You cannot buy this publicity

From the Washington Post:

"Perhaps more than any other single event, the royal wedding Friday is exposing the members of the British royal family for what they really are: the original global celebrities. Despite the occasional grumbling from lads in the pub about those privileged freeloaders in Buckingham Palace, three out of four Britons still back the monarchy. Given the worldwide media frenzy over a wedding — even the proud republic of France is going gaga, with three national channels broadcasting live — it is easy to see why.

Although the sun set long ago on the British empire, the royals, for all their foibles, still give this quaint and foggy land outsize importance, making it so the eyes of the world are focused on a marriage that would otherwise be a 28-year-old air force pilot getting hitched to a 29-year-old Internet party supply heiress. In the end, it works out cheap for the British: You cannot buy this kind of publicity. "


“Oh, you can see it in this wedding! Never has one family so defined one country,” beamed Christopher Warren-Green, who will conduct the London Chamber Orchestra at Westminster Abbey on Friday. “Never has one family been so well known — and so watched — by the world

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/wedding-of-william-kate-spotlights-the-royals-the-original-global-celebrities/2011/04/28/AFhy8n6E_story.html?hpid=z5