TIME TO DISAPPEAR..

From our Royal Correspondent

Today`s announcement of the engagement between Prince William and Kate Middleton is received in Snopperland with mixed feelings.   On the one hand, good wishes are extended for a long, happy, mortgage-free, benefits-avoiding life without having to worry too much about where the next meal is coming from - a long marriage of privilege, untold wealth and a secure place in history.   Good luck to them both.

But on the other hand, there is intense apprehension about all the razzamataz, the tatty merchandising and the wall-to-wall coverage that we will be subjected to until the wedding is over and done with.   As that could be anything up to a year away the prospects for a Wills/Kate-free media look grim.

 Already the BBC has spent 26 minutes of its half hour lunch bulletin reporting on nothing else but the upcoming nuptuals, the backgrounds of the happy couple and speculation about everything from the wedding venue to the dress the bride might wear.   All this to the exclusion of things that really matter in the world today like the Irish/EU financial crisis, the war in Afghanistan, the burgeoning rates of inflation and whether hard working wideman Scott Wagstaff will be fit to face Barnet in tonight`s FA Cup replay.

But, we`re all in it together, aren`t we, says David Cameron, so maybe we can all forget about whether we can really afford the countless millions the wedding will cost in the deepest financial crisis for decades, forget about the slash and burn reductions in public services and forget about the millions facing the dole and a looming winter of discontent and concentrate our minds on the boundless joy and distraction from reality that the royal wedding will so happily bring for us all.

Snopper was unavailable for comment when I approached him just after the news broke this morning but there are unconfirmed reports that he has decided to disappear and not re-emerge until 2012 by which time it might all be over?   But he was overheard to mutter that he couldn`t see why a quiet Registry Office might not do, along with the now obligitory celebrity pre-nup and divorce insurance.  Grumpy?  You bet he is.