Don't Tell The Bride... She's Marrying a Dick And Looks Like All The Other Brides

There's nothing on telly this afternoon (is there ever? a billion channels and fuck all on) so I flicked through and caught the tail end of Don't Tell The Bride'. If you're not familiar with this show, they give some bloke 15 grand to sort out every detail of his wedding whilst the bride holds her breath hoping her beloved hasn't forgotten all the unnecessary expensive and pointless details or chosen a shit dress. Which he usually has.

Details like chair covers. Brides seem to care about what the chairs look like and what stupid little 'favours' they're going to give people who have usually travelled miles, in new outfits, bearing gifts the couple have told them to buy. Any 'favour' I'd like would be to not have to spend so much money on a couple who already have everything actually, but maybe that's just me.

The thing that always gets me when I watch this programme though is that pretty much every single bride ends up with the same dress. No imagination. They all end up wearing a strapless white dress with  their ample back fat spilling over the top of a lace-up corset. Horrible. I used to work at a wedding venue and nearly every bride arrived wearing a variation on the same dress - and hardly any of them looked good in it.

Strapless dresses do not suit many people and the one on the show was no exception. By the time the make-up artist and hairdresser finished with her she looked like Princess Anne - and she liked the look. Yup, despite saying "I don't look like myself" she was happy to shuffle down the aisle to Pachelbel's clichéd Cannon in D in a fake tiara and cheap shoes to marry some prat who had forgotten most of the things she'd misguidedly set her heart on.

The groom had run out of money (he spent it on a chocolate fountain) so had to borrow some cash off his mum for a photographer, and it looked like he'd fucked up the hen do as well as when I turned the show on she was borrowing some money off her Mum so she could stagger drunkly around town in L plates with a large inflatable cock. she mentioned (bitterly) that he was shit with money and that she'd probably have to sort that out after they got married.

After the ceremony in a huge pretentious castle which they had no connection to, a large owl flew down the aisle with the ring (I'm not even kidding) and the bride's Mum nearly cried cos she was terrified of birds. They finished off with karaoke which the bride hated. "I hate karaoke" she spat as a fat woman screeched I Will Always Love You in the background. "I've always hated karaoke, and I'd have never have chosen this". Regret wafted over the guests like a bad smell and she looked like she wanted to stab him in the face.

Basically she had married her son but they were both dreadful people to be fair - he said he loved the power and wished he could hold the power for another day. It was the most power he'd ever had in their relationship apparently but she was ready to snatch it back. He was pretty incompetent so perhaps she had a point keeping him on a short leash but my guess is that his balls were in a velvet-lined box on her dressing table and she wasn't about to give them back. 

I reckon they were either divorced before the show aired or they were made for each other.

I Do, He Doesn't

I know I said a while back that I wasn't that interested in The Royal Wedding but that didn't mean that I won't be watching it. I meant that I didn't want to constantly hear about all the pre-event speculation - In fact, I have just informed BBF that the TV will be on in our house from the minute I get up until quite some time after the ceremony.

He was not overly impressed but I am standing firm on this one. How can you not be arsed to watch the heir to the throne get married along with everyone else in Britain?  I love history and this will be a historical moment being played out in front of us - why would I want to miss that?

Whilst I appreciate it may not be everyone's cup of tea, I want to see it all unfold, I want to witness the pomp and ceremony, see old English traditions and attire, and obviously I want to get a good gawp at Kate's dress. Pretty much everyone in the entire country will be excitedly watching this event and I am definitely going to be one of them... BBF says he's going out.

Spare Me The Details

So with 'Breaking News' yesterday we find out that Prince William is to marry his girlfriend Kate Middleton. Although basically I couldn't care less, I'm very happy for them - they've been going out for 8 years already and they both seem like sensible, decent people. Good for them.

What gives me a heavy heart however is that I know it will now dominate the National news for quite some time to come - possibly forever. I am going to have to hear about her whole wardrobe and sense of style, the analysis of every look and glance, every minute detail and supposition of the wedding, as well as the *sigh* inevitable comparisons with his parents marriage - which is surely distasteful in itself.

If your parents had a miserable marriage, got divorced then your Mum was killed in a horrible accident whilst being chased down by photographers and years later your Dad married the woman he always should have - and you were very happy for them. Would you welcome it all being raked back up again whilst photographers continually chased down your fiancée? I'm imagining not; but we all know it is inevitable because the British media is both unimaginative and cruel.

When I was younger I used to be a Republican, but after reading numerous books on the monarchy I came to realise that having one was pretty much essential to the International standing of our country. It's our USP if you like and the Queen brings in a lot of money for us. Even if we did decide to scrap the Monarchy, what would we do with them? Would Buckingham Palace be turned into offices or flats?  No, we need at least the Queen otherwise we'd be recognised as the 2nd rate (if that) player we actually are.

I personally thought Princess Diana a tedious, attention-seeking passive-aggressive bore and was glad when she finally stopped being on every news story, every day. Now the press have another target to pull apart and force down our throats and we shall never be free - I don't mind us having a monarchy but I also don't want every detail as the press rummage through Kate's knicker drawer.

Fidelity - Dead in The Water?

I not only think that people who have affairs are despicable; I also think that women who have affairs with married men are beneath contempt. It is so painful to be cheated on that I'm amazed someone can happily inflict that on someone else. They come up with all kinds of excuses: "we're in love", "his wife doesn't understand him", "he doesn't love her"; when really they're just deluded. 

