Setting The World on Fire

 Hello & welcome to My Own V. Special Royal Wedding.
It's now a full twenty-four hours after William & Catherine exchanged vows, but I'm still inside Westminster Abbey with the other 1900 guests, a thousand of whom are wearing giant Philip Treacy hats that look like 3D diagrams of  the human intestinal system. 
As I type,  I'm  watching the  'E!' News coverage of the wedding which I taped last nite but didn't see at the time because I was far too busy watching the entire BBC live coverage. I'm nothing if not a Traditionalist.
Of course, all of  this is just a warm up for Fashion Police's Royal Wedding Special which goes to air in about two hours Sydney time. I wonder if Joan is going to Crown any of the guests, or perhaps even a member of the Wedding Party, the 'Fashhole of the Royal Wedding' ? Would she dare be soo blasphemous, I wonder?

I hope she is. I've had an absolute gutload of all the fawning commentary that I've been hearing, not just over the past day, but from all the dreary documentaries about the Wedding that I've been forcing myself to watch over the past couple of weeks. I had to watch them all because  I wasn't sufficiently revved up for The Big Day. I absolutely needed to know more about the Happy Couple & The Middleton Family.
During the course of about ten documentaries, I learned that:
  1.Carol, the bride's mum, ostentatiously chewed gum at William's graduation parade & that Everyone was Appalled.
2. Kate was going to do her own make up on the big day because she wanted her husband-to-be to recognise her at the altar.
3. They broke up for a few short months in 2007 & Kate spent the whole time ostentatiously whooping it up at nightclubs wearing slightly raunchier- than- normal outfits that revealed a new dedication to Spray Tanning.
Perhaps I should start Spray Tanning. I know they do them at 'The Waxing Diva's', where I go to have my eyebrows done. But it sounds a little bit grubby because whilst in the salon, I've overheard the spray tanners tell their subjects that they can't take a shower or even get a drop of water on their tanned bodies for absolutely ages after the tanning or it will wash off.

The Bridal Gown

 Sadly, I'm not modelling Kate's bridal gown which I was v. relieved to know was by Sarah Burton from Alexander McQueen.
No, I'm modelling my own from 1978. I dragged it out of My Archival Camphor Chest just to model it for you. I was v. irritated to discover that, try as I might, I was totally unable to do up the zip. Actually, the zip was already broken, which was obviously caused by my trying to squeeze myself into it on previous occasions. In fact, the last time I wore it was at a dinner I hosted for the wedding of Charles & Diana.
That was a raucous nite. So raucous, that I spilled some red wine down the front of the gown. It's almost, but not quite, worth it, to double click on the photo to see the stain.
One good thing, though, about me now not fitting into my Wedding Dress, is that it proves that back then I must have been almost as thin as Kate is now. How wonderful.
But Not So Wonderful was  that at the time I thought I was Slightly Porky. What a waste of Slimness.

Because I couldn't do up the zip, you can't really see the Intended Effect of the Dress. FYI, it was called a 'Scarlett O'Hara' dress (but perhaps it was just me that called it that) because it was off the shoulder & looked a bit like Scarlett before the rot set in. I remember some months after the wedding My Mother telling some Bored Shopkeeper how perfectly wonderful I looked in the dress from behind standing at the altar. And how my Blonde Pageboy Hair  was like a Halo. I'm sure Carol felt as proud of Kate as My Mum did.

It's nearly time for The Fashion Police Wedding Special. But before I go I must share a little vignette from this morning:
As I do every saturday morning, I visited 'BednobsEtc', my favourite conveniently located charity shop. As usual, the place was bursting at the seams with avid shoppers. But no one was looking at the racks of clothes today. Everyone was talking to each other about the wedding. The only person who hadn't seen it was the volunteer sales assistant who felt so out of the loop that she had her iPhone out  googling all the wedding pictures so she could follow the conversation.
Predictably, everyone loved Kate's dress, although one elderly fashion commentator said that she thought it was a shame that Kate's hair was a Bit Flat. She thought it should have risen like a modest souffle above the tiara. I agreed with her. Some deliciously   nasty comments were made about two young members of the Royal Family who looked like they'd just come from playing The Ugly Sisters in a 'Cinderella on Ice' Pantomime.  And then of course, there were the usual questions asked about Prince Harry's Paternity. And about how come Julia Gillard, our Prime Minister bought her hat at the last minute at a department store & didn't bother showcasing an Australian designer? Someone said she just doesn't care about how she looks.

But my almost, but not quite, favourite part of the Whole Show came when the Archbishop of Canterbury, or whoever he was, began his sermon with with words of St. Catherine of Siena, who said in the fourteenth century, 'Be who God intended you to be & you will set the World on Fire'.
How gutsy & vibrant & fabulous I thought, particularly after I googled St. Cath. of S & checked that she wasn't in fact,  the St. Catherine who was burned at the stake & who the popular firecracker, 'Catherine Wheel' is named after.

Oh, one more thing, I cried:  1. Every time I saw the Household Cavalry. I don't know what it is about Me & Horses that makes me cry.
 2. When I saw people wearing Union Jacks in the street heartily singing 'Jerusalem'.
3. When they showed the Queen during 'God Save the Queen'.