One way of supporting the headline would be to direct readers to the Tom Paxton song, The Ballad of Spiro Agnew:
I'll sing you a song of// Spriro Agnew// And all the things he's done
... and then invite them to check the subsequent verses, which capture all my deeper thoughts on the wedding of William and Kate-cum-Catherine.
Another would be to reproduce the full text of Chapter 9 of Len Shackleton's autobiography, The Clown Prince of Football. The chapter was entitled "What the Average Director Knows About Football" and contained a single blank page, just as Paxton stopped his song at the words quoted above.
Instead, I refer anyone whose interest has not been totally exhausted to the coverage at Salut! Sunderland, restricted as it is to a Mackem rewriting of the wedding vows.
And en passant, I should admit that far from sloping off as promised, I watched it on France 2. Like Amanda Darlington and her husband Oliver, featured in Var-Matin's page today on how Brits in the south of France would pass the great day, I am the republican part of le couple in the sense of how much we each care about such occasions.
So I watched out of complicité, and quite enjoyed the mix of breathless reporting from correspondents in Kate's village and the Mall, reverential translations of key passages from the order of service and wry references in the commentary to "the festival of hats and uniform". And it must be said, if fairness counts, that it was a magnificent spectacle of the sort Britain still does rather well (you do not need to be an ardent royalist to say as much; it is just the view of someone who appreciates tradition).
One parting thought: is it a measure of coolness to send text messages and e-mails during events watched live by two billion viewers around the world?
If so, the honours - as evidenced by my Blackberry - go to my accountant for sending notice of a change of telephone numbers; my friend Pete Sixsmith for word from a non-league football match (Garforth v Chester); a music PR Mike Gavin telling me about a tour by the Latin/Congolese band Grupo Lokito; phishing merchant ("Gaby Escobar", with news of a £750,000 win in a draw I didn't enter) and a spammer ("Nike Dunks").
* The Kate engagement ring, or its faithful reproduction as worn by Mme Salut, came from Mariage Princier, a fairly appalling French magazine special (OK, it was all very nice but it's only 2011, a shade early for Mariage Princier (or France Info radio) to be calling it the Marriage of the Century) that my friend Marie-Noëlle persuaded me to buy from her shop for €5.99 this morning.
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