Anyone For A Polo?

Notes On the Royal Wedding From Our Man On The Sofa with a Scotch Egg and a Six Pack of Budweiser


This royal wedding was like a Polo mint. It was a wedding with a hole in the middle. A huge hiatus between the civil ceremony and the service in the chapel.
For the guests, it must have been like a cricket match: lots of sitting around with nothing much happening.
You could have run several Grand Nationals across those rolling, empty acres of television time. But instead we had what seemed like hours of studio chat and ogling at the guests arriving at the chapel.

Dermot Murnaghan asked Richard E. Grant if he'd ever "seen Charles and Camilla in action." Not so long ago it would have been left to the viewer at home to snigger at this but the whole studio erupted in laughter. There's no respect these days.

Talking of which, there was some booing as the couple arrived at the Guildhall. A jazz band playing 'Congratulations' very loudly had been placed there to cover this eventuality. Penny Junor was deeply shocked. But if booing was good enough for Queen Victoria then it was good enough for Camilla.

David Frost arrived at the chapel in a grey morning suit and........white socks! I've always been told that white socks are a Fashion Crime, which is why I sometimes wear them. But Sir David, a vicar's son, should really know better.

Michael Howard was sporting a bright pink tie. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yes, it must be true. The Tories are chasing the votes of gay peepil.

We discovered that Rowan Atkinson does as much gurning in real life as when playing Mr Bean. Unless it's a spontaneous reaction of his facial muscles when cameras are around.

The chapel guests were provided with a Park and Ride service and ferried to the chapel in coaches. Dermor Murnaghan wondered if they were cracking open cans of beer and singing rugby songs. Only on Prince Harry's coach, Dermot.

Apparently St George's Chapel is technically known as a 'Royal Peculiar'. However peculiarity is a characteristic of all things Royal, not to say outright barminess.

Inside the chapel, Tony Blair had been placed in the choir, right next to the youngest choirboys, the reasoning being perhaps that he had got on terribly well with Little Ant and Dec last Saturday. Plus, if any of them started monkeying around, Cherie would say "Shut it, soft lad!" or possibly bite their heads off.

From the Royal stalls, Prince William blew a kiss to somebody. Will we ever find out who? Please God it wasn't one of his cousins or one of the choirboys. Mind you, unlike rival soaps, the Windsors haven't yet given us incest or paedophilia and they're rapidly running out of alternative storylines.

Forgiveness was a dominant theme of the service but this didn't extend to poor Fergie who, unlike her children, wasn't invited.

The leg of an unseen woman had a starring role as the service began. She'd dropped her hymn sheet in the aisle and desperately tried to retrieve it by extending her leg and kicking it with her foot, like Wayne Rooney dribbling through the six yard box in court shoes.

Rather tactlessly in the circumstances, The Archbishop used the phrase 'for richer, for poorer.'

The previous Archbishop, George Carey, read from the Book of Revelation. The Royal Family breathed a sigh of relief when this turned out not to be the one written by Andrew Morton.

There was a sung Russian Creed. It wasn't 'from each according to his means and to each according to his needs.' But it was easily the most beautiful few minutes of the entire day.

The final hymn was 'Praise, My Soul, The King of Heaven.' Or perhaps, if you're British Royalty 'Praise My Soul, The King of Heaven.' (Punctuation joke).

As Charles and Camilla walked back down the aisle women's heads bobbed up and down faster than an intern's in Clinton's White House.

The Queen couldn't have been back in her car and off - or orrff - any faster if she'd had a firework up the royal arse. But of course the Grand National was due to start soon.

Poor Camilla hasn't yet learned that you don't wave to the crowd with your bouquet as though you're trying to flag down a passing minicab in Balham High Street.

Close-ups from the overhead camera showed Camilla had a slightly low-cut dress which revealed a glimpse of wrinkled bosom looking, to my untutored eye, like an old man's scrotum.
But with Joan Rivers attending the reception, I can safely leave breasts and bollocks in her capable hands. Right now I could murder a cup of tea.