According to the adds for Oil of Olay (which apparently overnight changed its name from Ulay for no good reason - presumably to satisfy the Eurocrats who gave up the names Opal Fruits, Jif and Marathon in previous years) there are seven signs of aging, at least for women. Judging by the adverts for hair colour featuring the wizened face of the once picturesque Andie MacDowall, I'd say she's suffered at least six of them. Whether it's the same for men, I don't know, but I think there are for all of us certain defining moments when we realise that we're no longer the same young carefree bucks (or buckesses) we once were.

When I got my first grey hair I pulled it out, not particularly out of a fear of aging but... well, actually I have a beginning but not an end for that sentence, so maybe it was vanity after all. When the grey hairs started arriving not as single spies but in battalions (and disconcertingly not just on my head either - apologies if you were eating when you read that) I decided to not worry about it any more. My hair is always a bit of a mess, to be honest (if it weren't for the fact that frankly my hairdresser scares me, I would go more often, but as it is my hair generally gets within touching distance of my shoulders before it ever gets the chop) so a hint of grey is a minor issue.

But as well as that sort of clichéd indicator of time's passage (in addition to my hair losing its natural chestnut, I notice that my daughter's teacher only looks about twenty - oh, and aren't the policemen young these days) there are also some more personal ones. I clearly remember once scoffing at my Dad for saying that he actually enjoyed Rich Tea biscuits. Oh don't get me wrong, I've never disliked them, but I've always thought of them as very much your standby, basic biscuit - for a real, sugar-filled, naughty-but-nice biscuit experience you're going to look to your hobnob, your bourbon, your garibaldi or your good old fashioned chocolate digestive. To actually single out the humble "a drink's too wet without one" Rich Tea biscuit for particular praise, little more than a coaster with holes in to look at, struck me as absurd...

...and yet just last night I found myself sticking up for the Rich Tea against my wife's scorn. She had just finished off a packet of Morning Coffee biscuits (she hadn't eaten the whole packet, I hasten to add, she just happened to have the last dozen or so) and asked if we had anything else in the cupboard. My answer that there was a packet of Rich Tea met with dismay, hence my leaping to the defence.

More significant than this though (well, perhaps) last weekend when round my brother's house (and yes, Little Miss was playing on the Playstation at the time) both my brother and I were watching the BBC News channel. I actually like to watch the news now, if like is the right word, and I tend to catch it on the radio or via the internet most days; and in fact (dare I say it? oh what the hey) I've begun to find politics, or at least the playing out of it, really quite interesting. Having grown up with parents who usually made a point of catching the nine o'clock news, I can only see this as another clear sign of my getting older, and I feel sure that an addiction to Question Time can only be a matter of time.

Of course, the downside of getting interested in the news is that it can very often make one very angry at the world. One thing in particular has wound me up this past week or so - perhaps unsurprisingly it's the ongoing saga of the impending Royal Wedding, and I'm rather afraid that I'm going to bleat on about it now. You have been warned, and if you really can't face the prospect of me becoming the Jenny Bond of the Vervoid (although, I like to think, with a slightly more understated dress-sense) then I won't be at all offended if you switch off now and have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit instead. But if you are going to do that, avoid the Rich Tea - or one day you will find yourself as I am now. Wasn't it Yoda who said, in respect of the Rich Tea biscuit, that once you have started down its path, forever will it dominate your destiny?

But moving away from the tortuous philosophy of 900-year old muppets, poor old Charles (and Camilla of course) has been in the news again this week. Maybe it's just me and the reclusive circle I move in, but despite the attempts by the Press to convince us that this is a matter of national concern, I don't think anybody really cares that much about it. I can't possibly be the only one who greeted the news that they were (finally!) getting married, with a sense of inevitability. I can't even be the only one who doesn't mind whether she gets to be called Queen or not - and frankly if your husband is the King, you're going to have a fair amount of social clout aren't you, whatever your own title may be.

It did seem to have settled down after the initial "outcry" (Who are these people who get so incensed? Do they actually exist?) but then there was the news that it was going to be a registry office wedding rather than a full Church affair, and then that the Queen wouldn't be attending, and then the apparently scandalous revelation that the reception will be a buffet rather than a full cooked meal... Does it matter? Yes I gather there are some 'valid' (ie, not just sensationalist) reasons why people might object on religious grounds - the future head of the Church of England being a remarried divorcee, and remarried to another divorcee at that - but surely even that is pretty shaky nowadays isn't it? The C of E across-the-board veto on remarrying divorced persons went a long time ago, with it now (as far as I can tell) being down to the discretion of the individual clergyman (or of course, clergywoman).

Unfortunately, I have little shrift for those arguments, if for no other reason than that those who make them are missing the wood for the trees. Charles has already had a big, 'proper', Church wedding, to a non-divorced person, but by all accounts it's clear now that it was little more than a sham, largely for the sake of the continuation of the royal line, and arguably even as they took the vows in 1981 neither party really meant them. And of course the other issue is that if Charles ISN'T allowed to marry Camilla, then the Church will one day have a King who is blatantly sleeping with a woman he isn't married to. Which would they prefer?

Personally, I can't help but think that Charles and Camilla probably don't give two hoots for the press and its attempts to drive us all into an outraged fervour against the wedding. After, what, a quarter of a century of an on-off affair/relationship they'll probably just be relieved to get it over with and be clearly and definitively married. It will, for one thing, avoid those slightly awkward situations when they are at public functions together - after all, what is she at the moment? Does she get introduced as the Prince of Wales' friend? His Companion? Lover? The girl who danced with him? All in all, they seem to have shown a considerable amount of tact and discretion throughout - that's not necessarily to condone Charles having an affair while he was married, but to be honest it's clear that it wasn't just him (and frankly isn't that side of it really only down to the husband and wife involved) - but when tapes of conversations were leaked, that wasn't his fault. When Diana got to tell all in print, and on Panorama, there was no right of reply. The Prince of Wales and his... erm... ah, his fiancée (phew!) have been seen out together, but have kept their (as Morecambe and Wise might have said) dignity at all times.

As for the Queen not approving - well, even if that isn't just media hype, it's hardly a change of palace policy is it. I don't think she particularly liked Diana, I can't for one minute imagine she ever liked Fergie, and for that matter (what with all that business with the dog) she's probably not that well-disposed to her own daughter at the moment. And the less said about Sophie the better I feel... But as a woman fully versed in etiquette, protocol, tact and the like, I daresay she'll keep her thoughts to herself. It's not as if she's going to nip round to Charles and Camilla's pad to check the mantelpiece for dust is it?

Above all, I daresay that by now both Charles and Camilla are sensible enough to know that it isn't the wedding that matters so much as the marriage. On a personal level, our wedding wasn't a big affair, it certainly wasn't flashy, and although the mother of the bride did attend she did so under noisy and rather childish sufferance; but we will have been married eight years next month (assuming neither of us goes off with Will Carling or James Hewitt in the next few weeks of course). Unlike 1981, we may not get 'Charles & Camilla' mugs or tea towels this time around, and she may never make the cover of Vogue, but they probably don't care - and at the end of the day, despite the attempts of the media to convince us otherwise, why should we?

Let them get married and be happy, and let Fleet Street forever hold its peace.