“Get out,” says Sophie Tanza-Quinn.
An American has just informed Tanza-Quinn — celebrating a friend’s birthday near Piccadilly Circus — that she traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to watch the royal wedding. “No really, get out, now, while you still can,” Tanza-Quinn says. “Run, Forrest, run.”
The Post
How did William and Kate meet? Which princess married — and then divorced — an Olympic medalist? Whose wedding gown was adorned with 20,00 pearls? Test your knowledge!
More Gene Weingarten
“I’m so tired of ‘Oooh, what’s Kate wearing? Oooh, Kate’s so pretty,’ ” says Dannielle Henderson, the birthday girl. “I guess she’s pretty.”
(Is she pretty? Earlier this week she was spotted out in London shopping and looked skinny. Is she too skinny? Entertainment Tonight polls celebrities at a fundraiser who look at pictures and decide she is just skinny enough.)
“And the Diana comparisons,” Henderson continues. She cannot stand the Diana comparisons. “There’s no comparison! She’s a completely different person! He’s not marrying his mother. If he were, that would be weird.”
For a moment, let’s just go there. Purge. Say every nasty thought that has crossed your mind.
William and Kate are just people, and William didn’t even do anything to get famous, he was born that way, and do you have any idea how much this wedding is costing the taxpayers, and shouldn’t the money be spent on better things, and doesn’t anybody realize there are wars going on?
Thirty years ago when Diana got married, royal weddings and all they entailed — the 25-foot train, the horse-drawn carriages — were reserved for royals. But now that every bride on TheKnot.com expects no less, is there still a need to watch the real thing? Just look how excited we all got about Diana, and look how that marriage turned out. Fool me once, royals . . .
Feel better?
It actually makes sense that some Americans embrace the wedding more readily than some Britons. For Americans, the concept of the royal family exists on an abstract plane, bordering between endearing antiquity and fairy tale, as if Kate Middleton could sit down for tea with Cinderella and Rapunzel.
Britons deal with the reality of royalty, and all the complicated questions that surround it — whether the family is a cost or benefit, whether the practice represents worthwhile tradition or moldiness.
Weddings are always stressful for the participants, and in this case the entire country is a participant. Tensions might be the slightest bit high.
“You [Americans] had your whole revolution to get rid of them!” bellows Michael Urwin, who owns a pub in central London. “And now you want them! Take them! Just take them!”
“Every time you look around there’s a new mug, or a tea towel, or they’re talking about upgrading the telly to HD just so you can watch it,” says Urwin’s friend Paul Kerney. “Why don’t they upgrade for something I actually care about? Something I actually care the least bit about?”
Urwin and Kerney have decided to throw a party at Urwin’s pub, Buffalo Bar, on Friday. It’s called “[Expletive] the Royal Wedding,” and will feature performances by a band formed just for the occasion, which has named itself “[Expletive] Off, [Idiomatic British Expletive] Off.”
The band has a special anti-wedding set list prepared, ending with the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.”
“It’s going to be,” Urwin predicts, “our biggest night of the year.”
The Post Most: LifestyleMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments