Just one day out of life, it would be, it would be so nice

Casting my eye over political message boards yesterday lunchtime, I was heartily amused at the reaction from many right-wing posters to the shock revelation that the Scottish government could actually decide for itself (!!!!!) whether to mark the Royal Wedding with a bank holiday.  Never mind the fact that there wasn't the slightest indication that the extra day off wouldn't in fact get the nod - the indignation went straight into overdrive without passing go.  "They'd better, or they'll have a riot on their hands!" declared someone smugly, apparently oblivious to the fact that not everyone in the UK regards deprivation of their Royal conjugal fix as an obvious trigger-point for mindless violence.

But hang on a minute - can you think of a single other circumstance in which the Right has ever regarded an extra holiday as acceptable, let alone desirable?  I must have imagined CBI Scotland's apoplexy every time the possibility of a St Andrew's Day holiday is mentioned, let alone the attitute towards more generous maternity or paternity leave.  Yet put an ostentatious ring on a posh woman's finger, and suddenly it's a moral outrage that there's even a theoretical possibility that we won't be getting a random lie-in one day next April.

I even saw a newsreader who felt bold enough to decorate her dutiful explanation that Scotland would make its own decision by adding "let's hope we all get a holiday, though".  Has the world gone mad?  Since when did such blatant breaches of BBC impartiality in support of the workshy provoke nothing more than a cry of "ooh, isn't that sweet" from the decent, hard-working, law-abiding, fox-hunting people of this country?  I demand that they come to their senses immediately and jam the BBC switchboards in protest at this brazen show of leftyism - if it isn't nipped in the bud pronto, we'll be turning into FRANCE.

Here we go again

I wonder if I was the only person today who saw the headline "Prince William announces engagement" and then spent the remainder of the day avoiding newspapers and the TV news at all costs.  (It's a coping strategy I perfected when England won the Rugby World Cup.)  I think I'll probably just about be able to cope with the horrors of the day itself - with plenty of notice and medicinal assistance.  But when it's a bolt from the blue, 24 solid hours of Royal Syrup is more than I can take.

The only breach in my defences was that I saw about ten seconds of David Cameron doing his "I know I speak for the whole country" bit (no-you-don't) with the sound down, and even that was enough to make me feel distinctly nauseous.