http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11765422

Best of luck, and don't we get a day off?

I did a quick google to see who she was, and found that "At the age of 29, as she will be by the time she marries, Kate Middleton will be the oldest spinster ever to marry a future king."

Apparently the youngest was "Isabella of Valois, who was aged just six when she married Richard II in 1396". I know they used to marry young, but that's seriously eye-brow raising.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... bride.html

Anyway, it seems a perfectly reasonable match. Good luck to them.

A day off would be cool.

Other than that, meh.

Coincidence? Bad economic state of the UK and a Royal Wedding? Same thing happened during the recession in the 80's.

Concentrate on other thing commoners, remember your place.

Perzackerly.

A quick cross reference I did this morning found that royal weddings coincide neatly with economic woes. Co-inkydink? I think not.

I think you could to be a bit less circumspect about motive and maybe cut the bloke a bit of slack. I do think there is a causal link, but I don't think it's as blatantly manipulative as that. It seems to me that William is in fact a pretty decent bloke and not as thick as he may appear to be. I'm certain that even if the economic situation is of no personal relevance to him he's aware of the state of the country and, whether you approve of it in principal or not, the fact is a royal wedding does give general morale a boost even if it only 'cos we get the day off work. I suspect he probably felt some pressure to do it now more so than he did say a couple of years ago, even above and beyond whatever personal motivations he may have.

Look, you're William, OK. You may not be king but by God you've been told from birth that one day you probably will be king. Therefore, you probably feel some responsibility towards the nation, even if in reality there's not a whole lot you can do about any of it. So if you've been thinking about getting married for a while and you've found the woman who you think is right for you, why not kill two birds with one stone? Get married to the woman you love, have a sodding great party and perhaps make a lot of people a bit happier for a little while, even if they have to deal with the real world again the day after. Is that actually so awful a thing?

Yes, it's essentially bread and circuses and they could just as easily elope to Gretna. But instead everybody gets a day off, they get a pretty bloody spectacular wedding day and it cheers a lot of people up a bit. With all due respect, you'd have to be pretty bloody curmudgeonly to consider that to be somehow something to complain about.

Having said that, the media as usual are their squawking worst. It's not something that needs scheduled programming to be dropped, extensive coverage and on the spot reports - headline news item, bit of analysis, maybe show the interview they've done int he second half of the news. How having Natasha Kaplinsky shivering her arse off in front of Buck House is contributing to the sum total of human experience escapes me.

Jon

Prince William to marry Kate Middleton; may I please be the first to say....who cares? Can we have a Republic now please?

+1

YAWN - back to Al Jazeera to find some real news.

I think it's pretty naive to assume that if we had a republic we wouldn't have just as much (and just as feverish) celebrity bullshine as this is. Just instead of being 'someone who was born into a particular family' it would be 'someone who was incredibly rich by some other means'. Put it this way - if we didn't have Prince William we'd probably have Paris Hilton, or some equivalent thereof. And when they announced their engagement we'd have all this media hysteria then. Only then we wouldn't get a day off next year.

Monarchy scmonarchy. I don't really care if it persists or not, they and I don't have any effect on each other's lives beyond the utterly peripheral. However I think it's a bit charmless to belittle a bloke doing something that will make him and his now fiance' happy just because of the position he's in, which in the end is not something he's had any say over anyway.
I don't give a damn about the throne, or the succession to it, or any of that. But I hope William Windsor and Kate Middleton live happily together for a long time and I'm looking forward to day next summer some time where I get a free day off and at least some people have a smile on their faces. And if you lot don't like it, well then you can go into work that day and be as miserable as you like.

Jon

? Where have you been for the last 9 years lol

Not reading gossip magazines or paying attention to things with zero consequence in my life..?

If she'd presented Scrapheap Challenge then I'd know who she is. I'm happy for them, but it's not like they're family or anything. It's got nothing to do with me.

Whilst I couldn't really care less about a Royal Wedding, I do feel sorry for the poor girl, does she *really* realise what she's letting herself in for?

And have the media learned anything at all since you-know-who's sad demise? The hysteria on the news tonight suggests not.

Yeah, I bet it's a weird family to be involved with.

If Charles had a sense of humour, he could kick in the bedroom door and claim ius primae noctis, just to freak her out.


They have gone a bit OTT tonight. It's making me feel a bit bilius.

* Googles that *

Well I would rather a constitutional monarchy than a republic. Imagine how insufferable Fat Dave will be then.