ROYAL WEDDING STICKER ALBUM

I thought sticker albums were just for football and maybe Pokemon, not the Royal Wedding? In case you hadn’t noticed there’s a Royal Wedding right now between two people that aren’t really that important in any context whatsoever and the whole country seems to being going haywire for it, with one twat even rocking up to Westminster Abbey with his sleeping bag three days early to make sure he can catch the big event live. But does he have the latest must have accessory to the Royal Wedding? No, it’s not some dumb T-Shirt or mug or souvenir photo – although I’m sure they’re probably available – but a Royal Wedding sticker album. Can you believe this shit?

What’s worse is that it’s made by Panini, who are undoubtedly the ultimate authority on sticker albums, with such past greats as the World Cup South Africa sticker album and Premier League 2006-07 sticker album. The Royal Wedding sticker album itself features 220 large, varnished stickers with 20 kiss cut stickers to watch out for. What the hell is a kiss cut sticker? A sticker of Wills and Kate smooching I guess…..is this the equivalent of a Royal Wedding shiny?

More to the point, how can they even get 220 stickers out of an event that hasn’t even happened? Granted, the World Cup generally hadn’t taken place when you got the album, but you did have to collect a sticker of almost every player that was going to take part, as well as cool stuff like stadiums and special abilities like LONG RANGE SHOOTING and SURGING RUNS, and maybe even a sticker of the World Cup itself – usually in two different parts because it was such a big deal.

The Royal Wedding itself has none of this cool stuff. There are probably what, like 20 participants max? Maybe a venue? Does the ring itself get a sticker? You can’t really make a ring two stickers big can you? Or can you? Panini state they aim to document William’s early years in sticker format, and also tell the story of how the relationship between the future King of England and his bride to be developed. Sounds pretty informative, right? It’s led to stickers as awesome as this one:

Not to be outdone, you will be sent 8 stickers following the event which actually features footage of the Royal Wedding itself to complete your sticker album. But will these stickers include one of the rare Kiss Cut stickers, that’s what I want to know. I guess it’s a fairly innovative feature of the album; I can’t remember ever receiving a picture of Zidane lifting the World Cup after the 1998 final. That would have been a swell sticker.

OK OK I admit that all the girls that are reading this might take my condescending attitude over it as being sexist, but it isn’t really. I mean are girls even the target audience for a Royal Wedding sticker album? Without deliberately attempting to plunge this article into even greater depths of controversy the only other possible audiences I can think of for this are really prissy gay guys who used to love Princess Diana or the really really old people that are actually stoked on the Royal Wedding and genuinely believe that it’s actually a big event.

But even though these vague demographics might actually be interested in the Royal Wedding, I can’t actually see any of them being interested in buying stickers and completing a sticker album? I mean there’s something slightly different about lads in the playground doing swaps in the corner where the teachers can’t see them (or beating each other up for that elusive Dave Kitson shiny – who thought Dave Kitson could pull off being a shiny?), rather than rocking up at the local tea rooms to have a natter (an analogy that fortunately works for all three demographics) and pulling out your Wills and Kate swaps.

It just doesn’t make sense. Much like how everyone is going crazy over the Royal Wedding. I think me and a couple of my mates are just going to play football on Friday when it’s on. And then later maybe hit up a street party with some swaps.