Covering the royal wedding

Pub date April 25, 2011
WriterSarah Phelan
SectionPolitics Blog

The New York Times has a revealing article about how US networks have been adding Britons to their coverage of the royal wedding this coming weekend.

“As long as you have an English accent, you’ll work,” joked Rob Silverstein, executive producer of “Access Hollywood,” which is moving to London for a week.

Actually, if Silverstein really wanted to impress, he should have said, “As long as one has an English accent.”

But then who in the US gives a flying fig about the royal wedding?

Apparently, a disturbing number of people who otherwise like to brag about how the US gave the Brits a royal boot up the ass around the Boston Tea Party.

Now, I get the fascination in the U.K. itself,  where the royal family is the Brits’ version of Hollywood. Just without the sunny locations and with the good looks supplied by aristocratic outsiders, like Diana, or non-royals, like Kate, who the royals, I kid you not, call “commoners.”

But as a commoner who left rain-soaked Britain shortly before Charles and Diana tied their ill-fated knot, I’m relieved to be escaping royal wedding fever for the second time in my life.

And while I do so hope the latest royal pair have a happier and more honest relationship than Charles and Di, I don’t plan to spend time cooing over the details of their carriages and tiaras. In fact, the latest episode in the never-ending royal saga reminds me that Queen Elizabeth only agreed to pay income taxes, give up the royal yacht, and limit the number of royals receiving government money in my own lifetime…

Besides, isn’t covering politics in California, where folks seem to like to elect celebrities as their governors and mayors, enough royal-watching for anyone?

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