My dear William and Kate,
I thought I must write to you to congratulate you on your wedding because it is not often that a Royal wedding comes along and anyway, most of the stories we hear about the marriages in the Royal household are those about divorces, not weddings. So, congratulations !
Over here, we do always boast of our rich two thousand and five hundred plus years of history and of what our ancient kings did in the good old days, probably because we have very little else to boast about, but we do not have a Royal family, although some would argue that we do have one!
It was nice to see London decked in the Union Jack and thousands of people thronging the streets to cheer you on. I did miss the giant life size cut-outs of you, grinning from ear to ear at every junction, though. If you had them, William and Kate, somehow it would have given me a feeling of being quite at home!
If memory serves me right, when Charles got married thirty years ago, both our Head of State and even his then second in command got an invite and they both attended. Seats were harder to come by this time around, I guess.
But then, William and Kate, that is probably just as well because had you invited Mahinda and he had agreed to attend, your local Police would have said they wouldn’t be able to guarantee his security and you would have had to call off the whole event-that is what happened when he last tried to attend a function in your country!
And I also heard through the grapevine that your wedding guest list had caused quite a stir. Apparently you had invited the ambassadors of Syria and Libya and the Crown Prince of Bahrain and then told them they were not welcome. Now, that is not quite done, is it?
They say that these chaps were asked not to attend because of the ‘human rights issues’ in their countries. If that is the case then I suspect Obama and Sarkozy were not invited for the same reason because they are responsible for the ‘human rights issues’ that have arisen in most countries, including ours!
If human rights issues in a country are indeed a factor in deciding wedding invitations, frankly I think that is silly but to first invite state dignitaries and then tell them not to attend, is not good manners, don’t you think? But then that has now become quite the British tradition because that is what you did to Mahinda too at Oxford!
I also heard William and Kate, that there was no invitation for the two most recent former Prime Ministers of Britain, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and they would have had to be content with watching the proceedings on television, preposterous though that may sound!
Now you do learn a thing or two from us don’t you? I am certain you copied that from us because we too never invite our most recent Head of State for our functions although I am not very sure that it is the correct thing to do.
I also heard that we in this country have gifted both of you a blue sapphire as your wedding gift. I suppose that was a gesture of goodwill, just to say that we wish you well, although Cameron and a few others in your country are trying to persecute us because we ended our own war with terror.
If you are puzzled as to what all that is about, maybe we should have included a little booklet called the ‘Moon Report’ with our gift and you could have taken it on your honeymoon for some exciting reading-if you like fiction, that is!
And, on the subject of terrorism, it was so refreshing to see both of you returning to the Palace after the wedding in an open carriage through the streets of London, cheered on by hundreds of thousands of people. Over here, we say we have eliminated terrorism but our politicians cannot get from point A to point B without a bullet proof vehicle and a dozen policemen!
So, Kate and William, despite all the differences between your country and ours at this moment in time, you can rest assured that you have our best wishes. And God knows, judging from what has happened in the House of Windsor in recent times, both of you will need all the luck in the world.
Although your nuptials have been called a fairytale wedding I don’t quite know whether you will live happily ever after but I sincerely hope that what St. Andrews has joined together, let no paparazzi put asunder!
Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-William, we know that you are the second in line to the throne, after Charles. But Charles has been on the waiting list for pretty much all his life and waiting for him to become King is like waiting for Uncle Ranil to become President over here. But don’t get disheartened, your day will surely come-although I am not so sure about Uncle Ranil’s now!
|
E-mail