broken, but we really, really know how to put on a show. No country comes near us when it comes to pageant and pomp.
• Likewise, we are the best at choirs. In the Choir Olympics, we would take gold.
• Someone should hide Princess Catherine’s black eyeliner pencil and blusher.  Why does she trowel it on like that? She’s so pretty, she doesn’t need all that slap.
• Prince Harry was the only royal, other than the bride and groom, who really looked like he was enjoying himself. The rest of them looked utterly miserable. Apart from Zara Phillips and her giggles.
• The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres looks and sounds like God. I think they must has asked him to turn down The God today, because normally he BOOMS. I once listened to him give a sermon while a storm raged around the church. “I…am…JEHOVA!” he declared thunderously at one point, and with those words the wind whipped the doors of the church open and the congregation screamed. Ha.
• Loved the nuns randomly sitting up the front. They get everywhere. How freakishly tall was one of them?
• The Middleton siblings looked like they’d been tangoed. Fake tan anyone?
• The brother Middleton’s ponderous reading didn’t do it for me.
• John Rutter’s ‘new’ anthem sounds like every other anthem he’s ever written. I actually hummed along with ‘The Lord Bless You and Keep You’ and it fitted.
• Every choir in the country will be singing said new anthem at every wedding until the end of time.
• I wanted to adopt all the choir boys. And one or two of the the adults too.
• Loved how the Catholics were segregated and kept in little cubby holes, in case they tried anything. Disclaimer: I am a Catholic, I am allowed to poke fun.
• I wonder if Prince Harry will try it on with Pippa “Tango” Middleton at the reception. Oh, please let it be so.
• Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie…OMG…thanks for all the laughs. What the HELL were you thinking?
• Daughters of Earl Spencer…it’s a Royal Wedding…it’s not Ibiza.
• Posh Spice, jeez…cheer UP. So miserable and pouty faced. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so uncomfortable in their skin.
• I wonder if the Queen ever inadvertently sings alone with the National Anthem?
• Zara Philips is stunningly, stunningly gorgeous and her outfit was fantastic.
• Her mother’s? Not so much.
• The Bride and Groom really looked so happy. I ‘might’ even let Princess Catherine off for hanging around doing not very much for so many years.
• That said, she’s going to have to work on her ‘wave’. She looks like Barbie with a broken wrist.
• I bet Prince William missed his mum.
• The music was the highlight for me, absolutely outstanding. Interesting to chose a Methodist hymn though, how does that sit with being the future ‘Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England’?
• Why did the Queen have a blanket for the journey to the Abbey? And why didn’t it match?
• I hope that little bridesmaid that tripped over was ok.

I could go on. I really enjoyed it, I missed my Mum because she would have adored it and would have wanted to chew over every detail. I didn’t shed a tear until the Lancaster did its flyby. What is about a Lancaster that does that? It’s just a bit of machinery, just a plane.

But I can’t help it. Every time I hear that throaty roar I start welling up. She’s not that elegant, certainly not graceful…but she has a solidity and permanence that punches me in the solar…every single time.  A beautiful young woman in a white dress marrying her prince didn’t provoke a tear.  But that grand old lady of the skies…symbol of the many who sacrificed so much so that we stand free to wave our flags and belt out the National Anthem? Weep, O Mine Eyes…

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• Wherein I am totally apathetic about the Royal Wedding