So it turns out New Idea was right all along: Kate Middleton is pregnant!
Of course, if you splash it across your front page every week, you’ll get it right eventually.
To use an oldie but a goodie, New Idea has No Idea.
But it, and hundreds of other gossip magazines around the world, will spend the next nine months or so imparting their wisdom from secret sources on every little bit of baby news.
Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, eh?
I don’t think I’d enjoy being the target of such a spotlight, which probably explains why I’m neither a Prince nor a Princess.
After all, I like being able to pick my nose at traffic lights without it ending up on the front page of a magazine.
Make the most of every second of your spare time, I say.
Too often our spotlight is indeed focused on the world of celebrity and I can almost guarantee that Princess Kate’s baby news would have outranked every other story on the major news websites on Tuesday.
A poor young 17-year-old kid died while on schoolies in Fiji and the Craig Thomson affair took another twist, but screw that, a member of the Royal Family is having a kid!
Congratulations to the thousands of other women around the world who told their family the exact same piece of news on Tuesday: they’re pregnant.
Most will not be born into such luxury and glamour, and in truth many will become far more interesting people, but eh, it’s a Princess.
A Princess!
We’re a little over three weeks away from Christmas and for many families, whom at best have the spotlight shone on them for a day, it will be a time of much sadness.
Many will be spending their first Christmas without a loved one, many because of tragic circumstances. Think about the family of Nicole Fitzsimons.
Just a few weeks ago, Nicole and her partner Jamie were holidaying in Thailand. In a split second, a fun time turned to unthinkable tragedy. 24-year-old Nicole, a passionate sports journalist, was killed when the scooter in which her and Jamie were riding was hit from behind by a maniac driver.
There is much more to the story of Nicole Fitzsimons, but that’s not the point of this column. However, if you’re interested, visit www.nicolefitzsimons.com, it’s well worth a browse.
My point here is that the death of a young Australian in horrific circumstances received barely a ripple of coverage compared to that of a Princess who lives half a world away being pregnant.
There are many, many other examples like that one.
In the Penrith LGA this year, there have been a number of tragic, fatal accidents – the most recent out at Orchard Hills just a few weeks ago.
A life taken, the world changed, and yet nobody noticed. I’m not sitting here with a waving finger at the media, after all, they report what they believe will attract the most viewers.
That’s a commercial reality.
But as we head into a summer that will undoubtedly claim more young lives, many of them on our roads, you have to wonder how we get the message to sink in if we care more about Lindsay Lohan getting arrested than we do about a family losing a mother, a brother, a sister, or a child.
The Nicole Fitzsimons story I mentioned above has some rather nasty twists that should have taken this country’s attention. It didn’t, but then again, Kate Middleton had a new hairstyle around that time. Priorities.
On Tuesday night, I was driving from Mulgoa back into Penrith. I was doing the speed limit, and unfortunately I was forcing the young female P-Plater in the green car behind me to do it, too.
Unhappy, she overtook me on a bend, and sped off into the distance. Presumably, this girl has all but a few years of driving experience, if that. There was every chance she could have been killed in that instant because if I couldn’t see what was around that bend, neither could she.
If you think it might have been your daughter, give me a call, I’ve got the number plate.
If that girl keeps driving like that, she will die before the most significant parts of her life unfold.
But when she does, none of us will really care.
We’ll be too busy guessing Royal baby names to even notice.
