Kate Middleton is a role model for young women and should look well-nourished on her wedding day
YES, THIS is the royal wedding column. Thought we’d get it over with before post-colonial confusion turned us bilious again. But actually republicans shouldn’t fret. For one thing, that particular colonial horse has bolted. Who’s going to break it to them that we’re occupied by British football teams, British television, British magazines and that we buy British clothes in the British shops that occupy the main streets of our country? Not me, obviously, because I’ve been banging on about it in quite a boring way for years.
In fact the Irish are perfectly placed to enjoy the royal wedding. We're not paying for it. We don't have to have street parties at which respectable men will dress up as women, as the English male is so very wont to do whenever his country is en fête.
Over here we’re going to have discreet living-room parties instead, at which women will sit in front of large televisions for an entire day, criticise the outfits and consume large quantities of cake. I can’t wait.
But Kate’s too thin, that’s the problem. I’m worried about the wedding dress. She was thin enough in the engagement dress. Then last week she appeared in a blue suit, gaunt. Her lovely knees knocking. Her beautiful face haggard. Is this the way the fairy tale ends – at a size six? Here is the wedding of the year or perhaps of the decade. Here is the happily ever after. And here is the message going out to young women everywhere: once you’ve found prince charming you can give up food forever.
This is serious stuff. Kate Middleton is a model of modern femininity. She seems like a nice girl – although she’s an adult and 30 next January. She appears conscientious, dutiful and beautiful – and she is shrinking before our very eyes. Just as her late mother-in-law did before her wedding 30 years ago.
It is perhaps unrealistic to expect the same people to be working in Buckingham Palace now as were on the staff in Diana's day, but surely some of them read Hello!Surely someone in there could hit Google and remind themselves of a time when you could count the ribs of another princess.
Back then, alarm bells rang. There were news items on the growing concerns for the shrinking Lady Diana. Now no one seems to be saying anything. It’s amazing what isn’t said. It is common knowledge that Kate’s formidable mother, Carole, has lost quite a lot of weight on the Dukan diet. Yes, the British royal family is now marrying into the protein- only Thursday. Princess Margaret must be turning in her grave.
In contrast to her mother’s well-tabulated regime, Kate’s weight loss has been, as far as I can gather, unexplained. In a curious case of generational role reversal, Carole Middleton’s body, in contrast to her daughter’s, is territory well-trodden by photographers and reporters.
Last week, Carole (56) was photographed wearing boots with bare legs. This was a major development. Luckily Carole is a tough cookie and well able for this sort of nonsense.
Kate wants to be perfect or is stressed out of her head – or both. It is hard to forget the remark by a former pupil at an all-girls public school in England, that at lunch time the senior lavatories routinely stank with the tang of fresh vomit. The good girls, the achieving girls, the prosperous girls cannot be too thin.
The weight of any normal woman can fluctuate wildly in her lifetime. In an extract from her new book published yesterday in the Sunday Times, Tina Fey, comedienne genius and millionaire, reminisced about being both an American size four (size eight here) and an American size 12 (size 16 here).
In her skinny phase, Fey recalled: “I once took a bag of sliced red peppers to the beach as a snack.”
For my part, I used to take 30 Silk Cut to the beach as a snack.
I suppose what we’re saying here is that women are a bit mental about food. That is why it is very important that role models like Kate Middleton present a healthy, well- nourished looking body to the world’s young women. It is one thing and perfectly understandable for a fairy tale princess to shrink from the first impact of the global gaze.
It is another to waste away in front of it.
So here we are again. Let’s not have young girls ordering their fairy princess dresses in a size six to follow Kate Middleton’s example. Feed that girl some carbs, so that we can watch them live happily ever after.