Just a minute, Mr Kirsty...
COVERING a Royal Wedding must be like radio parlour game Just A Minute, where contributors talk for 60 seconds without hesitation, deviation or repetition.
The main difference is that TV coverage requires six hours of unhesitating, undeviating chat, with a lot of repetition about hats to cover the parade of guests strolling to St George’s Chapel, like Bonus Points Day at Dobbies.
‘An intensely private moment,’ growled Kirsty Young from the bottom of the clichéd superlative barrel, as Harry and Meghan plighted their troth. The rest of us reflected that since it was a royal wedding, it was highly unlikely that bride and groom ever imagined it was going to be a private moment.
Like a speech from Brexit Minister David Davis, the narration for Saturday’s stately ceremony involved words going in all directions, passionately mentioning unconnected but well-known things. There was an in-depth discussion of lemon drizzle wedding cake, Kirsty marvelling at the new Duchess of Sussex’s ‘natural grace’ at undertaking the onerous business of waving, plus a shout out to Mr Kirsty Young, Nick Jones, in the wedding chapel with their daughter.
Yet weirdly there was no time to mention Mr Kirsty’s spendy furnishings company, which will benefit hugely from the Harry/ Meghan wedding list, with guests invited to splurge £2,495 on a single chair or maybe £2,095 for a bedframe.