Uncensored: What two Brits thought while watching the Royal Wedding…

Yesterday, Britain’s Prince Harry married US actress Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle.

This is a genuine SMS text message exchange between two Brits who were watching the BBC’s live wedding coverage. One was watching on a TV set; the other had an iPad. There was a delay of about 40 seconds between pictures appearing on the iPad.

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BRIT 1: 

The mother of the bride looks sweet. Classy outfit

BRIT 2: 

I was about to text about and use exactly the same word – sweet. What on earth must be going through the woman’s head?

BRIT 1:

I am now slightly worried for her feeling like needing the loo with the stress and excitement.

BRIT 2:

Good point! And she seems to be alone. You would think they would have given her someone to sit with.

BRIT 1:

Nah that would be a drag if you didn’t know them and they wanted to talk etc. She’s into yoga so should be OK.

BRIT 2:

Let’s hope she doesn’t fart.

BRIT 1:

Grace Kelly style?

BRIT 2:

Two of Harry’s ex-girlfriends are there… gulp. A pity his dad can’t be there! The mum has a black woman sitting next to her so maybe she DOES have a chum with her…

BRIT 1:

Not on my screen yet.

BRIT 2:

There’s been a couple of side shots. There’s a gap between them as they sit. Presumably to give the cameras a clear shot of mum. 

BRIT 1:

Oh.

BRIT 2:

In the vows, neither Harry nor Meghan has agreed to ‘obey’ the other.

BRIT 1:

Harry’s ears are very different from the wotsisname army affair guy

BRIT 2:

Ooh. You’re right. He has Charlie’s ears.

BRIT 1:

What was the bit in their vows where everyone laughed?

BRIT 2:

I don’t know. I didn’t understand the laugh bit.

BRIT 1:

You said sommat about not obeying. I’m making lunch.

BRIT 2:

They said they would love and cherish but neither said they would obey.

BRIT 1:

Solomon features a lot. FGS, now Martin Luther King.

BRIT 2:

God this Black Yank preacher is a bit OTT. Meghan loves him. Harry looks rightly bored. And her mum is looking bored. I like her mum. Haha Harry’s expression…

BRIT 1:

Yup a load of daggers in everyone’s head.

BRIT 2:

Camilla is hiding a titter with her hat and Kate is slightly smirking. 

BRIT 1:

Who is responsible for booking this preacher guy?

BRIT 2:

Meghan wanted him. I think Charlie is masking a smirk. I blame George III for this.

BRIT 1:

Are you sure it’s her idea? If so, first strike.

BRIT 2:

Fuck me. He’s got onto slavery now. Yup. She wanted him and an upcoming gospel choir. Prince Philip looks like he is thinking bad thoughts.

BRIT 1: The preacher is narrow minded. Let’s sacrifice him. I’m losing the will to live.

BRIT 2:

If Martin Luther King was like this, no wonder they shot him.

BRIT 1:

Just think of the meal after.

BRIT 2:

Harry must be reconsidering the marriage now. 

BRIT 1:

Hmmm…

BRIT 2:

Ah! One of the Fergie daughters was openly smirking. This preacher must surely be over-running. Jesus! On he goes! About love.

BRIT 1:

I am feeling hate.

BRIT 2:

Ha ha.

BRIT 1:

Solomon has been mentioned again. He must be winding up.

BRIT 2:

Take me to Syria.

BRIT 1:

Er no. This is a laugh.

BRIT 2:

Meghan is lapping it up.

BRIT 1:

OK. I’ve stopped laughing. Are you sure she’s not just acting about liking the preacher?

BRIT 2:

Naw. She wanted him. He’s gone mad now.

BRIT 1:

He’s mentioned the invention of fire. Next, the wheel? This could be even longer.

BRIT 2:

Where is an assassin when you need one?

BRIT 1:

Someone has got to cart him off. Men in white coats.

BRIT 2:

He paused and waited for applause at the end!! Now it’s the Gospel choir.

BRIT 1:

This rendition is too slow

BRIT 2:

Yes. Nothing special.

BRIT 1:

Haven’t we done this bit? They are getting married again.

BRIT 2:

Yes. I thought they had already got married. What was all that “I will” bit earlier where they were not going to obey each other? Maybe they are giving Harry the chance to change his mind after that awful preacher.

BRIT 1:

That preacher stuff really fucked up. 

BRIT 2:

The Yanks will be confused she is a Duchess not a Princess. Harry is very sweet. She’s on another planet.

BRIT 1:

She’s 36. Still time to realise different opinions.

BRIT 2:

Elton John has let himself go!

BRIT 1:

Your pictures are 40 seconds ahead of mine.

BRIT 2:

They have just got divorced.

