It's A Boy (Good-bye To Princess Charlotte)

And I admit, I'm slightly disappointed. I had really been hoping for, and more or less expecting, a girl, for no specific reason other than I thought it would be cool. Here in the blog I've been referring to the baby as Princess Charlotte since July 4, but you know, never mind. Some random thoughts:

The birth of a boy takes the whole "changing the law to let a girl inherit the throne" issue off the table for another generation. As I understand it the law has been changed in the U.K. but not all of the Commonwealth countries have signed off on it yet. Now presumably they've got 25 years or more to work it out. I loved Tina Brown's tweet: "Now the royals can stop pretending they were fine with a girl first." Tradition dies hard!

It was 8.30 p.m. or so in London when the birth was finally announced, and before the announcement some of the reporters I follow on Twitter had started to fuss about what would happen if the baby didn't show up until tomorrow. Given that William's first act of fatherhood was expected to be a phone call to his granny The Queen and no-one else could be told first, serious reporters were actually tweeting about what time Her Madge might go to bed, how early she might get up in the morning, would the news really keep all night if the baby was born at midnight, etc. Never mind that too. It turns out he was born at 4.24 p.m., and apparently the new parents just felt like having some private bonding time as a family before letting the whole world know. Good for them!

For all the talk that Kate's mum Carole and possibly sis Pippa would be with her for the birth, that doesn't appear to have been the case. Will Kate take the little prince back to Bucklebury for a few weeks? Could be.

What will they name the baby? Everything I read says it will a traditional "royal" name and the young prince will probably have at least four names. Grampa Charles's full name is Charles Phillip Arthur George; Will's is William Arthur Phillip Louis. One CNN talking head noted the presence of "Arthur" in both Dad and Grampa's names and said that is a strong possibility for this child too, noting that "it's cool again but not celebrity weird." We'll see.

The heir and the spare? It's probably safe to assume that at some point in the future there will be another Cambridge baby and I was fascinated by this comment from a BBC reporter: At some point there may well be a younger sibling - but perhaps just the one, as the Royal Family appear to have understood the problems of producing too many young royals, all of whom require a role. The problems of producing too many young royals? Yikes. The things one must worry about when one is royal.

Finally, the math. The Queen is currently 87 years old. If William lives that long, this new baby won't get to be King until 2069, when he'll be 56 years old. Lots of interesting things to happen in the meantime, so for now, I'll simply say welcome to the baby who isn't Princess Charlotte, and of course, long live the Queen!