For several months now, newspapers and shops have been making a massive hoo-ha about the Royal Wedding. Kate and Will's faces have been plastered on all kinds of things, and we've been told that everyone is looking forward to it. But for the life of me I've have tremendous trouble finding anyone who gave two shits. Maybe it's the massive amounts of money being spent on the marriage of two people who have no real effect on the country whatsoever, but I started to get kind of annoyed at people telling me I should care when so few people I knew actually did.
But today was the big day. I was sitting around doing nothing in particular this morning when I saw the time was about 10:50 and I thought "Oh well, might as well watch it, I can't really make a proper review of it if I haven't watched it". So onto BBC1 I went. According to the channel info "The Royal Wedding" had been on since about half 8 that morning. I struggled to understand how they could stretch it on for that long seeing as people were only just arriving. But I soon found out. it was a constant slew of various presenters saying "Here is a person, they are wearing an outfit by such and such. Now they are entering a building. Here is a fun fact about this building." I can only assume that at some point during the morning there had been a ten minute report on how humid the air was outside. But I persevered, and carried on watching through the service.
It was standard, really. Exchanged vows, a couple of "I do"s and it was over. My thoughts about the occasion had not changed, in fact they were further confirmed. I found myself wondering why people were still acting like screaming idiots outside, why all the trending topics on Twitter were Royal Wedding related (although "QILF" was lulzworthy). I went onto news sites and was inundated by articles devoted exclusively to what each person was wearing, and my brain was still screaming "Who gives a shit?! Why do people care about people wearing clothes they will probably never be able to afford?"
The hats were all bloody ridiculous too. Most of them weren't hats more than they were abstract sculptures stuck on people's heads. But now I'd had enough, and it was time to go out anyway. my mother's street had decided to throw a street party, which I wasn't too keen on given my current opinion of the event, but there was gonna be a bouncy castle, and kids love bouncy castles, so off we all went.
Then things changed. Sure, it wasn't a traditional street party that you see in all the old photographs. There wasn't one massive table all the way down, it was more a higgledy piggledy scattering of people's patio furniture, and different bits of food scattered everywhere, random people walking around. But everyone was outside. People were talking. They'd brought all their toys out, someone had opened up their back garden for sack races. There was a marquee set up with absolutely craploads of cakes that people had made or bought. My mum's lived on that street for 23 years, and she was talking to people she'd never met before. It seemed everyone was talking to someone new at some point.
It may have been a Royal Wedding party, but all I heard about it were passing comments on how nice Kate's dress looked. Most of the conversation was just people talking normally as they would at any other party. People were having fun, enjoying their extra day off. At the end of the day I'd changed my mind. Sure, I still didn't care about two rich people I don't know getting married. And I'm sure most of the people out there today didn't either. But it was a reason to celebrate, and maybe we need that more than ever nowadays. Our country's been through some tough economic times where everyone's been really gloomy. What we really needed was a day with something to celebrate, and everyone was out on that street in full force. I can accept the never ending TV banter about outfits and old buildings if the event gives us a reason to just have some fun for once.
My rating: 4/5
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