My personal nightmare is over, and I won’t have to listen to the incessant stories about George Cambridge, which sounds like the name of a character actor in 1970s films, but in fact is what I’ve dubbed one baby born this past Monday, along with about 350,000 others worldwide.
It’s not that I have a particular antipathy towards the royals as much as I don’t much care. The overload of coverage, though, made me cranky.
I was at my physical therapist’s earlier this week, and NBC’s TODAY show was on TV. The hosts promised a royal-free zone in their vapid What’s Trending segment but did one non-crown story before devolving. Over the previous weekend, with no baby, the news organizations were reduced to reporting on how much time and effort news organizations were spending waiting for George.
Then the baby was born. Lots of even numbers, I noticed. 8 pounds, 6 ounces, 4:24 p.m. on the 22nd of the month. I suppose I, like some others, was hoping for a girl, if only to put that new primogeniture law to the test.
What, no baby name yet?! Wait a day, people! Names of royals always remind me that Diana muffed Charles Philip Arthur George’s name at the wedding, saying Philip Charles. It also brings to mind Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, specifically, “The Prince is Giving a Ball” – LYRICS and LISTEN:
Herald: His royal highness, Christopher Rupert Vwindemier Vlandamier Carl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman
Boy: HERMAN?
Herald: Herman Gregory James is giving a ball.
The Wife, though, is more interested in the newest heir to the British throne, maybe because she is related. Nine generations ago, back in the 1690s, John Olin married Susannah Spencer, who is an ancestor of Princess Diana. Usually, I zip through the recorded news, but this week, I have to wait for her to watch the royal news, something I might otherwise have zapped through.
I’ve heard less about the desire of skipping over Charles (who’s only been waiting most of his life to become a king; don’t expect HIS mom to abdicate), and to install William, who is, after all, a tired new dad. Also, it seems that the hatred of Camilla has waned in the years since Diana’s death.
Speaking of the royals, about six months after Charles and Diana’s wedding back in 1981, my friend Jessica Lawrence developed a parody skit of that event, a narrative accompanied by a slide show. The pictures were taken at Westminister Presbyterian Church in Albany. The presentation was the Eighth Step Coffee House when it was still located at First Presbyterian Church, and it was hilariously irreverent. That’s Jessica as Diana and me as the Archbishop of Canterbury.