I chose to work on the day of the Royal Wedding. I live with a Marxist intellectual for whom there is simply no debate about the having of a monarchy; any events with footmen, bearskins and carriages bring him out in rash and a rage which even the poking of fun at badly dressed princesses will not quell.
"So, you don't want to knock up a batch of fairy cakes so I can have the girls round to watch it?" I asked a few weeks before the big day. (His cakes are, I am loathe to admit, much better than mine. I think it's something to do with a superior confidence about timing, but, in these straitened times, the MOD might like to take me on in munitions; if anything would fell Gadaffi, my cupcakes are a cert.)
"No." He replied. "Frankly I have better things to do than create confection in celebration of a bunch of sponging German bastards. And you say 'have the girls round' but it'll be a street party before you know it and I, for one, am not spending the day being groped by local farmers' wives tipsy on warm chardonnay, in the name of community cohesion."
I got the message. I have seen him groped by at least one local farmer's wife behind the calving shed of a local dairy farm, his eyes wide with terror as she launched herself at him to the strains of 'You Saw Me Crying in the Chapel' sung by the bloke who hires out skips round here. I understood. This is not H E Bates territory.
"Ok, ok. But I think you're being churlish..." I ventured.
"I'm not being churlish. I just think that, in an evolved society, a monarchy is an anachronism. It doesn't make sense."
What can you say? Of course it doesn't make sense. But lots of things that bring pleasure don't necessarily make sense. Take the erotic dream I had on my ski holiday last month. Much to my distress it featured Ian Hislop and Boris Johnson. At the same time. Of course, I attributed it to altitude sickness - I don't go for gnomish, bald men or mop headed buffoons - but it's a perfect example of how something that is entirely illogical, repellent even, can bring a (very great) deal of pleasure.
"Eighty percent of Brits don't want the monarchy removed," I said.
"Then I share an island with fifty million people who ought to be more offended by their status than they are. That said, I accept the will of the majority whilst wishing it were otherwise. At best I am indifferent to the royal family. Make your own cakes."
In the end, I got the call to work, broadcasting essential updates about the Royal Weather to the south - open top carriage, or glass roof? Would the clouds keep their tears to themselves or shed them in a tribute to Lady Di, who unavoidably couldn't be there?
As I drove into work, I listened to the radio coverage, swapping between Radio 4 (James Naughtie speaking over Ed Stourton and clearly positioning himself as the voice of the royal gigs yet to come) and Five Live (lots of gushing along the route and fabulously trivial contributions from people in the crowd, all hosted by 'Nicholas Campbell'. 'Nicholas Campbell'? Perhaps he thought the princes were slipping into their strides with Five on in the background).
I was somewhere on the M27 when Julian Worricker, catastrophically unfit to report on the first glimpse of Kate by the hoardes along the Mall, was asked to describe the dress. Sorry, that should read: THE DRESS. The best kept secret, saving the honeymoon destination. The dress with which fashion writers across the planet had filled miles of copy even before a needle had been threaded. THAT dress, Julian.
"It's a long sleeved outfit... I think it's a V neck outfit."
Alexander McQueen would have hanged himself all over again. Nothing about lace or fabric or the rarely-seen tiara borrowed from HM. Or the striking similarity to Princess Margaret's 1960 wedding dress. And nothing about the expression on her father's face; no comments about how his career as cabin crew would have equipped him not only to keep his emotions under control but also to walk down the aisle without treading on anybody's toes (a fact nobody pointed out).
This is where the BBC needs to sort itself out. It's all very well having reporters dotted along the route, but reporters are used to reporting news. The fall of dictators, the collapse of economies, the hacking of phones; that they can do. But this wasn't news. It was a wedding. What Auntie Beeb needed was aunts. Aunts speculate, they criticise, they praise, they gossip, they romanticise, they bring up family secrets and things unspoken of for generations; they draw attention to visible panty lines and paste jewellery; they notice. An aunt, on seeing Elton John in the congregation, would have made a quip about there being more than one old queen at this wedding. An aunt would have commented on how tired he and David Furnish looked, but would have graciously balanced it with relief that there was no baby sick on their suits. An aunt would have hazarded a guess that David Beckham was regretting those tattoos on his neck, but added that Victoria was doing an heroic thing wearing those sky scraper heels in her condition. I'm an aunt. I know these things. Book me.
By the time I'd got into the BBC South newsroom, Kate was alighting from the Roller and smiling. Then Pippa was sorting out her dress, calculatingly bending down to trigger a global gasp in the tweetersphere in respect of her 'fine ass'. And, as Kate began her long walk away from freedom, I was hooked.
"Those eyebrows," I whispered to Jo, whose husband had pulled the plug out of the telly that morning, "those teeth... so beautifully captured in the parentheses of such charming dimples..."
And, as she (let's face it) led her father down to the balding bloke in scarlet, I exhaled in awe: "That is a girl who has seriously got her shit together." (Jim Naughtie eat your heart out.)
At a quarter past eleven I was obliged to phone into the BBC Weather Centre for the mid-morning conference where the big news was that the risk of showers that had threatened the Royal Happiness had been downgraded.
"Less than twenty percent now, I think," said Jay Wynne. A Royal Weather Person from another region suddenly made an involuntary noise.
"What? What is it?" asked an alarmed Jay Wynne who, professional that he is, clearly did not have one eye on the telly.
"He's struggling to get the ring on," I said. "And now he's offering to honour her with his body..."
"Oh," he said, distinctly unimpressed, and continued to confine the risk of showers to the coast.
Thankfully, the momentous balcony scene occurred between bulletins and I was able to enjoy to the full the chaste kiss which these days serves to indicate the consummation of the royal marriage. Back in Henry's day, the bride and groom would be sent off the bedchamber as soon as the ring was on, with clergy standing outside the door to confirm God's will was being done and the honouring with the body had happened. Which lucky BBC journo would be entrusted with coverage of that, I wonder?
Of course we are only interested in the kiss because our schools all have 'No PDA' rules (and if you don't know that PDA stands for 'Public Displays of Affection' you were never in danger of being caught in a game of playground Kiss Chase). No PDA along with the 'thirty centimetre rule' limiting the proximity of the opposite sex outside of the private sphere - these are the regulations that have made ours the uptight, sex obsessed, sensually retarded culture it is. Which is why we're so keen to see the kiss. We're actually waiting for a prefect to appear from behind the curtains and slam the miscreants in detention.
And so a youngish, baldish man kissed a pretty sorted and pretty, sorted, young woman and it was done.
I spent the rest of the day battling irrational jealousy of my girlfriends who were texting me updates from the royal wedding events they were attending:
'Anchored off Brownsea with prawns and Pinot! Is it gonna [sic] rain?'
'Totally hammered. Who said the civil list was a bad idea? lol '
'Look like Alice Cooper. Unfounded claims about this mascara. Keep crying!!!!!!'
To each I replied simply: 'Have Royal Wedding Envy. Do not disclose to husband. '
Eventually, I took my cue from the Duke and Duchess and left in an old car. Driving home I tuned in once again to Five Live where Drive were doing a round-up of the nation's street parties. They crossed to Paul Greer, live from Bucklebury's celebration where it seemed that the population of the village was intoxicated not only by the free flowing Jacobs Creek, but by the media attention they have clearly embraced.
"Is that it?" asked the professionally bouncy Asma Mir. "Is it all done and dusted?"
"Oh Lord, I really hope so," came a weary response from Greer.
It sounded as though Paul had taken one for the team. No doubt Bucklebury has its fair share of farmers' wives. You can have too much community cohesion sometimes.
A right royal laugh
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