We just want to hire one of your bars, TROF. No, we just want to know if we can hire one of your bars. We’ve sent you emails (we said please and thank you!). We’ve used your form (it’s lovely!). We even ran into Ruth P (she strikes me as a lady of wit and integrity!) at the Mae Shi, and I’m certain that Matt was very communicative of our needs for some considerable time.

We’ve got a lot of procrastinating to fit in between now and September, you see, TROF - a lot of headpieces to consider and a lot of screaming of “BUT I’M BRIDEZILLAAA” at shop assistants while I beat them with my shoe, and if we could just cross “hire evening venue” off our long, long list marked “dumb shit we gotta do to get wed”, then that would make us both happy as clams on high level opiates.

TROF, if you can’t, that’s okay! We can still be friends. We’ll still come and see Deerhoof. We’ll still secretly want to decorate our house exactly like the Deaf Institute. We know you get three hundred emails a day. We appreciate that. We do. But, TROF, Matt gets several thousand emails a minute and you can’t shut the man up. Do we smell? Do you have no faith in our union? You can tell us. Please tell us, TROF. I’m BRIDEZILLAAAAA.

Thank you, TROF.

Your pal,

Rebetthew

A propos of nothing much;

Anti-vaccination movement? This lady is on your team.

sar·chasm(’sär-”ka-z&m) : The giant gulf between what is said and the person who doesn’t get it.

And so, somewhere in-between blowdrying his hair like Michael Winner and poking the underprivileged with sticks, I see my dear embryonic Gill has removed – temporarily or not, I haven’t asked him yet – his two-star (out of five, Overreaction Boy) denunciation of The Raj, Wigan. I SAID; THE RAJ WIGAN, GOOGLE!

Well, you’ve crushed a fragile talent, internet; I hope you’re happy.

I guess this shock volte-face is in the interests of basic self-preservation and not in recognition that the house wine didn’t actually taste of weewee* - we’re fairly easily identified, after all, and the last thing we’d like is the crashingly literal Disgusted of Norley Hall scootering to our hallowed gates with an attitude problem and a pot of weapons-grade sag paneer.

So, I guess this may or may not be the end of any reviews of anything not firmly in the rainbows-and-kittens end of the critical spectrum, since if anyone is to throw their toys out of the pram in an unbecoming way over trivialities, it’s going to be me.

Thus; stay tuned for more re. my universal hatred of set menus, and why I think you personally are a tit for having one.

PS – DAY 22, YO.

* A solid no points for How do you know? or standard variations.

Or, In Which Rebecca Bangs on Unbecomingly About Matrimonial Items Which are Prohibited, vol i.

Item One: Meringues are for eating

Ground rules re. dress:

No, no, no and no. I want to look positively fist-bitingly radiant, don’t get me wrong, and there shouldn’t be any doubt as to who’s marrying whom, but you couldn’t scare me into something “bridal” with a big stick - this means seed pearls and filigree and anything bouffant and shiny is not on the menu *.

Item Two: SPEAKING OF MENUS

An absolute veto on anything “price per head”, because;

1. I don’t want to be glaring over the vol-au-vonts and thinking “I paid £34.70 for you to freebase that risotto, you bastard, and I don’t even like you that much”, and “Does [x] actually afford me £34.70 worth of personal fulfilment? Bring out my ongoing spreadsheet!”

2. Set menu pretentiousness is just so RUBBISH. Look, plebs, for breakfast this morning I had larks on toast and a kitten on a stick, I’m not going to swoon into my fondant potatoes because you and your catering City & Guilds made a little wigwam out of chives. Observe this particularly tepid top-end version from Holland Hall - table ribboning of my choice, mother? I’ll put a bow on the whippet.

Now, I love pretentiousness, I embrace pretentiousness - I would kiss it airily on both cheeks and lick it on the forehead but I’d rather express my appreciation through the medium of dance - and so in the culinary arena you can jolly well make an effort with some unicorn filet mignon or what have you, otherwise I’ll slumming it with an entire cheese, a vegetable garden and something hearty on a spit. Arigatou gozaimasu!

3. Under the tyranny of the set menu, “Special Dietary Requirements”, or even “Quietly appalled by the concept of the vegetable panache” is an impossibility, and I don’t care how many conciliatory noises you make about your witless cauliflower bake. I draw your attention to the time I went to a set-menu wedding as a vegan and got iceberg lettuce and olives in a soup bowl, as though they’d cast desperately around the kitchen for something green and stopped just short of serving the floral arrangement. I ate the placemat.

* (that said, I’ve some latent tendencies toward sequins and feathers that veer toward the “explosion at a drag queen convention” end of the taste spectrum, and I’m just fine with that - boas to eleven, you know. I just don’t want to pretend like I ever wanted to be a princess when I grew up. Thus: ZOMG).

THERE WILL BE MORE LATER.

I saw this image and thought of my love for you.

Best,

Rebecca