He will never leave his wife for you and if he cheated on his wife, then he'll cheat on you too - and your behaviour demonstrates that you're also a mercenary tart.It's been hard to avoid the epidemic of cheaters in the press lately; both men and women who appear unable to keep their pants on and their morals intact. What's disgusted me however, is the arguments trying to justify it.

In my opinion, the only time an affair is fine is if you and your partner have agreed that you can BOTH see other people - otherwise you're actually just a deceitful liar trying to make your grubby behaviour acceptable. I may seem very holier-than-thou and viewing the matter in a very black and white state, but to me it's always been quite simple: if you loved someone enough to marry them, and you stood there in front of your family, friends and your God and made a promise, then you should keep that promise. and if you can't then you should leave them so they can find someone better.

From reading the many articles in the press lately it seems that everyone is at it - I read this article in the Guardian yesterday from the nasty piece of work that is Julie Powell trying to convince us that her dirty affair was the making of her marriage. Really? an affair is not how I'd go about creating a solid relationship personally, but she seems to think it's fine to not only cheat on her husband, but then to write a book about it and make money from her lack of principles.

You can clearly see that I feel very strongly about this subject - as far as I'm concerned, if you want to sleep with other people then you should leave your partner, and if you start to even think that you might want to sleep with someone else then you need to work on your relationship. I don't share my toys, and if any boyfriend cheats on me then he is gone - I'm far better off without the idiot and his apologies are just to make himself feel better not me.

I'm actually shocked and depressed by such high levels of infidelity; is it that people simply think they're entitled to do what they like at the expense of others? (people they claim to love) is it that they're so insecure and self-involved they need constant reassurance that they're amazing, witty, charming, or desirable? Or is it that they simply don't give a shit and they'll just do whatever they like then be 'really, really sorry' when they're caught and try to claim it was partly the other persons fault? 

I've seen people come up with all sorts of reasons of how a marriage might benefit from an affair; but to me it is a huge betrayal and any attempt at reasoning is just bullshit. ('sometimes it takes an infidelity to realise how much you love your parter' - too bad, you should have given it some thought earlier you loser) A marriage is a serious thing and if you renege on your promise to that person and cheat on them without having the decency to leave them, then in my opinion that makes you a bit of a shit. 

The Failed Monkey-Catcher

I've got PMT today so I'm going to run free with a few things that wind me up.

1) The Tories - Talking about 'Broken Britain' the other day, David Cameron said "it has to stop being about 'me' and start being about 'we'" I nearly spat my coffee across the room; this is coming from a party who actively promoted selfishness. It's rich talking about society when your fuhrer once stated that there was "no such thing as society" and then set about destroying the backbone of Britain. Nasty little hypocrite.

2) The Tories proposed tax breaks for married couples - Brilliant; so another penalty for being single. As if I'm not paying enough tax, now I hear that I should have settled for second best and gotten married so I can look forward to watching those tax breaks shower around me like confetti bombs. Great message you're giving out there... Dave.

3) I want to be one step ahead of where I am - I know I am getting somewhere but I want to be earning more money so I can move; I want to be out of lodgings and in a place of my own. I want a cat, less people around, a reliable tv reception, not smelling fag smoke first thing in the morning, working wi-fi, and to be left to myself. I'm lucky to have been offered a room here but I'm not good at living in a way I don't want to when I can see what I want on the horizon.

4) Everyone's always trying to avoid offending someone - Not everyone agrees on the same things and just because you don't agree with something doesn't make you racist, homophobic, xenophobic, no-fun, sexist, puritan or anything else that gets thrown at you because you dared to air an opposing view. I don't believe in God but nobody gives a shit about offending atheists - personally I find people banging on about various assorted spiteful invisible beings with personality disorders, extremely offensive, but I let it slide because I know they're simply deluded.

Basically, my troubles always stem from the fact that I'm a very impatient person who doesn't like grey areas - unfortunately, I also either have very strong views on something or I couldn't care less! There's a saying: 'softly, softly catchee monkey', but having my temperament means sadly those monkeys have always stayed uncaught...

As It Should Be

Around 9 years ago I met someone - we fell in love and were very happy. Sadly he didn't like the town in which I lived; it turned out he was a very much a Northern boy and after a while he returned home. After a few months of travelling back and forth I decided to move to where he was and he bought a house for us to live in. Unfortunately It turned out that I was in fact very much a Southern girl who hated his town with the same passion that I loved and missed mine.

After what I can honestly say was the most unhappiest year of my adult life, I made the decision to leave the first man I had truly loved to return to the place I loved more than him. I knew that if I didn't then I would lose myself completely and make him as unhappy as I was. The last time I saw him he was standing watching my coach pull away as I headed back to Brighton - he then had to go back to the empty house that he'd bought for us to start our new life in.

This evening a mutual friend told me that he'd just gotten married. I saw the Facebook photos and he looked really happy and in love. He was smiling at the dark-haired woman in the white dress - the woman who could just have easily have been me. He looked exactly the same as I remembered him, he was looking at her the way he used to look at me and I felt glad that he was happy and marrying the right person. I then walked all the way home in the rain and threw away the last 2 photos of him that I had kept.