BRIT 1:

Ha ha

BRIT 2:

Harry is running away down the aisle. Prince Philip is yelling racial obscenities. 

BRIT 1:

Now it’s like a Christmas type song.

BRIT 2:

Elton is having a heart attack.

BRIT 1:

Where is something more upbeat? It’s gone funereal.

BRIT 2:

Harry’s two ex-girlfriends are beating up Meghan. Charles is doing a Goons impression.

BRIT 1:

Has the preacher been burnt in a wicker man?

BRIT 2:

I like the way you think. They are going to have to suffer that preacher at the Reception. Now there is some decent black woman chaplain to the Queen. They could have had her instead of the Yank.

BRIT 1:

They should have jumped over a broom and stamped on a glass in a handkerchief. Yes woman chaplain much better.

BRIT 2:

There’s some Jewish bloke on now! What is that on his head?

BRIT 1:

Hello? He is Greek Orthodox!

BRIT 2:

Ah!!! That’s it. Confused the hell out of me. Where is the black preacher now? On his way to the Tower?

BRIT 1:

I like Christmas carols.

BRIT 2:

Yup, Awww. Prince Charles and Meghan’s mum smiled nicely at each other. Serena Williams appears to have  a yacht on her head. Do weddings always have a musical interlude?

BRIT 1:

Somehow I missed the “I now pronounce you man and wife” bit.

BRIT 2:

That was in the bit where they got married a second time. Remember it happened twice?

BRIT 1:

I was thinking I haven’t been to enough weddings to know. That preacher really addled it.

BRIT 2:

Posh Spice’s marriage is looking grim! On your screen now?

BRIT 1:

I’m missing screen by texting.

BRIT 2:

Harry and Meghan got married. Posh and Becks were looking grim-faced.

BRIT 1:

Ah.

BRIT 2:

This poor sod is cello-playing away and everyone is chatting through it.

BRIT 1:

Give her time to recover from crying at knowing she made a mistake with the preacher.

BRIT 2:

She lurved him.

BRIT 1:

I think this is the Young Musician of the Year on the cello.

BRIT 2:

Oh dear. Mum has been having a cry. At least the 2 year old bridesmaid didn’t cause chaos. Probably sedated!

BRIT 1:

No need to. It must be exhausting. The carriage procession won’t be interesting.

BRIT 2:

The Long Walk will look good. Kiss coming up!

BRIT 1:

Nah. I can return to jealousy of wealth. Wait to see how crazy she is. I had thought she was going to be more women’s lib.

BRIT 2:

I think she will wear the trousers.

BRIT 1:

Dress was a bit dull.

BRIT 2:

He has the benefit of a peaked cap to protect his eyes from the sun. She doesn’t. I wonder if she has to do that question test to become a British citizen. The one Brits can never answer correctly. Is Windsor a real medieval castle or some fake? It always looks too neat to be real.

BRIT 1

I like Prince Philip. He said he wants to come back as a deadly virus as too many people ruining planet. Might have mentioned that before. Nice weather for procession; nice for people who were waiting there. Horses aren’t used to being so close to crowd.

BRIT 2:

Presumably they have done something to avoid mass horse shitting in the streets of Windsor. Maybe corks in the royal horses’ bottoms. I am going to wander off now.

Australian comic John Robertson gets married in a chicken shed after a coma

(A version of this piece was also published on the Indian news site WSN)

Well, here’s to you, Mrs Robinson…

I was distracted this week by being on jury service and then being in bed for two days, sweaty and coughy and generally drippy from various parts of my body.

So I forgot that Australian performer John Robertson got married last Saturday to his girlfriend Jo Marsh in Perth (the Australian one) after eight years together.

Jo is Festival Director of the Perth International Comedy Festival.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

“Jo was in a massive car accident,” explained John, “and ended up in a coma. At the same time, I auditioned on Australian Idol. There’s a clip of it on YouTube.

“Jo awoke from her coma in a hospital bed and turned on the TV – and saw that. She loved it.

“Months later, I went to see a play that her then-boyfriend was in. I didn’t think he was very good. The next day I ran into him in KFC and said I thought you were very good. He then went Australian Idol guy! My girlfriend loves you! and he put me on the phone to her. We had a great conversation. She can’t remember it, because she was high on morphine. I can, because I was high on recognition. A bit later, he left her. She met me at a party, recognised me from Australian Idol and, while she denies this, I said Hello. There are a lot of unattractive people about to fuck in that hot tub. I would like to go home. So we did.”

“Did you plan a traditional white wedding?” I asked John yesterday.

