Everybody has been asking me if I watched the wedding of William and Kate on TV, and most Italians are a bit surprised when I scowl and deny vehemently.
I left Britain in 1982, mainly because I needed a break, having just finished a post-graduate year studying mathematics, or at least pretending to study mathematics. For those of you who remember the 1980s, it was a period when Mrs Thatcher dominated British politics, and another reason I left was because I was highly allergic to her politics and even the sound of her voice pontificating about this, that or the other.
Growing up in Britain one also got massive doses of ‘news’ and gossip about the Royal Family, which was extremely tedious to me (and I suspect to a lot of other people). I went to a state comprehensive school and by some miracle got into Trinity College, Cambridge – the same as Prince Charles. I am pleased to note that, in his case, the entry requirements had to be especially lowered
whereas in my case the don who interviewed me must have liked my smile (impossible – I don’t possess one) or something….
Yup, one of the reasons I left was to avoid the incessant barrage of inane chatter about the Royal Family, a particularly annoying form of cosmic background radiation. In those days I would sing along to the Sex Pistols
God save the Queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
A potential H-bomb
God save the Queen
Cos tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems
Now, older, sadder and wiser, I realise that even in Italy I cannot escape the tide of mass hysteria that accompanies those fairy-tale weddings, the cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, yea the great globe itself…
I was so pleased to come to a country where the monarchy was discredited, booted out and derided, replaced by a shiny idealistic constitution full of high-sounding phrases…but deep down I suspect, even the Italians love a good wedding. So I just have to keep the TV rigorously switched off (which I do most of the time anyway) and say ‘William who?’
