The Attack of Kingar-two
The other website all nice and fixed, I was going to join every other commentator in their stomp-on-Sheik-Hillaly party. But really, there are only so many times those reprehensible words can be condemned, and everyone else has had a good crack already. I was limbering my finger up for a good waggling session at Australia's least favourite mufti, but then I noticed a story on the SMH homepage that stopped me in my tracks. Terror, sheer terror, penetrated through to the very marrow of my bones. Because Princess Mary is having another baby.
I've expressed reservations about the interest value of Princess Mary before. But only a mere year after she popped out the right royal whippersnapper that the Danish press dubbed the "Kingaroo", she's putting herself through childbirth again. And it won't be that much less painful for us. I mean, come on – only one day in, and the News website has already dubbed it "Kingar-two". We're going to have to put ip with this until May?
(By the way, let me be the first to tip Platyprince or Platyprincess this time around. Clearly no pun is too lame for the tabloid media.)
What's more, the announcement has come just as we ready ourselves for the prince's first visit to Australia. I'm sure the Danish royal family doesn't care much about the local press, but really, could there be worth timing for media hype? We're just getting used to Nicole Kidman on the cover of our women's magazines again, and then Princess Mary serves up an official visit/second baby double whammy.
Mark my words, the months from now until May are going to be more excruciating than the Brangelina birth was. And you can bet Mary certainly won't have the good grace to hide out in Namibia, away from the world's press.
The Princess Mary story was a fairytale come true, I can admit that. Mary really was just an ordinary Sydney woman, and you'd have to say that when Juan Antonio Samaranch announced that "the winner is Sidonee", you could argue that he could also have clarified that one Australian real estate agent would win a great deal more than just a boring old gold medal.
The charm of Mary's story was her very ordinariness – the fact that it really could have been any Sydney woman in the Slip Inn that night. But, six years on, that ordinariness is really coming home to roost. Check out this fascinating story in Hello magazine. Wow, she had a chat with her mother-in-law. Hold the presses.
Yes, I know she does charity work. (How bored would she be otherwise?) And she's certainly doing a brilliant job of producing heirs. But what else is there to justify such intense interest? According to her website, she's given a whopping two speeches all year.
(OK, to be fair, I looked at the Danish site and there are six. Still, not exactly onerous.)
But I shouldn't be getting annoyed with Mary. It's not her fault that Denmark's still a monarchy, or that she was asked to join it. And really, who wouldn't? Hey, I'd hate for any royals reading this blog to think I'd automatically be unavailable if ordinary Australians are still fashionable at the moment. I'm a republican – but any squillionaire royal babes should feel free to convince me otherwise.
The pomp and majesty of the monarchy just end up disgusting me, really. If you visit places like Versailles, they're certainly incredibly beautiful, but the waste ultimately makes you feel ill. There is no longer any real justification for private individuals owning vast swathes of a nation, or its fine buildings or heritage. These things should belong to everyone, in the same way that our Government House is now a genuinely public building. Whereas Queen Elizabeth, for example, has palaces to burn in the UK. (And does so regularly.)
We should stop being fascinated by royalty, and become gloriously indifferent to the likes of Princess Mary. I'd rather read about people who have achieved prominence through their own talent. People like Alexandra Adornetto, for example. Princess Mary has handled herself graciously, sure; but she's ultimately just someone who got lucky. So if we must endure her the blanket media let's see her turn out a publishable novel. In Danish.
Dominic Knight
Photo: AFP