Harry and Meghan: Londoners’ best wishes are oh- so- British
This royal engagement gets hardly a hullabaloo
LONDON – People around the world— from celebrity Kim Kardashian to regular folks — rushed to congratulate Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle on their engagement Monday. But many here, where the royal family resides, reacted in British ho- hum fashion.
“I’m happy for the geezer, but I don’t care,” John Hedge, 42, said on a street in Streatham, a mixed- income neighborhood in south London.
That low- key response, expressed by others in the British capital, matched the way Harry said he popped the big question: while the couple were roasting a chicken on a “standard, typical night” at their cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace.
“Not interested,” said Tony Jones, a commuter rushing to a train at London’s Victoria station Monday evening.
Some took to social media to ask whether the engagement would mean a day off. It won’t. “Give us the bank holiday or else,” wrote Owen Jones, a left- wing newspaper columnist who believes the monarchy should be abolished.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said the wedding day — sometime in the spring — would not be a national holiday, unlike the nuptials of Harry’s older brother and future king, Prince William and Duchess Kate, in 2011.
“Me thinking about the monarchy on a normal day V me realising we might get a bank holiday for the Royal Wedding,” a Twitter user with the