Ebay: the Great Cultural Barometer

While avoiding ruminating on the celebrity weddings and funerals taking place across Europe this week, it is worth wasting a few minutes of time on the chatkis of du jour.

Go to Ebay and search for 'Charles and Camilla' and then search for 'Pope.' You might be surprised - or not - to find that the dearly departed pontiff can be remembered on a mug for under four quid. A similar 'limited edition' (if mass produced souvenirs can be called such) cup with the wrong date of Chuck and Cami's wedding now postponed by a day for the Pope's funeral is going for over twenty to fourty pounds. That same dosh will get you a wall clock with the Pope's visage. Hear John Paul speak out against the Iraq war, third world debt and material consumption when the clock chimes twelve, but at six, here him rant against the sins of homosexuality, abortion and Marxism. Confusing times are these.

Of course, there is that supply and demand thing with the consumerism. The wedding kit all must be reprinted with the correct date and though it's not on the scale of the newspaper headline mistakenly announcing Dewey had won the presidency over Truman, the cache of having such an item is not unsimilar. And anyone who's ever been to the Vatican or any other Catholic holy site knows that while us Fenians know our way around fine gothic church architecture, we lack all forms of subtlty when it comes to selling our wares. The number of shops hawking the most brilliantly tacky souvenirs with the likes of the Pope and Mary are mind-boggling. Can you say: Holy Back Scratcher! In Lourdes, there's an entire museum retelling the miracle of Saint Bernadette in lifesize wax figurines. Madame Toussand does Catholicism. Interestingly, there is not so much tack around Jesus. I think the whole cross thing must get in the way.

And whether it's tea and cruppets conservatism or hipster Cool Britania, we really loose the stylish plot over here when it comes to royal tat. I'm sure ever punter shelling out a twenty pound note for a historically inaccurate mug of the latest wedding hopes to sit it astride their souvenir plate from Chuck and Di's storybook romance wedding and the Queen's Jubilee tea towel. Low end excessive consumption for Tories and Yanks.

And lastly, is it not an ironic coincidence that the hier to the protestant throne that itself was created in definace of the Vatican so a King could divorce had to postpone his nuptuals for the death of the head of the Catholic Church? Where the British independence day is a celebration of the hanging of a Catholic who tried to fight the return to protestant rule in his ill-fated and poorly planned efforts to blow up Parliment?

I don't mean to make light of the Pope. He seemed like a really nice man, so far as world leaders go and despite some of his horrific views. He's the Pope, what do we expect, Chomsky? The royal wedding? It's about time for all I care. Good on 'em. That, and the royals are good for tourism, bad for any form of constitution. It's just a shame they all don't have nicer souvenir mugs.