So there is the Woman magazine photo then, starring in the main, yours truly.
What do you mean you can't see me ?
See the bloke on the far left with the grey suit on ? Thats one of my cousins that is, brother of the groom. Now move slightly right and slightly up and there's someone in a white shirt and a Newcastle Utd stylee tie. Yours truly. Fame, I'm going to live forever, etc.
Now come down to the four blue balloons in front. Move to the right a tad and slightly up. Theres someone in a long pink jacket. Thats #2 daughter that is #1 daughter is stood to the left and slightly behind her. Current wife is stood to the left of #1 daughter But you can't see her very well because Jackie Brambles hand is in the way - tee-hee.
Bottom right hand corner, young boy Thats my nephew and godson that is.
You simply must dash out tomorrow and buy this (left) latest edition of the magazine that is loved by old women the nation over - Woman magazine.
Why ? I hear you ask...
Why ? I respond incredulously. Why ?
Why - because I'm in it this week of course.
Fame at last.
If you have a magnifying glass to the power of, lets say, ten or more times magnification, then you'll spot me on the "here are the guests releasing balloons in celebration" photo, to the left, near the back, thats me, yes, its me, no really I am that handsome in real life too.
And if you know who you're looking for you'll see my wife, she's the one with her mouth open as if nagging me to release my balloon (waste of a good balloon) and you'd be right, she was nagging.
You'll also see Jodie on that photo, we're all famous, the whole family, I'm sat by my front door right now awaiting the hordes of autograph hunters who will surely be descending on the house any time now...
Famous, in Woman magazine, who would-a-thunk-it eh ?
I bet I can't walk past any old peoples homes tomorrow.
...so if I never hear that song again it won't be a moment too soon.
And lets be honest, the years have not been kind to any of us really have they ?
There's something about staying sober at a wedding, an air of superiority some might say, and air of normality I would say, sober is the normal state for most people most of the time, happily drunk is a state that most people aspire to when they attend functions such as weddings, drunk enough not to be able to see yourself to bed is the plateau that some manage to reach, drunk enough to need assistance off the dancefloor back to your seat because you are causing a nuisance is a height that only a few can achieve.
So which of the cast of ITV's daytime womens chatter programme do you think reached that ultimate of heights where assistance off the dancefloor by another cast member (who was only just one more drink behind her) was required, followed shortly afterwards by her exit from the proceedings completely, even though it was not yet midnight ?
My lips are sealed. Loose chatter is not my bag. Unlike the one who's profession is loose chatter I can't even be bribed by drink.
It was a beautiful day, a perfect wedding in a castle, tears and musical performances, sugary, gushing, overblown show-business declarations of love for everyone followed by an evening of live musicians where everyone seemed to want to get up on stage and strut their stuff, including the legendary Drifters who sang an hours worth of their hits whilst only repeating one or two and even though the lighting was quite dark, I was sober and was not convinced that if you added the ages of "The Drifters" together they still wouldn't be old enough to have been alive in the 1960's, still, thats a minor point.
Singing waiters, we had operatic singing waiters at the reception, one of them (fortuitously a woman) came and serenaded me to hysterical laughter from Ned and my two daughters seated safely across the table, I suspect however that they weren't actual waiting staff, as one of the Nolan Brothers (yes there are brothers) mentioned in his hilarious speech, "they can bloody sing well but they're shit waiters" together with the classic comment on the holy state of matrimony "I've been divorced four times, I'm starting to think its my fault..."
We had two musical interludes from the Nolan Sisiters, one in the church which was very beautiful and inevitably at the reception, late on, a drunken rendition of the above refrain, a contractual obligation with IPC Magazines, the murmur in the room late on being that the coverage would be held until the christmas edition of Woman magazine, so there you have it, JerryChicken, star of blog and Woman magazine, I'll be the one in the bottom left hand corener of the last page with "we don't know who this miserable twat was but he was still sober at 1am" as my epitaph.
And I know nothing of these things but the DJ who played a couple of hours of old soul music seemed to be some sort of celeb too - see how crap I am at this gossip column stuff, how I could never be a Hedda Hopper or a Loose Woman, why I never buy or read the multitude of magazines that cater for the massive gossip market, for I just sit there and let the day waft over me not giving a flying one for the name or reputation of the person stood next to me.