“Hell, no,” he told me. “That was the first thing we got rid of. We just smashed everything we loved into one big, beautiful clusterfuck. She’d always loved an urban farm covered in graffiti and chickens – so we thought we’d get married in their shed. We spent the first third of this year playing the video game Skyrim and said Look at those rusty cages holding those bones! Let’s make some and fill them with lights! Look at these black-and-white wall hangings covered with eyes. Could a priest stand in front of those and scare the shit out of everyone?

John’s layout for the fake cathedral – “before we lit the joint”

“So we were married by a priest in a fake cathedral made of lights and netting, inside in a shed, inside an urban farm with chickens and graffiti everywhere.

“Usually your groom and his mates are clustered in an awkward line somewhere near the celebrant and smiling nervously.

“My crew came through a door at the back of the room holding sparklers and marching to Motorhead. I’m a massive wrestling fan, so me walking about became two wrestling entrances – Triple H (Lemmy screaming It’s All About The Game And How You Play It!) and Shawn Michaels.

“Upon reaching the front, my crew formed a line behind me with the priest and wedding MC. When I dropped down to flex my biceps, they let off party poppers.

“Once we’d finished our ludicrous funsies, Tom Jones’ She’s a Lady rang out and comedian-turned-Mars One-astronaut-applicant Josh Richards walked out, performing some manner of dance with a Japanese fan.

“Soon after that, he was joined by another bridesmaid, doing the same thing.

John and Jo dance at their truly not unusual wedding in Perth

“And then they were both grabbed by Jo’s sister and hauled to the front – whereupon YEAAHHH! – the opening scream from Tom Jones’ If I Only Knew rang out… And out walked my father-in-law – a 6′ 3” grey-mulletted Texan in full black formal cowboy gear with a ten gallon hat on.

“He gestured and BOOM – there stood Jo, pale and lovely in a white and blood-red corset, massive hoop skirt and five-mile long train. She marched up the aisle as the whole crowd clapped and danced to It’s Not Unusual.

“Then we cried a bit which, for a man in a striped suit with cowboy boots and anime hair, is a fun thing to do.

“The sermon was performed by comedian-turned-priest Chris Bedding. The MCing and crowd-threatening was done by comedian Werzel Montague. The Flaming Lips’ song Do You Realize?? was sung and strummed on ukulele by comedian Don Smith, who forgave me for singing along off-key and weeping, staring into my new wife’s eyes.”

“And the reception?” I asked.

“It was held,” John told me, “inside the same fairy-lights and netting area, with the false chapel raised up into the ceiling. Seats were arranged medieval-style for the convenient access of dancing girls and we had a sword fight instead of a bridal waltz.

“Time for bridal waltz – Everybody stands up, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On breaks out, everybody giggles… Jo starts saying, What is this? I say You love Celine Dion! YOU LOVE CELINE DION! and we’re pulled apart by our groomsmen and bridesmaids respectively.

“Werzel then brings us our ceremonial swords – What’s that? – The fight music from Star Trek comes on and we hack away at each other as only two completely hammered and ill-practised people can.

“After I refused to stay down for the part where she (all Errol Flynn-like) pins my sword to the ground and punches me in the head, she snogged me.

“It’s a good way to end, no? The video is on YouTube.

“Then it was time for music. So what comes on the speakers immediately? Too Drunk To Fuck by The Dead Kennedys. Too late to do anything about that, we jitter around the floor. As it turns out, we were.”

“Why marriage?” I asked.

“We understand each other,” John told me. “She’s tolerant and feisty and brainy and pretty and we’ve come a long way from driving around in her car, hunting for pastries at three in the morning. We’ve been together eight years – you learn a lot about a person in that time – and they can still surprise you. Also, when she gets too soppy, I cheer her up by joking about death – and when I get too soppy she cheers me up by telling me I’m being an idiot.”

“What are you doing at the moment?”

“I’ve been tinkering with lights and making all manner of unspeakable horrors happen for The Dark Room at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Hiding secret things in secret places. Practising my punishment voice. Wondering if it’s possible to build an enormous hand with which to stroke audiences. Raiding IKEA.”

“Are you developing The Dark Room in any other media?”

“I’m still working on making it a proper video game and I want it to be a book.”

“Or a major feature film with Spielberg directing?” I asked.

“Ah,” said John, “I stopped returning Spielberg’s calls after he asked if the room could be not really dark at all, and played by Tom Cruise“.

And beyond that?

“I’ve been working on a YouTube series The White Room for Hat Trick Productions. Unlike The Dark Room, you’re not trying to escape anything, but you might be trying to find something – it’s a parody of open world games, so there’s the ostensible freedom to do anything, but combined with I’ve lost my beard! Go and find it for me! and then the quest is really quick and easy, like every quest in every one of those games, you know what I mean?”

“Is Jo coming with you to the Edinburgh Fringe this year?” I asked.

