Baby Names...

The title of this post is probably a bit misleading, as although thinking about baby names is what gave me the idea its not really what I'm talking about, Oh well. While Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's child was, for a while, the new celebaby (yes, I did just make that word up) that everyone was talking about, I think we can all agree that poor North West has been relegated to being the warm-up act now for the real news story: The Royal Baby. Oh yes, I'm now that person who is actually going to write a blog post about this. Judge me if you want to but I'm definitely more bored than you are right now.

So among all the clamours of happiness and excitement and people waiting outside the palace and generally doing a really good job of caring a whole lot about a brand new person that - lets face it - they have very little chance of ever being in the same room as, there is one lingering question. Why d we care??? Seriously, why? Why did I care what outfits Kim K was photographed in looking vaguely similar to a whale? Why did I care enough to watch four different reporters discussing the fact that Prince Philip will be taking paternity leave on the news this morning? What is the point? And after giving it probably too much thought, I think I know the answer.

Celebrities, royal family members, people in the public eye are basically just a reflection of us. They have good hair days, bad hair days, wear an unflattering pair of leggings from time to time (except maybe Kate Middleton...) They love their children, get married thinking it will last forever and then cheat or are cheated on, divorce, or lose their partner to illness or an accident or simply, old age. Exactly like all the rest of us. You can recognise yourself and your family members in the constant news coverage - the excited new grandparents, the exhausted looking mum, the siblings, the cousins, the in-laws. And this level of similarity with everyone else's normal, ordinary family is reassuring. It suggests that we are all not so different. Every woman who has had a baby will know exactly how Kate Middleton feels - not something that is usually the case, because after all, she is going to be the future Queen. I don't know about you but I don't tend to go about my daily life feeling that I empathise with her a great deal at all.

So there you go. My justification of why its fine for me to continue being glued to the news channel and constantly refreshing the BBC homepage. Why its fine for me to watch the Kardashians with an interest that borders on obsessive. And please Kate and Wills, put us out of our misery. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CALL HIM??? Oh, and congratulations on making a tiny, probably screaming human...

Happy Birthday, Royal Baby.