NO-ONE DOES IT AS WELL AS US.

We weren't going to waste time watching the royal wedding, were we? Well, only a quick glance, just to see the interior of the Abbey. And suddenly, there it was, in all its vertical splendour. And so - we spare a little time for the ceremony.

The silver snarling trumpets 'gin to chide*. And you're hooked, and the tears spring to the eyes, and the slow archaic ceremony begins to unfold. Here is the Dean of the Royal Peculiar; here is Cantuar himself, in High Anglican vestments. Here is the groom, in a totally impractical scarlet jacket, and here the best man, befrogged and aiguilletted beyond endurance.

Here comes the bride, in a long straight stream of pallor in the dark interior, deviating, as is only right, in deference to the Unknown Warrior. And suddenly it all seems so right, with all the authority of ancient truth, and you bask in the certitude of it. Archaic it may seem, but it is surely based on immemorial truths, and Anglican truths at that.

And then the mind wanders, as it is all too prone to do in such circumstances, and you begin to listen to what is being said in such measured tones. '...ordained by God in the time of man's innocence....' And as such participated in by Adam and Eve? Who published the banns?

'.... to have and to hold, till death do us part.....' This in front of a whole row of royalty who have slipped in and out of marriage with the dexterity of lampreys. And how many in the audience - sorry - congregation, had straight down the middle of the road married lives behind, or indeed in front of, them? Do they believe the Bible's references to the subject? Water into wine? As Rowan Atkinson says, 'You should go professional.'

So it's all very moving and impressive, but at times it seems to owe more to the Royal Shakespeare Company in a lush historical production than to fundamental reality. We do it better than anyone else: the French always look as if they have just escaped from an operetta, and the Americans as if they are doing a Historical Re-enactment in a charitable cause. But what precisely is it that we are doing?

*Only the Police Trumpeters, unfortunately, rather sub fusc. The cameras, very wisely did not linger. But the sound did the trick.