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Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Bigger Issues in the World?

You would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of the Royal wedding on Friday, but what is the big deal?

I, as a British citizen, could not care any less about the marriage between Prince William Mountbatten-Windsor (because nobody ever seems to use his last name) and Kate Middleton. Media coverage in my country has been phenomenal, even greater than that of the twin towers disaster, Haitian earthquake and Japanese Tsunami, and with newspapers even giving out free 'Kate 'n' Wills' bunting and posters this occasion has even overtaken the football world cup.


This was of course to be expected in my own country with our notoriously over-patriotic newspapers trying to cash in, however what I didn't expect was the massive influence the wedding would have overseas. Experts at the BBC have estimated an absurd 70%  of the viewing figures will be foreign and are even translating the event into 17 languages including Turkish, Hindi and Japanese.

As a Englishman it's hard to be upset by this given that the one day event is set to bring in around £50billion ($83billion) to the economy, but how do my many Canadian, American and European folllowers feel about the event and it's importance in the news?

20 comments:

  1. I don't really care to be honest, but I think whatever benefits you will eventually help out here in the US

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  2. I really can't believe it's expected so many will watch it. I thought outside of the mainland, nobody would care. Like me and stuff. No offense, just, why?

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  3. I overheard my parents talking about staying up late to watch the ceremony live on TV. I could not for the life of me understand why!

    Maybe it's a generational thing?

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  4. @D4 - I feel the same

    @MRanthrope - Perhaps you're right, I won't be watching it anyway but I'm certainly not going to stay up to watch it.

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  5. lol at royalty still existing

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  6. @ed - I was having this debate with a few people a week or so ago. Although the monarchy are politically useless in today's society they bring in over £900million ($1.5billion) in tourism revenue a year, mostly from Americans who are fasinated by the novelty of it all.

    The best I ever heard it described was "It feels better jumping out of cover into a barrage of bullets screaming 'God save the Queen' than 'My president's a n****r'".

    You'll have to excuse my mate's choice of volcabulary.

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  7. bigger news: PSN being down

    :P

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  8. you cant miss it here.. but i couldnt care less

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  9. agree this wedding is no uninteresting i dont get why ppl even care

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  10. As a Canadian I love anything to do with the Royals and as an American I can't stand anything to do with the Royals.

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  11. As a Canadian, I think that there is a bit too much coverage on the wedding, especially since there's a lot more important issues that need the attention. But that being said, as a girl who secretly wants to be a princess, I think that the wedding will be one to remember! Kate is so lucky! :D

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  12. @Banacek & Shutterbug - Thanks for the imput, that seems to be the general concensus overseas.

    I also secretly want to be a princess :P

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  13. I didn't realise it was set to bring in 50 billion pounds! I have no interest in it, but guess I can no longer oppose it xD

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  14. American here, I thought it was nice to see at least something good in the news, I thought maybe we covered it a little too much, but honestly we could all use some good news like a wedding in this down economic turn the world is in.

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  15. doesnt interest me at all.. but yeah it was something good in the news.. thats rare in these times..

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  16. I really don't care because it's all just for show, I mean they don't have that much political power do they?

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  17. it was nice to see something good on the news for a change.

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