Royal baby shambles

According to the CIA, there are over 350,000 people born every day on our already teeming planet. The gigantic majority of them will come into the world the way they'll remain for their entire lives, from the point of view of all the others - anonymous, save for their family and those close to them.

Now there has been, of course, one particular exception to that dominating the media these past few days. I write from a broadly neutral position when it comes to the royal family. I'm far from a flag-waving Monarchist. Nor though am I some kind of abolitionist Republican - I do not believe the removal of the monarchy would do the country any good. The absolute domination of the broadcast and printed media of the birth of the latest royal kid, though, I do take serious issue with. (And, of course, here I am, both feeding it and feeding off it by adding my own contribution to that panoply).

This is not news. This boy, one of those 350,000+ who came into the world today, is no more newsworthy than any of the others, as far as I'm concerned. His life is, more or less, mapped out ahead of him. He could, of course, be one of the very rare exceptions among royalty who lets it all go - all the trappings, the lack of freedom, some of the attention and privilege which goes with his lineage. Even if he does, he'll be protected from the worst of life's realities by his name and his family's money. More likely he'll lead the kind of life Princes Andrew or Edward do, not ascending to the throne and the kind of burden of duty the Monarch bears until he's at least the age Charles is now. He will, in all likelihood, live his life within certain pre-defined parameters.

The same can't be said for almost all of the other kids born today. Of course, the vast majority will live their lives in obscurity. Born today were people who will do terrible things - murderers, warriors, ideological extremists. But also born today somewhere were people who'll do great things in art, literature, politics, environmentalism, architecture, diplomacy. Somebody may have been born today who will become as famous as the royals. Maybe somebody who will do something great for all humanity. The canvas for almost all of those countless thousands is more or less blank, and some of them will fill it with lives that will astonish, that will be much more fulfilled than that of our royal newbie.

This is not a criticism of him, of course - in his innocence he has no more idea of what's in store for him than anybody else. I wish him well. But I extend those same wishes to all the kids whose births didn't make the news today, whose as-yet unlived time stretches out ahead of them, to be lived who knows how, for who knows how long?

A marriage made in the media

Left-leaning though I may be politically, I'm not some Republican, anti-Monarchy, class war activist. I don't believe Britain should throw away the cultural trappings of history and pageantry lightly, especially when there does seem some genuine merit to the argument that they bring trade and tourism to Britain, and they have demonstrably increased giving to charities to which they've lent their patronage.

However. Today's announcement of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Whats-her-face is not what I call news. It's utterly drenched the media today, who have clearly had their pieces ready for some time in anticipation of the event we're all talking about. Well, they're talking about.

So the economic crisis, the compensation paid out to the Brits held without trial in Guantanamo Bay, all the various long-running genuine news stories (Darfur, Pakistan, Indonesia, Burma, just to name a few picked at random) have utterly disappeared into a morass of fawning, gushing, delighted news readers and reporters. They all seem to have put their best pearls on for the day, and can be seen grinning like Stepford Wives as the news that's being described as 'breaking' even at 9pm on the News Channel is repeated for the 43rd time today.

It's utterly, utterly meaningless. In what's already a story entirely constructed of fluff and fill, we've been blessed with the news that Esther Rantzen is 'delighted' (we can all sleep soundly in our beds knowing that), that Sophie Wessex is 'thrilled', and that Royal Crown Derby had been pre-prepping plates for the occasion for four years, among countless other inconsequentialities. I've even found out that Camilla Parker-Bowles is down with the kids, describing it as 'wicked'.

Surely, surely, most of us simply don't care, do we? The news that the Royal family has invited in a bit of common blood (surely a necessity as the Royals of Europe are so inter-bred that they must be in danger of sprouting extra limbs out of inconvenient places) would, in any society not utterly obsessed with celebrity, be relegated to a footnote after the actual news.

As they look back over the day's 'events' for the umpteenth time, I do wonder if some of the journalists responsible for regurgitating this over and over again wonder what happened to the news, dammit.