…A very special week has begun today with the Royal Wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson on Wednesday
and the opening of the Commonwealth Games on Thursday.
Went shopping in Sainsbury’s this morning.
I put things neatly in the trolley but [my sister] threw things and made it untidy
so I went in a sulk…
This year’s royal wedding, or Royal Wedding ’86 as some of the bunting near (but not on) our house labelled it, was never going to be quite as big a deal as the one in 1981.
It wasn’t a public holiday for starters. There was no chain of beacons across the country either, nor was there any fireworks. Unless you count the ones already underway between Charles and Diana (SATIRE).
Yet it was still a mightily head-turning, chest-swelling occasion – if you were so inclined.
As with the World Cup a few weeks earlier, I think my excitement was prompted chiefly by the mechanics of the spectacle and the upending of the regular TV schedules rather than any concern for the couple in question.
Not that there was much evidence of that today. In fact the only trace of wedding-infused programming, at least on the BBC, was this:
And yes, I would have been up to watch it. All of it.
Never mind all that, I want to know more about you sulking around Sainsbury’s.
It would have been a sulk of the pre-adolescence kind, i.e. loud and impulsive rather than morose and reticent. My silence would have been bought with a jam doughnut and a can of pop.