Let’s get ready to royal!

Nope. No idea. Is that Ed Sheeran?

So, you’ve successfully set up home beneath a rock. Congratulations. You therefore haven’t heard anything at all about the forthcoming royal wedding.

For the rest of us, it’s been a pretty relentless week of news about Harry getting hitched. Mis-hearing it, I initially thought the 5th in line to the throne was preparing to marry Angela Merkel, which was somewhat surprising, as she’s already married (for starters).

But no, the bearded Prince is preparing to say “I jolly well do” to American actress, Meghan Markle. Just to put the icing on the wedding-cake of news overload that ensued following the announcement, the BBC website even has a running stream of updates featuring both actual news and fascinating insights and opinions on the hottest topic of the week.

In hindsight, I should have used some inverted commas around two of those items: ‘News’ is somewhat pushing it, when it’s basically the same bits of information endlessly re-played in slightly different ways. ‘Fascinating insights and opinions’ can only be considered true if someone drawing the happy couple in the dirt on the back of a van is your idea of interesting, you’re big into taking a royal wedding quiz to test your knowledge, or the fact that it was mentioned on Eastenders is the sort of thing that brightens your lonely existence.

By Tuesday, the excitement levels were really ramping up, with news that the wedding will take place at Windsor Castle, in May, hitting the headlines. Oh goody – it might coincide with my birthday!

There’s no actual date yet, so no doubt that will also be front page news. Probably followed by another round of media fever when they actually say what time, too.

Still, as the big day is only around six months away, it’ll give us plenty of time to revert to type and dig up as much dirt on Ms Markle as possible, talk endlessly about the wedding dress, go all weirdly xenophobic about the fact that she’s not British, discuss interminably who the bridesmaids will be, and start an office sweepstake on how long it will be before the next Royal Baby announcement gets Nicholas Witchell all over-excited and extra-fawning.

Sadly, one immediate disappointment of the forthcoming Royal nuptials has already been confirmed – Downing Street has said there won’t be a bank holiday to mark the occasion. Still, May already has a couple. Perhaps they could bung one in during July, as a special treat for all of us. We promise solemnly that we’ll stay in and watch the whole shebang again on TV, honest.

Right. It’s back to the Wedding feed for me: They’re going to visit Nottingham? Wow! Memorabilia companies are rubbing their hands with glee? Gosh! Some quite posh residents of Windsor have welcomed the news? Cor – I’d never have guessed! The American media are already calling her “Princess Meghan”? Hah! They’re funny!

On second thoughts, is there any space under that rock? Come and find me in June.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in The Mail, on the 1st of December 2017. The version used on their website was re-titled as "Right royal fuss over wedding"... dunno about the print edition, as it hasn't arrived yet!

The online version appeared in their Opinion section for the first time in months... presumably because I actually expressed an opinion about something for a change. I should try that more often. 

Which reminds me, I haven't told you about the big decision I mentioned a few weeks ago. That'll be because I haven't made one yet. As anyone who follows me on Twitter will have possibly spotted, I'm pondering giving up the column. Crikey, and all that...

(CD A-Z: The Best of Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime. And she was!)