Unemployed Man Weds Fashion Accessory Buyer

Today we celebrate the marriage of an unemployed¹ man, the son of a barking madman and a kindergarten teacher, to a fashion accessory buyer, the daughter of a flight attendant and a flight-attendant-made-good as a mail order salesman.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. There are many people who get married every day with a variety of parentage and occupations. It’s just that such common folk rarely cause such a global, slavering frenzy of forelock tugging, or get a world-wide television audience of billions for their nuptials, or have a guest list of 2000 Knights of the Garter (and David Beckham). (Oh, and Posh Spice who at least is ‘posh’. By definition.)

Meanwhile, the world is required and commanded on pain of dark retribution to believe that the man’s looney father who talks to tomatoes and subscribes to the absurdity of homeopathy is the right sort of person to provide (if his mummy ever dies) the patronising and unworldly guardianship that his future Subjects need.

The young man’s future differs from that of other ordinary folk in that his career is to be professionally unemployed for the rest of his life – at great expense to the public purse. His new wife at least can continue to develop her career from buying fashion accessories to her heart’s content to becoming an actual fashion accessory to the Crown.

He goes under the monicker Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (or in modern parlance, Mountbatten-Windsor, in order not to frighten the natives).

As Clive James told Sir Roger in London in earlier more flared, and paisley days, the great advantage and relief of being the future king is that

“it places a necessary limit on one’s ambitions”.

No stress to reach the very top of one’s profession. That’s guaranteed.

No struggle to write a bestseller, to invent something, or do something that is actually useful.

No need for this long-term unemployed man to attend his jobsearch centre on a fortnightly basis, pretend to apply for jobs and attend motivational training sessions.

No need to update his résumé and write cover letters for his 10 imaginary job applications a fortnight.

No need to lower his ambitions to get his foot in the door. He has a footman he can wedge into the door instead.

He has writers to write for him, advisers to think for him, professionals to do any actual work for him that needs doing, people to clean his teeth and probably wipe his bottom if he so commands.

And all he has to do is put up with his bonkers “father” and racist-sexist “grandfather”.

And all the colonials and colonialists love it. Australians, Americans, Scots, Germans.

Britons may never be slaves but they will forever be droolingly slavish – infantilised, neotenised, by a patronising tradition that teaches them they cannot function autonomously but need a Great Mummy to protect them from themselves and their sweet but childish inadequacies.

Fool Britannia.

¹ No, all right, he works in Search and Rescue