James O'Brien

Within seconds of Kate’s brother, James Middleton appearing on screen I was on Google typing “James Middleton is….” and even before I finished the sentence the Google auto-suggest came up with “James Middleton Gay”. How did Google know what I was going to type?

Of course, it’s wrong to suggest and generalise purely on the basis of appearance and profession – he designs cakes for a living – but, obviously like many others, I got a certain vibe from James Middleton as I watched the Royal Wedding. And I wasn’t the only one, as there have now been several several news reports about the Google auto-suggest, and within minutes a friend tweeted… “So will the brother hook up with Thorpie?”. Twitter… it’s terrible, isn’t it?

For me, that was probably one of the highlights of the Royal Wedding which I thought was, otherwise, a little boring. Well, aside from the Lady GaGa-inspired hat worn by Princess Beatrice which about which another friend tweeted, “I can see Fergie’s influence on her daughters’ outfits!”.

It was all a bit stage-managed, in my view. Everything went according to plan. There were no gaffs, like when Diana messed up Charles name. Prince Phillip didn’t fall asleep. Prince Harry didn’t forget the ring. And although I know lots of people were tweeting about how emotional it was, I was left cold.

Maybe it’s because I’m a man? I read earlier today about how women in Australia were completely interested/obsessed by the wedding, and men in Australia had absolutely no interest. That’s pretty much my observation from chatting with friends, family and colleagues, also. I just couldn’t get into it, despite trying, and even nodded off for a while. I missed the kiss.

And “Holy Ghost”? What was that about? Don’t we say “Holy Spirit” these days?

For me, the the all-time best Royal Wedding was the marriage of Mary Donaldson to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. On top of the Australian and Scandinvian connections, I actually got a sense of real romance and emotion in that one.

As I noted at the time…

1. They seem like they’re really in love. Fred was almost in tears when Mary walked down the aisle.

2. Mary is a real commoner, not a pretend commonner. Her family house reveals she comes from an ordinary family. It’s a bit “Muriel-like”.

3. The Danish royal family seem quite nice. They appear to be nice people. There doesn’t seem to br a sense of “marrying for the wrong reason”. I thought it was terrific when the Queen kissed Fred on the cheek… can’t imagine QEII doing that.

If we’re going to continue to have a Royal Family in Australia, I really think we should ditch the British Royal Family and go with the Danes. After all, the future King is half-Australian anyway.