1000 EARTHQUAKES, SOME BROKEN BOATS AND A BABY

Never have so many people watched one hospital doorway,
so closely, for so long, for no apparent reason whatsoever

Can someone explain it to me? Please, I'm desperately trying to understand. As far as news stories go, a royal baby is possibly the thing I am interested in less than any other thing.

While Wellington didn't actually disappear into the ocean over the weekend, it certainly could have. Now THAT's a story.

Nobody anywhere has any idea how the America's Cup works, what's going to happen next, how you can break one of your sails, throw it into the ocean and sail even faster or even why you can never predict how many boats are going to turn up for any given race. Come on, that's a story.

Babies and princesses and princes just leave me absolutely stone cold.

Give me a reason to care, because try as I might, I can't find one anywhere.

Yesterday someone suggested it was good to have something to believe in, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. In fact, they went on to point out how future kings are even better because they're actually real. All I know is no member of the Royal Family has ever brought me presents or chocolate.

Or anything at all, for that matter.

I don't think I'd label myself a republican; I'm way to ambivalent towards the monarchy to actually do anything about them. Having them there doesn't seem to be hurting anyone - although I understand they do cost the Commonwealth a shitload of money for not much return. In saying that, if we got rid of all the stupid things that waste billions of public funds, surely we would have put all the local councils up against the wall years ago.

If some motley crew of inbred freaks, an obviously born-out-of wedlock crazy ginga and one supermodel commoner want to traipse all over the globe to put flowers on their heads, watch topless natives perform silly dance routines and play polo, that's their business. Yet unbelievably, all that farcical bollocks makes front page news every day of the year.

Is it because we really do want to believe we're living in some kind of fantasy fairyland, where international yacht racing has been outlawed altogether and the king has banished all earthquakes everywhere forever?

That's the royal bit. Don't even start me on babies. Aren't they gross?

Yes they are, and don't try and tell me otherwise. All babies do is spew, poo, sleep and shriek, which effectively means not only are they completely useless, they stink as well. A bit like husbands. Why would you bother?

Unfortunately, unlike archaic systems of government based solely upon which order you were born to which king or queen, you actually NEED babies, so I guess I'll just have to put up with them.

Even more unfortunately, as hard as I've tried, and god, how I've tried, this is one story I can't ignore. It's everywhere. Last night I even endured a probing interview with Cynthia Read. What do you mean, "Who's Cynthia Read?" She spun/wove/knitted the shawl, you philistines! The SHAWL! THE shawl! How could you have missed that?

I wish I had.

I think it's all the waiting that's finally turned me so utterly septic. Waiting for news of the birth, waiting for the happy family to appear, now we wait just as breathlessly to hear if they're going to give this poor, doomed wretch a name.

I'm picking they probably will.

It's all too much. Way, WAY too much. I feel like I've been force-fed a rich meal, including both dessert and cheeseboard, then been tempted by a few late night liqueurs as well. Except, I didn't get to eat anything.

Did I really need details on the Royal Car Seat? Like Mr. Creosote's after dinner mint, those details were only "wafer thin" but they were still enough to make my brain explode.

Can we please go back to talking about rich arseholes breaking their boats now? I've had enough of this baby. He ain't the king of me.

I may be a cynical old coot, but I can appreciate a hand-spun giant doily
as much as the next guy