By Sniffles
The coronation of Charles Philip Arthur George (or "Philip Charles Arthur George," as Diana flubbed it at the altar in 1981) is Saturday, and the media are bending over backward to find new ways of saying how unexcited everyone is.
Which means we're just two days away from the massive journalistic pivot, in which the narrative will become, "Oh, we thought no one was going to care, and it was going to be dull and irrelevant, but the pomp and pageantry (and the diverse attendees) have won us over."
Poor Charles. He's really trying, and you know that he and the Queen thought Brexit was daft, although they couldn't say so. But aside from all that, and the rest of the garbage that trails the Royal Family around in the popular press, the ceremony will no doubt be something to see. There hasn't been one in 70 years, for heaven's sake, and it'll be interesting to note all the deviations from 1953 — Hindus and Muslims, Indigenous dignitaries, etc. (Including the first Indigenous Governor-General of Canada. For us cats, we're just here for the Mounties.)
Another reason to watch — whether live or recorded — is that you have to go back to 1937 to find a coronation that included a Queen Consort. Check out this clip from The King's Speech to see how the filmmakers imagined George VI rehearsed. Kinda fun to picture Helena Bonham-Carter getting crowned beside him.
Which brings us to our final point: The late Queen's father is the primary reason we're tempted to harbor any feelings of respect for the House of Windsor. George VI wasn't raised to be King, but let's just say that ascending the throne in the place of his awful brother was a blessing for the family and the world. (They did Nazi that Abdication thing coming.)
The role of the UK's constitutional monarchy is always a topic worth debating. But in the meantime, let's all remember that, as The New Yorker has pointed out, when Charles was a young man in the 1970s, Britain was just one helicopter crash or off-piste ski accident from King Andrew I. Whew! We cats PURR.
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