I guess I have to be typical at this point and do a piece about the Royal Wedding. Ok, I can do that.
I don’t know a lot of people. I’d guess as a percentage, the number of people that I don’t know in the world must be well over 99%, almost nearly 100%. So, other than a general ‘hope’ or ‘wish’ that everybody in the world is ‘fine’ (because I’m a caring kinda guy) I actually have little to no interest in the people I don’t know.
And why should I?
Erm, I don’t know them, do I?
Indeed, were I to actually know the people who are starving or being badly treated or facing disasters, I would imagine I would be constantly consumed with pain and anguish as I would about something terrible happening to a member of my family, rather than generally just shrugging my shoulders about them as I do.
So then. Despite my incredibility, I have to say here that I don’t know any of the Royal Family. I know you may find that a shock, and will have assumed I am an integral part of their life, but to me they are just a rather privileged family that live certain aspects of their life in the public gaze, yet have nothing to do with me. Having said that, I’m not exactly an anti-Royalist. I’m sort of apathetic, reasonably content with them just being, on the whole, a living soap and tourist trap. As long as the money made exceeds the money they cost us, I’m sort of ok with that.
Look. Without the onlookers behaving with a frenzy about somebody they don’t know, TV shows like ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ couldn’t exist. I mean, think about it, it is slightly weird to want to be glued to the telly to watch somebody you don’t know and will never know getting a Million Pounds. Why on earth would anybody do that? Yet, it’s something we are programmed to do. We watch and become embroiled in their anguish, sadness or happiness. We do the same with fictional characters in books, films, TV series and soaps, and we do the same with the public aspect of the lives of our ‘celebrities’, our politicians and the Royals.
Hence why a not inconsiderable number of people will be glued to the live pictures of a wedding of some people they don’t know. Even more bizarrely, some will be holding street parties to ‘celebrate’ the wedding of some people they don’t know. Others of course, will be drinking heavily to toast the wedding of some people they don’t know. A lesser number will have sent cards or even gifts to the people they don’t know who are having a wedding they weren’t invited to.
Generally speaking, people, including those who ‘hate’ the Royals, will be emotionally responding to the occasion of the wedding of people they don’t know. The Royal Wedding Day will be an emotional one. Not just for those involved in the wedding, but for millions of people they don’t know.
It’s all a bit odd isn’t it? Why do we do this?
England's England 