EEEK !!!

There are so many sad and awful things going on in the world right now, so it was truly heart warming to hear all about the christening of baby princess Charlotte the other day. For a few brief moments I was able to forget about things like Greece, Tunisia and Syria and instead revel in the sheer joy of such a wonderful occasion.   Here is the family photo which records the occasion for posterity :-

Don`t they all look happy?  And so they should, for I have lost count of the millions it all costs us each and every year.  It`s a bit like the Premier League - the excesses, the privilege, the self-serving attitude of entitlement all lead me to turn away from it all in dismay.  There`s a new concept here - not the politics of envy but the politics of dismay.

But some people like it.  Just two examples.  The first is the kind of mindless enthusiasm which would suggest that a bit of Sectioning under the Mental Health Act would not come amiss:-

And the other is the happy parents at least having the goodness to pause and wave to us to thank us for providing them with the kind of lifestyle that will see them through life`s rich pageant without a care in the world and, for good measure, expect us to bow, curtsy, doff our caps and give lifelong thanks that we have them to cherish and to hold:-

And to cap it all, there`s the threat in today`s newspaper that tomorrow`s edition will carry a 32-page Extra Special Supplement showing all the photographs of this happy day in the parallel universe of the pampered and the privileged. Curiously, the only person in all of this that I have any sympathy for is Princess Charlotte.   As they say, you can choose your friends but you can`t choose your family.