Wedding

Rich and Helen on C's birthday, earlier

The morning of the wedding is thin cloud and blue sky, the cloud drifting generally north. It is harmless and is due to vanish over the horizon well before the wedding itself. The ceremony is in the hall at the back of the vast church where the art college holds its degree ceremonies. The hall is lined with historical portraits, long wigs to the left, short wigs and plain hair to the right. There is a raised stage with a grand piano on it. Six screens of a dark-to-middle green (Brunswick Green in my old paint charts) form the back of the congregation and two more are on the stage itself. C has made slip covers for all of them, also green but floral, faintly Tudor, with crimson flowers that echo the colour of the chairs. There are a few miniature trees with lights. Bride will be accompanied by both mother and father, and the groom's speech will be shared with the bride. Three musical performances involving musician members of the family. My brother A, a violinist with the CBSO duets with the bride and with son T, and niece and aunt play cello and piano duet. I read the poem that's up o front as part of the service. Then we walk the ten minutes or so to the hall for the reception in another medieval hall. Eating, speeching (my second poem-verse), and dancing till late. Taxi home for us.

A thicker swatch of cloud now, then small piercings of light: our neighbour's white wall blossoming then darkening.

*

News from Iran depressing but expected. Naturally, the election would have been rigged, but seems to have been so ridiculously rigged it may lead to discontent. I don't wish the bloodshed on anyone, but there's no tyrant like a religious tyrant.

*

The TV show is over, folks. It is always something of a humiliation to see one's face on the screen. It looks irritatingly not what we think it is, a weird object in space, going through a series of rictus gestures, a self that is not a self but a kind of puppet. But the puppet and its talented partner seem to have won the contest, for what such contests are worth.

But those picture questions. I had no idea who the man called Chapman was - he looked like a heavy-metal roadie to me - nor who the man doing 'Homer' Simpson's voice was. Not a clue. And, frankly, I had only the faintest of recollections of Linda Lovelace's face (or, I hasten to add, any other part of her). Never did see Deep Throat in action. For a moment I thought it was Elizabeth Taylor. As Natalie neatly quipped, people would not have been used to seeing Lovelace with her mouth closed.