For the ladies privy to being invited to the Royals marriage of the century one article was the derigeur: Fascinators.

It really does take the Brits to come up with the word fascinators and of course the hat to accompany the word, because these are the people that traditionally don’t know enough to get out of the noon day sun.

Now the topper that the Queen wore to the Disney performance of ‘Kiss Me (again) Kate’ could be called a proper topper.  After all what else could it be, even if the rest of the outfit, as one American comic said, looked like a school bus.

Then there were those that pranced like peacocks with rudimentary plumage sprouting from a barrette and others wearing crowns that proved to be nose pointers.

I always liked hats, in fact my mother used to call me the mad hatter.   However, most of the hats I wore were baseball hats. I probably have more hats today than Imelda Marcos had shoes.

Most of my hats are traditional, Indiana Jones hats, captains hats, sailing hats, golf hats, safari hats, Aussie hats and pith helmets.  I only have one crazy or fascinator hat, it’s one with grey hair for my shaved head.

Hats are important for me whether I’m in the tropics or elsewhere.

Everyone attending the Royal wedding was provided with a 22 page book of etiquette on how to behave and what to wear.  For example, men were to wear a dress uniform, with sword, as the cad, Prince Charles and his father, the stiff, Prince Philip did.  The morning suit that Sir Elton John and his significant other wore was smashing. Those in a business suit, known in the UK as a lounge suit, were boring on a scale of one to 10 and were duly noted by the Queen.

There were many women wearing feathers from their coffers and I was surprised not to see more birds nesting; and of course there were the flying saucers some on top of the head and others off to the side so they could get a peck on the cheek, that is if they didn’t have lift off before the event.

Then there was this:

I don’t exactly know how to explain this topper, but it sure does make a lady tall.  For me a hat on a lady is a distraction, I’m just not looking at the usual assets that I am pleased by.

However, there was one class act that stole the show and it wasn’t the bride.  It was Pippa, the 27-year-old sister of the bride who proved to be an asset to the spectacle, not a fascinating distraction.