"Men in tights made this country what it is," says the BBC Radio announcer during BBC’s interminable, bone-numbing coverage of some marriage in London last week (think C-SPAN with that "sophisticated" British accent).

"Men in tights." No wonder the British still have an empire.

Of course, when most of your best men are ballet dancers in tights, sooner or later, you wind up becoming Russia, only without the chess wizards.

Russia still has a great empire, too, right?

Amazingly, so many Americans (not pointing any sort of gender finger, but they were overwhelmingly young Yank women) in London along the royal route who were interviewed by BBC were all agog — no, they were far beyond that, they were pantingyly, frothingly, screamingly, therely so they could catch a glimpse of the royal somebody.

Especially Prince William and, more especially, Prince Harry.

It was if the two princes were the reincarnation of the Beatles, circa 1963.

Do those American girls not remember that this country was born by revolting against the English royalty? Do they wish to go back to being a colony? So they may truly worship Prince Harry and Duke William?

No wonder the American electorate is so screwed up.

Another thing I found interesting about the royal wedding: The two former Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Browne, were not invited to the wedding, and neither was President Obama.

(Who saved Britain’s lunch [and breakfast and dinner] in World War II? Hint: It wasn’t just the courageous RAF fliers in the Battle of Britain. And not all of whom were British; some were Canadians and Americans, some of whom earned British medals.)

But the Syrian ambassador to Britain was invited to the wedding.

Curious. Especially because the British government has recently admonished, in that understated, English sort of way, the Syrian government for massacring its citizens who have the temerity to protest against the government.

But it is interesting that the royal family would consider that the presence of an official of murderous regime would be more appropriate than that of two former prime ministers and the American president.

The royal family has also denied access to cover the wedding for a satirical Australian show. So the scorecard reads: former liberal (sort of) prime ministers, 0; liberal (sort of) American president 0, Australian satire, 0; murderous regime, 1.

That’s the kind of royal family that we Irish have come to know quite well after 700 years or so.

Of course, if I were Tony Blur — excuse me, Tony Blair (I’m blaming football fingers) — had I received an invitation to the royal wedding, I would have politely declined. Quite possibly quite politely: "I’m rather sorry; I shan’t be able to attend the wedding of the prince and his chattel because my presence is demanded at a conference on nuclear proliferation in Central Asia. I quite understand that nuclear proliferation in Central Asia was not addressed in the Magna Carta of 1215.

But I stoutly believe that nuclear proliferation in Central Asia — despite the American approach, in which the government disclosed the name of a CIA agent in the area — is a worrisome subject."

Since British conservatives took over the government last year and instituted a severe round of spending cuts, which gives conservatives orgasmic happiness, the British economy has deeply slumped, BBC Radio cheerily tells us. Well, OK, not so cheerily. The only thing BBC Radio has been cheery about is that damn wedding. You’d think something important was going on.

Yeah, right; slashing the budget works just great. Yet, Republicans are determined to send us down the road that Britain is going, royal wedding or no.