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October 24, 2005

Corporal Dreamy

I'm not exactly a monarchy buff, but Prince William's decision to join the Army, following in his brother's staggering, vomit-stained footsteps, struck me as rather unexpected. It struck the Guardian's Peter Preston as something rather less benign than "unexpected": "It's routine publicity as the student prince turns to warrior prince for compact headline purposes," he writes. "But it is also a dreadful waste of talent, another bumpy ride down the same rutted royal track."

I tend to agree. I'm not sure just what Wills would have done with his bog-standard geography degree, but suffice to say he could have done anything he bloody well pleased. I have seen no concrete evidence of a scintillating intelligence there, but he doesn't appear to be stupid, he has reasonable taste in women, and scintillating is the last thing the Royal Family needs anyway. Preston gets it:

He could have been so many things: a cartographer, using his geography degree; a schoolteacher, helping to shape young lives that would blossom as a legacy long after he'd left; a charity organiser, an Outward Bounder, a businessman learning to manage the Duchy estates in ways his father has never mastered. Even a journalist. He could, in short, have been useful — and signalled that his reign, at last, would be the start of something new, fresh and relevant.

But no: the lack of inspiration and imagination is total, perhaps terminal. By the left, now, shuffle slowly towards oblivion...

Obviously William didn't make this decision on his own. That's not to say that it was thrust upon him either, but at a certain level it reflects what the Royal Family wants the commoners to see in them. Which is a bit odd, in my estimation.

Posted by Chris Selley at October 24, 2005 11:34 PM

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Posted by: Jesse Armstrong at November 12, 2005 04:56 AM