Saturday, 2 May 2015

On Royalty and Reincarnation.

The Duchess of Cambridge had a baby today. On second thoughts it might have been yesterday, but it was today that the headline I read proclaimed:

Royal Princess Presented to the World.

The world? Who are they kidding? Why on earth should the world be interested in a new addition to an anachronistic British institution? I’m not, and I live here.

The news did, however, lead me to consider yet another re-hash on the old theme of ‘does it matter a jot what you do in life?’ Couldn’t be bothered. The bottom line was going to read something like: ‘When the bell rings and the final curtain descends, whatever you did has become merely memory. And memories are just memories.’ That’ll do.

What I find more interesting is this:

When a new baby arrives, most people take the world view. ‘A new life has appeared among us,’ they say. I’m more inclined to take a baby-centric view and think in terms of the child:

‘Oh well, here we go again. I wonder how this jaunt will compare with the others. And I wonder whether I’ll like the people I’ll have to grow up with. Hope so, because it’s going to be a bloody long time before I’ll be able to break free of them.’

I expect that was pretty much what I was thinking back on that morning in late November, although the recollection is vague at best.

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