Allmenn tekst fra engelsk - 2011
Normality isn't what we expect from our monarchs
Without British Airways there would be no Kate Middleton, so it seems proper payback that the national carrier will be a leading beneficiary of her marriage to Prince William. Untold thousands will fly with BA to London from across the globe for the holy wedlock of Prince William and the lovely Kate. And many, many more will fly out of Britain to escape it.
Barring some heartrending split between this depressingly inoffensive young couple, we're stuck with months of mawkish drivel from determined royalists and vinegary carping from committed republicans.
The best I can manage concerns the most dramatic revival of something thought defunct since rickets. I refer to social mobility. Those who believed this fuddy-duddy notion had been canned in the dustbin of history will rejoice as they read voraciously about the future princess's antecedents. Her maternal grandfather was a builder in Middlesex, while her dad's dad was a pilot (not even, like William, in the RAF; a commercial pilot, if you please). As for her parents, Carole and Mike, they are now in trade (mail order, forsooth).
Does anyone really want them to be normal? Isn't the sole justification for the anachronism of monarchy the hilarity it induces ... the sense of affectionate bemusement caused by a set of mores, typified by William's father ringing Camilla from the honeymoon yacht within days of marrying his mother.
And these two do seem worryingly normal. Even from what infinitesimally little I know of Kate, I can't imagine her having the captain of the England rugby team smuggled into Kensington Palace in the boot of a car.
Ever since Prince Harry returned the swastika to the fancy dress hire shop, this family has wilfully abdicated its duty to repay the annual 14 odd shillings each of us gives it by amusing us with their nonsense. The Duchess of York tries, bless her, but her corkscrew spin to Eurotrash disgrace after a short-haul royalist flight made her an irrelevance long ago.
The Independent, 17 November 2010 (abridged)
