We at The National devoted four full inside pages to the royal wedding in England. As a republican and a democrat, I find it all fairly appalling. Some $50 million spent so that a couple of Brits can get married? Even though it was going on in the early afternoon here, I am happy to report I didn’t watch the ceremony.

By far the most interesting journalistic approach to this I have seen is that taken by The Guardian of England.

Check this out:

The Guardian, one of England’s quality newspapers even though it skews significantly left-of-center, demonstrated that not every Briton is a monarchy-hugger.

The Guardian at this moment has up two home pages on its website … and because this is the main page, you’ll need to click on this soon to see the two pages …. before they are replaced by more recent developments.

If you go to the home page of the Guardian, you will see a screen full of royal wedding news. Yes, one story has some bite (“some republicans arrested” under a headline that reads “Cheers and jeers on London streets”).

But the really interesting aspect to that page are the small words to the right of the main headline about “theroyalwedding” …

The words are “republicans click here” … and the link takes you to a blessed world where the royal wedding is a rumor. Nothing but serious news, local, regional, global. (Sadly, no url specific to this page.)

I see zero stories on the wedding on the page. A couple of google ads, yes, and a “most viewed” chart at the bottom of the page in which we see that four of the top-five stories are about the wedding. A bit discouraging.

And once you are on the royal-free zone … the only way to get back to the overkill coverage of the wedding is to click on a semi-mocking message that reads “royalists click here.”

I can’t actually say every Brit in the room at The National is a royalist. About a week ago, one English colleague went off on a salty rant about the wedding and all things royal. Most of them, however, are unabashed royalists, and several went to great lengths to get to “wedding-watch parties” in the UAE.

I like to mock the Brits, from time to time, about letting those inbred people live lavish existences at public expense. I said to my ranting colleague, “Hey, when are you guys going to come into the 20th century?”

He said, somewhat indignantly, “We got rid of our king once before and were the first country in the world to do it.” Referring to the Cromwellian republicans who won the English Civil War and executed king Charles I in 1649, 140 years before the French began their revolution.

I responded by noting, “Ah, but it didn’t stick, did it?” because in 1660 the decadent Charles II led the “restoration” of the monarchy, which was widely popular then, as now.

I’m more than a little embarrassed for the mass of Brits and their monarchical ways. But they don’t seem to mind, and their best argument for the royals seems to be that “they’re good for tourism” and “they’re good for the England brand.” That might even be true.

Most British newspapers I’m sure were mired in wedding coverage. Interesting to see that the socialist-leaning Guardian lets a reader opt out. Not sure I’ve seen that sort of choice on a website before.