These have been momentous days for helicopter pilots — one involved in a wedding ceremony witnessed by an estimated two billion television viewers, others in a ‘snuff movie’ seen thus far only by Barack Obama and his 13-strong entourage.

On the slaying of Osama bin Laden I will say only that it requires a certain amount of courage to watch someone shoot a fellow human being in the eye. But courage — reckless courage? — is what we expect of US presidents.

It is expected of royalty, too, and was firmly demonstrated by the House of Windsor in the matter of the guest list for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. A brave and haughty contempt for the conventions of good manners was shown, for instance, in the banning of the Duchess of York from an event at which her daughters were destined to play so — ahem — prominent a role. Not since the Ugly Sisters’ appearance at Prince Charming’s ball can a royal occasion have seen a more eye-catching arrival (those hats!) than that of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie at Westminster Abbey.

Tony Blair (though perhaps not Cherie) should also have been there. What bad form it was to exclude a distinguished and long-serving prime minister from an occasion at which many political minnows — I think at once of that ghastly squirt John Bercow — could be observed in prominent places lining the aisle.

Not observed by me, as it happens, at least during the live broadcast. For much of the ceremony, I was enjoying a bike ride in the sunshine. The quietness of the streets confirmed that here, for once, was one of the big events in which interest was as strong as the media claimed it was. On my regular route through Iffley, for example, I saw not a soul.

Later, I watched the couple’s two kisses on the balcony as they occurred, and caught up with earlier happenings, at a wedding-themed lunch party with friends in Wheatley. We ate coronation chicken, sirloin of beef and poached salmon, followed by a selection of puddings that included Prince William’s favourite confection featuring chilled chocolate, cherries, prunes and honey.

Wedding thoughts at this happy occasion included the generally held view that the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, had “gone on a bit” in his address. I had reached this conclusion, too, while trying to escape him on the wireless: Radio Four, Radio Two, Radio Oxford . . . he was blathering away on the lot. Did the BBC have to let the wedding dominate the airwaves to quite this degree?

A thought of my own was that amid all the marvellous finery worn by the women on the day no one looked better dressed than Her Majesty the Queen, a vision in yellow. I include in this Miss Middleton herself: for all the wonders of her wedding dress, by Sarah Burton, of Alexander McQueen, it was a deal too ‘bosomey’, drawing onlookers’ eyes to where they ought not properly have been.