Forward Planning

The copy for the meeja students' magazine Hitched is in and it's a pretty mixed batch. Some good ideas just haven't been explored properly.

One student wrote about the trend for vintage (or vintage in style) wedding dresses. She spoke to a vintage clothes collector and a make-up artist who specialises in retro looks, but she didn't find anyone to talk to about the evolution of wedding dresses themselves (although she did rewrite some of the info she found on various websites).

I felt sure there were collections in various museums that she could have mentioned, and curators who would have been happy to share their expertise. Indeed, when I Googled around a bit, I found several possibilities from Leeds to Dawlish .

I also found a treat for the future - a wedding dress exhibition to be held at the V&A in May. I doubt any of my students will be there.

Backsliding already

So how am I doing with my NY resolutions? Clearly I’m already failing to post any more regularly, probably because cuddling the young man on the left is more fun than tapping away on a keyboard.

But I am doing better on the ‘must finish more books’ front.
So far I have read:
The quite clever and somewhat touching Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
The much better Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Thinks: Is this kind of title all down to the success of Short History of Tractors ….?)
The very funny (and useful) Pardon My French – Unleash your Inner Gaul
The Bard meets the Da Vinci Code in The Shakespeare Secret
And I’m halfway through One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
And although I’m nowhere up to dovegreyreader standards, I am working full time and it’s not the end of the month yet.

I don’t wish to say anything about the diet, except I would kill for a glass of wine.

As for my new batch of meeja students, I haven’t yelled at them yet. The module I take them for is one in which they have to come up with a concept for a 32-page A4 magazine, write all the copy for it, arrange all the pictures, design it and get it printed. In 12 days. It’s a tough task which requires sticking to deadlines – a concept young people often seem to have trouble understanding.

However, by some freaky coincidence this group has chosen a subject dear to my heart. They have decided to produce a magazine all about weddings.

Sort of resolute

This year I will:

AIM to post more regularly on this blog – although I am still trying to readjust to the change of persona from Mother of the Bride (who can perform wonders by arranging weddings in just three months) to the granny who is completely out of date with modern methods of childrearing (no, Mum, you only give one breast at a feed so that they completely empty it …) Amazing that either of my two survived infancy really.

FINISH more books (especially the ones set by the book club, even if they are not and will never be to my taste because it’s meant to be a mind-expanding experience, not just an excuse for a glass or two of wine and a gossip). Incidentally, I expect everyone else who belongs to a book club has already read it but, if you haven’t, Tim Dowling’s column in the Guardian on October 20,2007 is spot on.
It starts: 1) This novel is filled with intriguing characters. Which character do you most identify with and why? Can you remember his or her name? Perhaps you should just let someone else go first.
I particularly liked: 11) The white wine has run out. Is your host going to get another bottle or is she going to keep going on and on about the symbolism of the frigging wind chimes? There’s plenty of red left. Should you switch to red?
Read the whole thing at www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2194153,00.html

LOSE 2 stones in weight (well, maybe half a stone)

BE NICER. Especially to my new set of meeja studies (journalism pathway) students even if, like the batch I had last semester, they cannot spell, punctuate, or recognise when a sentence is nothing but gobbledygook - let alone write a feature.

Gongs for Gavin

How did Gavin and Stacey slip under my radar? Essex boy meets Barry Island girl. They fall in love and plan a wedding. Perfect material for a sit-com – as anyone who’s ever been involved in the marriage merry-go-round will know.

The BBC3 series picked up three gongs at last night’s Comedy Awards so I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to catch up with it elsewhere on the Beeb at some point. I’m just kicking myself that I missed out on such gems as a wedding fair with Matt Lucas as the ultimate stag do organiser and goodness knows what else.

I blame it on the grandson. He’s just too distracting.

Diamond Geezer

It was, after all, a love match. That could be why it has lasted for 60 years. Or could it be down to the fact that in the 1940s people still had a touching belief in concepts such as doing your duty and honouring your promises.

Either way, let’s raise a glass to Elizabeth and her diamond geezer and toast them and times past. I doubt we’ll see young Harry celebrating his diamond wedding.

To mark the occasion, Buckingham Palace have revealed 60 things you might not have known about the events surrounding the wedding. (You can find all of these on the BBC website.)

I always assumed that wedding favours were a vulgar modern extravagance. But then I read this:

40. Individual posies of myrtle and white Balmoral heather were placed at each place setting as "favours" (gifts to the guests).

That's me corrected then.

A-bidie with me

Co-habiting is not a pretty word. Co-habitee sounds even worse. But I’ve just discovered that the Scots have a lovely way of describing a live-in partner: they call them a bidie-in.

I expect most of you knew that already. Sorry to be so, well, southernly. But maybe you won’t have heard of a poem I came across at the same time. It was submitted as part of an exhibition called The Art of Love, held in 2005 by Londonart.co.uk and written by the poet Diane Hendry.

The poem is called Application. It goes like this:
O let me be your bidie-in
And keep you close within
As dearest kith and kin
I promise I’d be tidy in
Whatever bed or bunk you’re in
I’d never ever drink your gin
I’d be your multi-vitamin
I’d wear my sexy tiger skin
And play my love-sick mandolin
It cannot be a mortal sin
To be in such a dizzy spin
I’d like to get inside your skin
I’d even be your concubine
I hope you know I’m genuine
O let me be your bidie-in.

I like the sound of Diane. I’m now off to track down some more of her work.

Mr MacCool

I know I’ve been quiet for a while – it’s because of a metamorphosis. No longer Mother of the Bride, not even Mother-in-law, we are (as Mrs Thatcher once famously said) a grandmother.

The young man on whose account the wedding was fast-forwarded a year is called Finn. And here he is.