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Your support makes all the difference.Hello George. And welcome to your very own, very mad and very frightening world of flashing lights, hollering hacks and gawping, flag-waving, grey-minded tourists.
Imagine the oceans of ink that will, one day, come to print your name in every prying, exhausting detail of your existence. Imagine the zillions of pixels that will fizzle and glow on billions of screens in decades to come as we spy on your every joy, sorrow, achievement, failure and twitch. Yes George, you don’t appreciate who you are yet. But we do. Stare up at us, this vast audience of faces leering down into your cot.
Even the blank space, before your name was scratched onto your birth certificate, has been gawped at for days by the wide-eyed mass of well-wishers and mindless emotion-junkies.
And now we know you, our latest taxpayer funded mascot to roll off the potentate-production line.
Buckingham Palace reminds us, with a camp and dismissive waft of its hand, the third in line to the throne does not require a surname. He isn’t a person you see, he is an heir.
Credit must go to the smiling, glowing Kate and Bill for being so decisive. It took Phil and Liz far longer to pick a name for their first born. A month in fact. And then after much crown-scratching, brainstorming and deliberating they dreamed up the extraordinarily exotic…Charles. Or, to be thorough, Charles Philip Arthur George. His birth certificate reads like a bowls team.
And George isn’t much different. Hardly a surprise, his name was George with the bookies. Did you bet? Ah then, so we do profit from the Royals.
Perhaps the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wanted to go for something more modern like Tyler, but the Queen and Katie Hopkins said 'no'. They might have chosen something more idiosyncratic, had they been given the choice. Harrods perhaps. Or Eton. Then again, other more ordinary couples of a similar age seem keen on old fashioned names too. Look at the top ten list for last year. Harry comes first (ask Zayne), then Jack, Oliver, Charlie, James, George and Thomas. Thank goodness, Andrew has dropped off like the umbilical stump that it is. Mum, I will never forgive you. Just because you got Pauline.
I can’t help but wish that the perfect pair had gone for something more adventurous and meaningful. The American Indians name newborns after their first vision. Imagine, King Silver Spoon the First. Or perhaps they could have picked something completely ordinary but totally unexpected. Like Alan.
Alex Salmond will be relieved the bouncing bundle of British pride was not named James. And maybe Owen would have done well for him, assuming he is, one day, to become the Prince of Wales. That would have made him the second most adored Owen in England.
No. No it had to be something simple, English and firm, didn’t it? A stately, broad-backed name, capable of carrying the weight of a Regent. And so we have it. Today’s youngest celebrity is tomorrow’s King George. It is a good name. Robust, decent, fair, blank. So for now, sleep tight little one and fingers crossed you got your mum’s teeth. Long live HRH George. And, sincerely, good luck.
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