So, I had my first Royal conversation on Saturday (by which I mean a conversation about, not with British royalty…) I wasn’t expecting it to take place in a “mildly famous blues bar”:http://www.sanfranciscoblues.net/GrantGreen/GG.html but hey, that’s life’s rich tapestry at work.

My co-conversationalist in all this was a woman in, I would guess, her late 40s. She was the Godmother of my friend’s flatmate, which is how I came to be talking with her. Unfortunately, it was all a bit awkward.

You see, the royal family are one of the most embarassing things about being a Brit abroad. To illustrate, the conversation I’m describing began something like this:

Her: So, what do British people think about Prince Charles marrying Camilla?Me: (miming an exaggerated shrug) Meh.

And, well, there wasn’t much more to say.

I’m not suggesting that I speak for every one of the UK’s 60 million or so citizens here, but certainly the prevailing word on the street regarding the Windsor family these days seems to be “meh”. Or possibly “muh” depending on regional accent.

Take this recent voting panel from the BBC news website (which was appearing on this page at the time of writing).

That’s over half the respondents choosing “Don’t care”, the BBC’s politer equivalent of “meh”.

This indifference causes a bit of a communication problem here in the US, where people are a bit more interested in the royals. Magazines have more coverage of them, Princess Di is still spoken about… and as a Brit, of course, you’re expected to be intensely interested in your own royal family.

I think the problem is that, from afar, British royalty is still crowns, gold coaches and large palaces. The glamour surrounding Princess Diana, too, gave the family an air of sophistication reminiscent of that provided by Jackie Kennedy to 60s America.

America’s cultural memory doesn’t contain the reduction of the Civil List and the introduction of income tax for the Windsors, the embarassing gaffes of Prince Phillip, the aftermath of the Windsor Castle fire and the subsequent opening of Buckingham Palace as a tourist attraction…

In the last 15 years, the Royals have been through a lot of changes, nearly all of them unpleasant. I think that a lot of Brits now see them as normal people; flawed, and struggling through life like most of us. Stripped of much of its former ceremony and importance, the royal birthright seems increasingly like a curse to be endured.

We feel sorry for them, and pity is something which is distasteful to the British palate. Retreating from it, we’d rather leave them alone to get on with their lives.

Besides, I can say with all honesty that they’re at their best when helping others – initiatives like the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the Prince’s Trust do make a real difference to peoples’lives. Somehow, focussing on Charles’s private life seems tawdry in comparison.

In line with this, what you’ll find these days is that UK gossip magazines and newspapers spend more time examining the new Royalty imported from America – the ones with mansions in Beverley Hills.

None of which helps when you’re trying to explain all this to a slightly disappointed American who equated your Britishness with a sadly absent flag-waving fervour and a penchant for commemorative Royal Wedding mugs.

Still, it could have been worse. She could have asked what I thought of Tony Blair.

This article first arrived on the interwebnet on Monday, March 14th, 2005 at 9:05 pm .
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