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Wills And Kate: The Vice Walking Tour

We at Vice live to serve the British Monarchy. 'Vice' itself is of course short for 'Viceroy'. So it is with a spirit of scraping, bowing, forelock-tugging subservience that we have decided to compile the Official Vice, William and Kate, Royal Nuptials Walking Tour Of London. By careful selection, in conjunction with Dr David Starkey, we've picked out a handful of spots around town where the many Royalists who will soon throng to the capital might visit, in order to more closely share in the love story that has delighted a nation.

Annons

Total Walking Time: Seven hours.
Cost: £500.
Meet: Outside Old Street Argos, 3PM, 28 April 2011

Companies House - Position 'A' on map
21 Bloomsbury Street
WC1B 3XD
Marvel at the place where Kate's parents' children’s party accessories company is registered. For over a hundred years, Companies House has registered companies of both millionaires and paupers (except not actual paupers obviously), but surely even they never expected to one-day take receipt of the annual accounts and business details of the husband and wife team behind the next Queen. Ask them about Party Pieces and wonder as they inform you about the colourful bunting, eco-friendly garden lanterns, and Union Jack Essential Party kit that, presumably, Kate’s ma and pa will be filling their Volvo with and carting up to Buckingham Palace before the big day.

Dr Fillion's Practice - Position 'B' on map
57A Wimpole Street
W1G 8YP
Take in the sterile, though impressively stocked with recent magazines (not just a tatty Men’s Health and a 2009 Vanity Fair Oscar’s special), waiting rooms of this dental and orthodontal practice. Here, according to the Daily Mail, Ms Middleton recently had a short course of teeth-whitening ahead of her big day, delivered by the genial yet-financially-loaded Dr Fillion himself (with a dental nurse also in attendance).

Jigsaw Headquarters - Position 'C' on map
6 Duke of York Square, London,
SW3 4LY
Marvel once again, as you arrive at a nondescript set of offices close to the Peter Jones department store, where our future Queen spent a few months working as a junior accessories buyer for Jigsaw. Marvel also, as you note the cost prices of exactly the sort of low-key razzle and tat that Ms Middleton would have purchased on behalf of the company from Far Eastern suppliers. Gasp audibly, as you thumb through stacks of indexed credit notes signed by Princess Katherine (though not signed as “Princess Katherine”, obviously). Burst a blood vessel as you calculate the massive mark-ups that these items retail for. Ejaculate as you notice the version of MS Windows Outlook that Kate would have used at her PC terminal to send gossipy emails to her mates about Wills' incipient bald patch and the size of his 'wedding tackle'.

Annons

Wembley Stadium - Position 'D' on map
Wembley
WEM 8LY
Marvel at the courtly ambience of this popular football stadium in Wembley where, on 1 July 2007, Kate and her beau were snapped together at the Concert For Diana, fuelling rumours that their relationship breakdown had un-broken-down. Despite the occasional presence of upwards of 50,000 Muse fans, Wembley has lost none of the regal charm and simplicity that first endeared it to the Royal Couple, and William’s other guests on that fabulous day: Fergie, Orson, Donny Osmond and Boris Becker. It really was one of those shows that everyone in attendance will remember forever.

South Kensington Tube Station - Position 'E' on map
Pelham St, South Kensington
SW7 2NB
South Kensington tube station is the favoured Tube station of the younger royals, being the one that can be seen from the smoking terrace of Boujis, the nightclub making millions from the public’s assumption that if you pay £500-a-table you’re guaranteed to see Prince Harry shelving ket and goose-stepping to Fergie, Orson, Donny Osmond or Boris Becker.

'South Ken', as it is affectionately nicknamed by commuters, connects conveniently to the Circle, District, and Piccadilly lines. There is a sandwich shop inside the station concourse that sells filled rolls for £3, and bottles of Lucozade for £1.50.

Wellington Barracks - Position 'F' on map
Birdcage Walk,
SW1E 6HQ
These top-quality military barracks are where William’s close friend and fellow soldier Nicholas van Cutsem famously warned the future King that ‘you’ll be next’, when van Cutsem himself wed there in 2009. Spookily, van Cutsem's prediction has finally come true. They say that to this day the story of the 'Curse Of Van Cutsem' still sends a shiver down the spines of military personnel with long-term on-again-off-again girlfriends whom they are dithering over committing to.

Annons

HSBC - Position 'G' on map
1 Regina Rd
UB2 5PL
Kate's mother grew up in the chi-chi West London suburb of Southall, conveniently situated for fashionable Norwood and not too far from the wealthy playground of West Ealing. As she went about her girlhood, she would no doubt have passed by the HSBC at 1 Regina Road (then a Midlands Bank), but might not have considered at the time that she would one day grow up to expel from her vagina a future Regina. Irony barely even covers it.

Iceland - Position 'H' on map
164 Lewisham High Street,
SE13 6JL
Resplendent in its concrete superstructure, wall-to-wall with glass-topped chest freezers fit for a Burger King, Iceland in Lewisham is exactly the kind of place that Wills and Kate will never clap eyes upon, because they are fuck-off rich and know which soup spoon to use to eat squirrel's brains, whereas Iceland in Lewisham's customers are fuck-me poor and think that a roast beef dinner with all the trimmings ought to come in one box. Nevertheless, the store has hung a series of strings of bunting out-front, in a half-hearted attempt to toady up to the pair – a sensory delight well worth the extra three hours it tacks onto our journey.

London Foot and Ankle Centre - Position 'I' on map
60 Grove End Road
St John´s Wood
NW8 9NH
It was here that Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell came in early-2011, for minimally invasive surgery on his arthritic big toe. The procedure is called a 'cheilectomy', but there will be nothing chilled about Witchell's forthcoming task. The BBC broadcaster will be relaying the big news that William and Kate are man and wife to a grateful nation – a job which will doubtless involve a great deal of standing up. Thank goodness LFAC means he can still toe the line!

Buckingham Palace - Position 'J' on map
The Mall,
SW1A 1AA
This popular palace in London's fashionable West End is where William's grandmother lives. They will surely have visited it from time to time, and it is not too much of an imaginative leap to picture the Happy Couple rutting violently in a stairwell of one of its many elegant and regal wings. It is here that our royal wedding tour concludes, so if you’re of Asian origin, we’d advise you to travel light, because frankly, you’re going to have to look more Anglo-Saxon than the Queen’s balls if the police are going to allow you within a mile of this place carrying a rucksack.

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GAVIN HAYNES

If that's got you in the mood for lunatics obsessing about the Royal Wedding, you can watch our film Royal Wedding, here.