Don't drink, don't smoke, don't dance is a lifelong motto - miserable bastard is a phrase that springs to mind - sensible miserable bastard is the one that I prefer and at the bar prices last night the water is all that I could afford, I daren't look in my wallet this morning, I know what was in there this time yesterday morning, I fear that it is empty today.
A few last minute observations,
Jackie Brambles is much smaller than you'd imagine and her husband wears a skirt*. Carol McGiffin is much taller than you'd imagine, over six foot in heels. Andrea McLean is as gorgeous as you'd ever dreamed and her husband is built like a brick shithouse, a big brick shithouse, but for all that is a nice chap, a gent. Sherry Hewson looks exactly like Carmel, yes I know you don't know who Carmel is, but she does. Everyone looks "well sought into" in the flesh and thats how it should be.
Its a "bleedin obvious" Video Saturday today as this house tries to organise three females in to getting ready for my cousin's wedding at a secret venue to a secret bride at a secret time and to which we cannot take cameras or mobile phones.
For they are celebrities.
His bride is a presenter of daytime tv, a star of a tv ad that involves frozen food of some sorts, he is my cousin, a legend in his own mind, a 49 year old who has never worked a days graft in his life, a professional guitarist who has played in studio sessions and in backing groups to the stars for the last 30-odd years, yes its the same one who once caused a riot and a "national disgrace" newspaper headline when his band killed a pig live on stage, and in between all of that he has also, during lean "work" periods, been a delivery driver for my company albeit that we could never predict what part of the afternoon he would turn in for work for, being that mornings do not exist in his vocabulary, and from time to time we had to cancel deliveries and apologise to customers if his agent called with a gig that night - we've even had Agnetha from Abba* step in and do deliveries for us from time to time (yes she has lean work periods too), which sort of impresses the recipients of our deliveries somewhat.
So this morning I must wash and valet the car as my family have refused to ride in it in its current condition on the grounds that their new outfits will be spoiled and resemble charity shop stuff (the stuff that they've just picked up from the doorstep before the charity store opened this morning) being that my car hasn't been cleaned, inside or out, since I took delivery of it three years ago - it might not have been serviced during that time either but I will refrain from breaking that piece of news as we have quite a trip to get to said wedding.**
My brother Ned and I have been lectured by our respective wives to be on our best behaviour and not to go out of our way to take the piss out of any of the gathered C List celebrities who are apparently, even as I type, slipping into their Gucci and Versachi gowns and suits expecting to be centre of attention today and centre page of one of the IPC Magazines (who are funding the whole bash) next week - I'll fit in just fine in my new Matalan suit then, even have a new tie for the day - I don't know what the womenfolk are talking about for me and our kid know how to behave like swells, and besides, celebs love it when you don't recognise them, its a well known fact. they love it even more when you ask them what they do for a living, especially footballers.
Photographs will be thin on the ground tomorrow due to aforementioned ban on mobile phones and cameras but we are promised that a disposable camera will be provided for each table and that the prints will be posted back to us at some undefined date way into the future, long after IPC magazines have wrung every ounce of publicity out of their exclusivity, our task today (Ned and I) is to get into the background of as many of the celeb magazine shots as we can, on "do's" like this they tend to surrupticiously guide the "celebs" to one side at a lull in proceedings, rush them to a secret area and take the magazine shots, in fact, and you may or may not believe this, some of the "celebs" are being paid by the magazine to be there today - I am not though, and I don't think Ned is either.
So next week, for the first time in my life I will gleefully look forward to the release of various IPC Magazines, magazines, in order to spot the back of my head standing 50 feet behind the current star of a touring musical, or my foot peeking out from behind a tree in the rear of a shot of a gaggle of soap opera actors, keep watching and I will point me out next week.
Phew ! Got through this without breaking the terms of our invitation today, the first wedding I've ever been to that involved signing a contract of attendance, a non-disclosure agreement that forbids me from mentioning the event at all - oh bugger***...
* Thats the "Agnetha" from AbbaGold of course, but you knew that already. ** Statement designed to throw you off the scent, actual wedding may or may not be "quite a trip" *** See tags
Stupifyingly handsome, well turned out, pleasant, conversationalist, compulsively listenable, a must-have at all dinner parties, life saving hero, millionaire philanthropist, these and many other phrases have not yet been written to my epitaph, more is the shame.
