Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Well, it’s three days since the wedding and the media’s post-match analysis continues. Yesterday’s El Mundo treated us to the results of a wide-ranging survey which included such categories as Most Elegant Lady [Noor of Jordan], Most Sexy Lady [Rania of Jordan] and Most Tacky Lady [M.L.N]. The previous day, the paper had devoted the first 24 pages of its Sunday edition to the wedding and, in addition, provided a special supplement for those whose threshold of boredom is sky high. To give it full credit, El Pais devoted very little space to the event yesterday, as befits a more left-of-centre organ.

More serious concerns voiced by El Mundo yesterday centred on the degree of insult afforded by ‘friendly republican neighbours’ such as France and Italy by not sending their heads of state. Though Mrs Chirac apparently made it. Britain, it seems, did well by sending Prince Charles and allowing him to attend the dinner on the eve of the wedding. And by keeping Camilla at home.

Somewhere in between was the concern that the happy couple did not seem particularly blissful and that the balcony kiss was sufficiently lukewarm to suggest that the whole thing was a put-up affair and not a real love match at all.

The endless TV reprises featured one lovely vignette. There were four or five very young pages and bridesmaids in attendance and, as at all large Spanish gatherings, they were allowed to do whatever they liked while any adults who actually paid them any attention looked on with an indulgent smile. So it was that the cameras captured one of the pages kicking hell out of at least one of his diminutive colleagues. I was pleased to see that the readers of El Mundo voted this the Highlight of the proceedings. All is not lost.

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