“Oh, God yeah and we’re moving to the UK. Australia’s great, but I’m done now. I want to come to where I first saw well-dressed surrealists in suits causing real trouble. So we’re moving to Brighton! It’s coastal! It’s cold! Australian Goth icon Nick Cave lives there! Then I travel! TRAVEL! I do a preview show of The Dark Room at Leicester Square Theatre on July 24th. Then the Edinburgh Fringe.”

“Do I take it?” I asked, “that now you are married you are not going to settle down with pipe, slippers and a koala?”

“Koalas carry syphilis,” said John, “and I have never settled down.”

The untold story of comedian Malcolm Hardee’s extraordinarily odd wedding

Jacki Cook and Jon Hale remember in Whitstable yesterday

Jacki Cook and Jon Hale run the Emporium, a vintage clothing shop in Greenwich which also supplies costumes to the movie industry – they supplied jackets for Tom Cruise in his first two Mission Impossible films.

They were also friends of the ‘godfather of British alternative comedy’ Malcolm Hardee and supplied his clothing when he got married to Jane in 1994. I was there that day and – like his funeral in 2005 – it is not an experience anyone present is ever likely to forget. But I did not know the full story until I had a day trip to Whitstable with Jacki and Jonathan yesterday.

The way Malcolm told it in his autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake:

On the morning I was married, Julia was rushing around making sure the wedding suit I got from Jonathan Ross was alright and Annie The German gave me this bottle of German rum. It was about ten times the proof of normal British rum. I only had a couple and then I staggered off to the wedding at 11 o’clock.

After the Registry Office, I went back home and had four hours to recover before the Church Blessing at 5.00pm – or so I thought. But Annie The German gave me another rum and spiked it with some sort of hallucinogenic drug. It’s some liquid stuff they have over in Germany – a mixture of amphetamine, hallucinogenic and some other stuff.

I suppose she thought she was doing me a favour.

Emporium kitted me out with tails and a top hat and all that game, though I didn’t wear the top hat. Didn’t look right on me.

Someone had painted HELP! on the soles of my shoes – which I didn’t know about – so that when I knelt down in church everyone in the congregation could read it. I felt a bit faint halfway through, so I had to go to sit down on one side.

“It was Jon who wrote HELP,” Jacki told me yesterday.

“We supplied him with his outfit for the wedding,” explained Jon. “He came to our house to get the clothes to get dressed for the wedding. But Malcolm had seen a bag of dope at a friend’s house…”

“…and he had smoked it,” said Jacki, “and, what with everything else, that was it. He was finished.”

“I’d done his shoes the night before the wedding,” explained Jon, “with the letters HE written on the sole of his left shoe and LP on the sole of his right shoe. Obviously, I didn’t tell him.”

“He looked nice in his suit,” said Jacki.

“When did he find out about HELP being on the soles of his shoes?” I asked Jon. “Did he ask afterwards why people laughed when he knelt down?”

“Malcolm was totally wiped-out,” Jon explained. “Remember halfway through the ceremony he had to sit down and the vicar had to…”

“Oh!” said Jacki, remembering. “Malcolm keeled over, didn’t he!”

“He had to go to the bench…” Jon continued.

“Didn’t someone else almost get married to Jane?” I said, dimly remembering what I saw. When Malcolm had had to go and sit down, his best man – comedian Martin Soan – stood-in for him at the altar while the vicar warbled on until Malcolm was able to stand again. It had looked, for a time, as if Malcolm was not going to be able to stand again in time for the vows.

“It was close,” agreed Jon. “Malcolm could only just get through the ceremony.”

“He said I do,” Jacki reminded us. “And then he lost it.”

“Malcolm disappeared into one of the Confession booths,” said Jon. “And everybody…”

“He was being sick in there…” said Jacki.

“… everybody was waiting for him to come out and he was being ill in there, wasn’t he…” added Jon.

“…and that mad German woman was there,” Jacki reminded us. “Annie The German. Clare’s (Malcolm’s sister’s) pen friend. But Malcolm used to write her filthy letters, didn’t he, when they were kids. And she was mad for Malcolm. She wanted to marry Malcolm. He said it was such a shock when he saw her.”

“I think I met her at the wedding,” I said.

“She’s crazy,” said Jacki.

“She was a chemist,” said Jon. “She made this stuff and was going round giving us all these little drops from this pipette thing. A thing she’d engineered herself.”

“She was pretty crazy,” said Jacki. “Two hundred Rothmans cigarettes and a bottle of whisky in the handbag. A big 200 pack of Rothmans… ‘kin hell, Malcolm was scared of her, but it was because he’d sent her all these filthy letters. She was Claire’s pen friend… The German!” Jacki laughed. “Annie The German!…”