If I don't get an invite to the nuptials of the season, I will be filled with self-loathing and forced to claim business overseas
It was said of the guestlist for Truman Capote's Black and White Ball that the host made 500 friends and 15,000 enemies. Legend has it that those most wounded at their non-inclusion fled New York, claiming business overseas ? but, in actual fact, to escape the shame of missing the social event of the century. I adore the story, but with that mixture of total fascination and total incomprehension that forms the bedrock of my interest in showbusiness. I have never angled for an invitation, nor been remotely upset to be NFI to any event. Being "forced" to spend the night at home instead, eating crisps and shouting at the telly? Chalk up another victory.
And yet, and yet ... in the name of all I hold sacred, is there anyone who can somehow get me an entree to the marriage of Miss Heidi Withers to Mr Freddie Bourne? By now you may be aware of Carolyn Bourne, whose emailed attempt to teach her future daughter-in-law a lesson in manners has gone viral. Heidi, whose sins included sleeping in and helping herself to more food when a guest at Mrs Bourne's house, has yet to break her silence. But we have heard from the father of the bride, who declares Mrs Bourne "so far up her own backside she really doesn't know whether to speak or fart".
The upshot is clear: I simply cannot miss those wedding speeches. Please do just take a moment to imagine them, and you'll see why the event has instantly eclipsed the nuptials of Kates Moss and Middleton ? to say nothing of the Princess Bride tribute act going on in Monte Carlo this weekend ? as the hottest ticket of the season.
In the meantime, let us address Mrs Bourne's 95 theses of guesthood. John Mortimer divided the world into cavaliers and roundheads, but it could be just as cleanly split into people who agree with Mrs Bourne, and people who back Heidi.
Alas, it gives me negative pleasure to admit that something ? nurture? Bitterness? Beaten-ness? ? has me siding with Mrs Bourne. It's not that I love how her job is "breeding pinks and dianthus flowers", nor that she appears to be a fictional construct spewed out by the Random Daily Mail Character Generator. It's that I have spent most of my life adhering to her wretched rules of guesting ? rising at dawn so as not to breach some nonexistent breakfast code, packing Mars bars so as not to faint from hunger, and generally coming to the conclusion that the only reason to spend so much as a night under someone else's roof is for the pleasure of returning home.
Furthermore, like the parents who have suffered horrific times at boarding school yet regard it as the most natural thing on earth to inflict the same character-building misery upon their children, I see no reason why everyone else shouldn't live this ludicrous existence too.
They don't, of course, as I well know ? being married to someone disposed to doing as he pleases no matter how excruciatingly in contravention of social niceties he may be. When visiting the houses of friends' parents he will think precisely nothing of locating their TV, drawing the curtains of the room it is in (even if they are in it), and holing up to watch sport all afternoon.
I recall one Boxing Day lunch with some septuagenarians ? I mention their age merely as shorthand for the more mannerly attitudes of a bygone age ? when, having announced he would be skipping lunch to watch the football, he returned just as we'd started eating. He urgently required their Sky password so he could buy the game on pay-per-view. Oh dear, they floundered, after a slightly dazed pause, they weren't sure they'd know where it would be, not having the remotest clue how to work the blasted box and so on, only having bought it for the cricket and not really being up on ? "Would you mind having a quick look?" he cut in, smiling brightly, "only kick-off's in five minutes." The hostess eventually returned to a cold plate 20 minutes later. Chelsea beat Villa 1-0.
Yet in the words of Kevin from The Wonder Years: I learned a lot that day. And not just that the greatest superpower, and one I will never possess, is the inability to feel shame. You see, not only did I actually want to watch Chelsea power their relentless and uninspiring way to a one-goal victory, I was far too repressed to say so. I'm not sure which is the least flattering of these two distinctly unflattering personality traits, but I think we can agree neither is anything to burnish the CV.
So I must confess the most wistful admiration for Heidi, whose ability to sleep till mid-morning in someone else's house makes her, in my book, freer than the freest of spirits at Woodstock. But some drilled-in madness means I must confess it through the pursed lips of her ghastly old future ma-in-law, too pointlessly defeated to realise that half a morning not having to tend to guests is bliss indeed, and that the best way to ensure it keeps happening is to mash a sleeping pill into dinner that night. I can only hope that this ? which comes from a place of love, as well as one of rancorous self-loathing ? is enough to secure me an invitation to the undisputed wedding of the year.
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