I have spent the week being entirely nonplussed. Going to work, meeting people who are going to have parties, passing villages which are going to party, in short they're at it like rabbits.

I wake up this morning and the breakfast news is awash with wedding. so much so that the frankly terrible news that some 300 Americans have succumbed to murderous weather, is scarcely mentioned. I might party myself later.

It's all a mahoosive distraction from all the bad stuff going on in the world. I said as much when they announced the engagement last year. Bread and circuses.

Don't worry about jobs, the economy, education, that we're dismantling the NHS and the welfare state - none of that matters because we're going to use your taxes to pay for a fairytale wedding for two rich people and all their hangers on. So, just doff your forelocks and cheer as your lords and masters show you how to behave. Oh, and have an unpaid day off as well, so you can celebrate in the streets.

That's got that out of my system. Now on with the job of ignoring the whole circus for the next 24 hours.

My gf is really into the wedding, thank the gods she's at work today.

It's all good stuff imo, about time we had a bit of happiness about the country.

Yeah, like we can afford £5,400,000,000 to throw at a wedding in these straitened times. That makes me happy.

Money (lots) can buy happiness.

my day off is paid

You are lucky, then. A lot of folk are having to take it as part of their annual leave, or not being paid.

To be honest, the whole media circus over this event has turned me republican.

It's good to see some joy through the gloom of life. It gives you a glimmer of hope with good decent people together enjoying a celebration instead of the results of misery normally across the news and filling our lives

Enjoying and getting excited about it are fine. In fact I like that people can still get excited about such things, but don't shove your stinking happiness down our throats 24/7 … I'm looking at you, media outlets.
It's a wedding. Great. Good. I hope the couple are happy and spend eternity together.
Now STFU about it.
It's happened. Get over it. Move along.

Mark

That's what I think too, but some people are just sad f*ckups who will bitch and moan at everything, whether good or bad.

Everybody complains at the money spent on the wedding but every tom dick and harry blows their cash on £500 phones, tablets, designer handbags, hd tellies and other tat they will make them happy for first few days, blow £££ every Friday down the pub getting off their face drinking their health away and then complaining that they have no money left.

If they can't enjoy four-day weekend followed by a three-day week and another four-day weekend, I feel sorry them. Just go and shoot yourself in the head because you a miserable twat who will be unhappy until he dies...

If you don't like reading about it then don't. You don't have to read that page in the newspaper, you don't have to click the link on the website. Don't turn your telly on and listen to a cd instead of the radio. And if you do then don't bitch about it because it was your choice to do so. How hard is it really?

Rant over...

I've been pretty bored with what I've seen of it all so far apart from the flypast, but the bit I've just seen with the pair of them driving away from the palace reception in a car (admittedly a rather nice 1970's Aston Martin) with balloons & 'L' plates tied to it was.. a nice touch. Somewhat humanising after all the pomp & circumstance. I've always though the likes of the Dutch & Scandanavians had a much better model of modern royalty than we do and something like that gives me just a little but of hope that that's where we're headed towards.


EDIT : extra interesting bit from the official site (yes, the wedding has an official webite; HRH gets into the 21st century eh?)



Blow me, that car's as old as I am. Maybe that explains why it was moving so slowly... It refers to 'the Duke' as apparently they are now officialy The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge. Not sure what St Andrews University will think about that .

Jon

Amen to that koli

I watched it, I had a tear in my eye at certain points, I enjoyed it and I'm not ashamed to say it. It was a beautiful and majestic celebration of joy and romance watched by hundreds of millions of people. Even the Queen thought it was amazing.

Frankly it was nice to have something happy on the TV - I have got so goddamnably sick of wall-to-wall misery. Why the hell should everything have to be so f***ing cynical all the time? It's never an issue when there's an endless trail of inaccurate, blinkered, fear-pumping Fukushima pseudo-science or heavily biased Recession propaganda. Oh that's okay isn't it? It's about something negative so it must be good.

And people attempt to disguise their bile by saying things like "we can't afford it". Well firstly this one event has attracted millions of tourists and will have brought billions of pounds to the economy - we, as a country, will have made a vast profit. And secondly, it's not the royals' fault that the economy is buggered; that's the fault of lazy politics, greedy banks and, primarily, f***tard-stupid Joe Public.

I don't like the complete a*se-gravies that are football, Formula One, Doctor Who and Torchwood. You know what I do? I don't watch them. There are plenty of media outlets not talking about the wedding, every TV has a power button and every house has a world outside it so if you don't want to watch you don't have to.


No.

Really?
Or were they tourists who were already in the country?
There's really no way to tell how many people travelled specifically from their home country to watch it.
As for the money they're spending, does it cover the money that's not being made by the various businesses who aren't trading today? April feels like it's barely spent any time in the office so far...

I've seen bits of it through out the day, mainly because my sister and her daughter have had it on apparently constantly.
Am I one of those people who'll wave a flag at a passing car? No.
Am I pleased that there are people who want to? Yes.