Pippa gets her own Coat of Arms

When pondering what wonderful new piece of information I would share with you all today, I decided to go for the most topical. Lest history should forget it, or Blogger mistake the date, let me note the historical significance of today, Friday the 29th of April, 2011; the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Rockin'!

Well, it's rockin' once you ignore the fact that they're twelfth cousins once removed, anyway, but fortunately for them, genetics is totally cool with that, and unless something else goes horribly, horribly awry, their babies won't have blue feet growing out of their foreheads or anything.

I guess it's interesting, really, that in England, where they do everything so properly and have such a history of making sure that things are done properly, that so many of their monarchs are inbred. Not any more, of course, and like I said, that's nothing wrong with twelfth cousins once removed -- that's a pretty distant relation -- but still. Interesting.

But because England does have this history of doing things properly, it meant, of course, that Kate Middleton had to have a coat of arms designed for her for the wedding.

That, to me, is incredibly awesome. Heraldry is designed to be forever. The entire Middleton family, for centuries to come, has just been defined by the Middleton family as it is right now, because Kate's marrying a prince. I really need to lift my game so that all my ancestors get to be defined by me. I think they'd appreciate that.

Backtracking a moment, I'd just like to emphasise that Kate had the coat of arms designed for her. That is, she has her own specific version of the coat of arms that's lozenge-shaped and with a blue ribbon that symbolises and means "Middleton spinster". Of course, Kate's getting married in... three hours, by my watch, and so she will no longer be a Middleton spinster, so the shape changes and this changes and that changes and all this special symbolic heraldic things which are cool and fascinating but too boring to go into detail here.

So what happens to this form of the coat of arms?

It now represents, solely, her younger sister Pippa.

In all honesty, I've got to say that I'm a little bit jealous of ol' Pip. She gets her own coat of arms now, and why? Because her sister is marrying a prince. It's not even the usual fuddy-duddy of inheriting it because some ancestor was a knight in the 16th century (which, by the way, he was) or whatever, but because her sister is getting married.

One day my sister will get married, too, and I fully expect our family to get its own coat of arms because of it.

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• Queen Juliana of the Netherlands spent a lot of time in Canada, and they loved her for it
• Glacial acetic acid smells simultaneously disgusting and delicious (think: the strongest vinegar in the world)
• The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was called the USS Enterprise

Also, for those who were wondering, the specific "spinster" version of the Middleton arms won't die out (necessarily) with Pippa, since Kate and Pippa also have a brother whose daughters would get it. More you know!