More darstardly Republican thoughts

Note that I have decided to defer publication of this epic until after The Wedding!  That is not out of respect for that event, but to provide a one-stop shop for any comments about what might go on at the Event Of The Century.  It also seemed appropriate to issue it on May Day.

There have been several strands to developments, covered below.

The Doonesbury Straw Poll
What is the most interesting aspect of the Royal Nuptials?

• A:The irrationality. Clearly We the People have some leftover gaga genes that get turned on by royalty. Maybe it's the accent, maybe it's the national lineage. I just dig those people and their brand of Old School strange.
• B:The optimism. The Queen Mother (sic) presides over the longest-running reality-program ever, and the last few seasons have been rough, with marital drama, infideltiy and family dysfunction. I gotta say, the new Kate-William storyline rocks.
• C:The pageantry. The gown, the guests, the pomp. From the ceremony in Westminster Abbey -- with three clergymen, two choirs, a chamber orchestra and a military fanfare team -- to the ride in the gold-encrusted carriage, I look forward to taking in this Merry Olde spectacle. Sheer eye candy
  

An alert reader will have noted the reference to the Queen Mum.  I pointed that out to the Doonesbury Team and was rewarded with an email thanking me and describing it as a "Good Catch:.  They changed the reference .  That, and the results of the Poll as at about 6pm on 27 April are shown in this image.

The readership of Doonesbury  is obviously biased to the Western Shores of the Atlantic, but the proportion of folk ignoring the event is heartening!  Latest results should be available until the event is over.

Australian TV loses its brain

All the analogue stations (except SBS which ignores matters Pom - other than Soccer, where they disguise their true feelings by also covering Juventus) are devoting most of Friday evening to this.  The obvious solution was to watch ABC 2 where a 'different' commentary was to be given by the Chaser.  What follows comes from the Sydney Morning Herald. 

"The ABC's plans to have the controversial Chaser team commentate a telecast of the royal wedding has been cancelled on orders from Clarence House in London. In an unprecedented step, the palace, which serves as an office for the Prince of Wales and his son, Prince William, has imposed a ban on the broadcast because of perceived sensitivities to criticism."

"The Chaser's Julian Morrow said: "The Chaser team accepts that the ABC has been put in an impossible position by people acting on behalf of the Royal Family.

"For a monarchy to be issuing decrees about how the media should cover them seems quite out of keeping with modern democratic times .... but I suppose that's exactly what the monarchy is.

"It's traditional for the condemned to appeal to the Monarch for a stay of execution, so that's what we're going to do. Unfortunately, it's also traditional for people who appeal for clemency to be executed."

The Chaser's Chris Taylor said: "We've been taken off air before but never by the Queen herself. It's an honour."

The Chaser's letter to the Queen

Dear Australian Head of State,

We would like to place ourselves at your mercy and request a stay of execution for our television program, The Chaser's Royal Wedding Commentary.

We, like Kate, are commoners, and were looking forward to celebrating her wedding to your exalted grandson with a few affectionate observations.

To ensure that our coverage was respectful, we were only planning to use jokes that Prince Phillip has previously made in public, or at least the ones that don't violate racial vilification laws. We've also filmed a joke about hunting grouse which we think you might enjoy.

We Australians are a simple people who don't often get to watch that kind of pomp. The last big wedding we had here was Scott and Charlene on Neighbours. We've asked around, and there are at least six people in this outpost of your empire who would quite like to watch our commentary.
Please consider our plea.

We have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servants,
Cheers,
The Chaser
PS: How serious are you about treason laws?

Friday Night  ....

Our small dog - who counts a corgi amongst her friends - watched some of this.  She has been counselled.

So will be the turkeys in charge of TV transmission since we couldn't pick up 7Mate which was showing AFL but which we couldn't get.  (Update from the following morning: it seems to be a new Channel which our system hadn't logged in to.  Now fixed.  Since the new channel is apparently oriented at men - in itself something to turn me away - one would have thought that automatic updating would be desirable since the manual updating requires reading instructions.)  ABC2 seemed to be running a very odd British sitcom rather than repeats of the Chaser.  Pass.

I retired to bed at 8pm!

Good luck to the bride and groom, who both seem to be charming folk.  Pity he didn't choose his ancestors more carefully  Hopefully as he is now the Duke of Cambridge he can do something about the woeful street signs in that city.

... and Saturday Morning

Apologies to Alan Sillitoe and Albert Finney.  I am doing a check of a range of papers to see what they cover.  Thus far all, despite their range of political views (SMH, right wing; Granuida, left wing; NYT, correct wing) give a fair bit of play to the event.  The Grauniad includes a video of someone cartwheeling down the nave.  The comments on this included the following:

"This sort of thing could really catch on! I can only imagine the queue of would-be cartwheelers we'll see at Thatcher's funeral. My bet is that an underpants-free, kilt wearing Scotsman gets in there first."

Well said that person!  Interestingly, several comments have been removed as they don't meet the community standards of the Guardian. 

I also checked out the Japan Times which made no mention of the event.  They seemed more interested in the ongoing nuclear issues in Sendai - including restarting baseball games at the ballpark there.  A pity the other journals didn't show a similar balance.

The following isn't strictly from Saturday morning (unless that extends to 7:15PM) but we had the misfortune to watch the ABC News on the Saturday evening.  Complete airhead babble about the clothes folk wore, how Kate's dress is being copied everywhere  and what a great day for the country.  If Clarence House were really worried about exposing the House of Windsor to contempt and ridicule, that is the sort of crap they should be cutting out, not The Chaser.