EDITORIAL - Royalty and fairy tales

In a few days, the world will be rivetted to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It is an event that some people have already started calling as the wedding of the century.

While that may be going out on a limb too much, considering that the century has just started and there could be other weddings in the future that could be as grand or even more so, still the superlatives are not undeserved.

Actually, it is not so much about William and Kate themselves that lies at the bottom of all this interest. The aura that surrounds William and Kate is a continuation of the same aura that surrounded William's mother Diana, whom the world has not truly learned to let go.

No royalty living or dead in contemporary times has truly matched the world's fancy over Diana. If it is any measure, even local newspapers in Cebu never failed to have a Diana story on their front pages for at least a month since her tragic death in a car accident.

From Diana, whether it was all plain interest in royalty or genuine affection for a truly extraordinary and remarkable human being, everything has moved on to William, and by extention his soon-to-be bride Kate.

William, in the eyes of many, is the preferred heir to the British throne, not his father Charles, who is supposed to be the crown prince, the Prince of Wales, a title that tells one and all in no equivocal terms that he is next in line.

Even the queen, Elizabeth II, who is now ripe with age, has been reluctant to relinquish the throne to Charles. Speculations are rife that Elizabeth will hang on for as long as practicable to avoid passing to Charles the throne most people would rather see with William.

Indeed some suggest that Charles himself should see the obvious and avoid embarrasing the throne by just giving up his right in favor of his eldest son. But then that is something for the British royal family to work out themselves.

What interests the world as the days whiz by toward the great day is that "Diana's boy" William is taking for himself a girl. And the world, with (according to Desiderata) all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, will still stop on a dime for royalty and fairy tales.