Weddings

So my colleague, Chantelle, is getting married which has led me into the previously unchartered territory of wedding magazines.

I was unexpectedly engaged, so to speak, by the pages of whatever upmarket title Chantelle was reading, not to mention the curvaceous broads therein.

Despite only having been to three weddings in my life, my taste in bridal dresses has been much lauded by the ladies of Event towers. I pick good white gown, basically- a skill that would no doubt bring approving nods from The Pope, Gandhi and members of certain redneck racist fraternities.

This affinity for pointing at expensive things and expressing approval, I reason, has been honed by years of reading GQ magazine. The trouble with 'taste', though, is that it's so fleeting and, as Oscar Wilde said "fashion is what one wears oneself".

Face it, guys don't look back at their wedding snaps and say "Thank God my barber put those blonde streaks in my curtains. What a timeless look". Nor do ladies say "Darren, I'm still glad I chose a dress that matched our pastel wallpaper".

If I ever get married- which given my flakey commitment issues, nomadic tendencies and niche haircut- is looking unlikely, I plan to throw taste out of the window. For my big day, I propose (again, pun intended) a fairytale wedding. No, I mean literally a fairytale-themed wedding.

Firstly I would make my hapless bride dress as Snow White (my predilection for brunettes makes this particularly fitting), ordering seven of our shortest male friends to go as Happy, Doc, Grumpy and the gang.

I would basically use the wedding as an excuse to erk my entire extended family before eventually blaming my actions on pre-marital stress. And, what better way to do this, than by assigning them all characters based on their physical traits? The invites would be a joy:

Dear Uncle Nigel,

You're invited to my Fairytale-themed wedding but don't worry I've already hired your suit. Due to your offish stature and excess body hair I've pencilled you in as one of the three bears. Oh, and don't worry about your fibbing, socially awkward son. He'll be going as Pinocchio.

I'm really not big on the whole wedding-thing but, come to think of it, looking out on a church full of reluctant fictional characters, singing Some Day my Prince Will Come would probably be the happiest day of my life.

New Nightmare on Elm Street trailer and the death of the horror movie

Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was the first scary movie I ever watched, aged about nine.

These were simpler times when an advert featuring a cartoon giraffe's toy shop could cause spontaneous, aspartame-aided cartwheels. Then, suddenly I watched a horror movie and my perspective on life changed.

The film featured, amongst other delights, a teenage boy having his veins ripped out by the ghost of a hideously scarred child murderer- who then delighted in using the detached cords to guide the hapless adolescent off the top floor of a hospital tower block.

Bollocks to the Derren Brown, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 genuinely stuck me to my seat- in abject terror.

Despite the whole innocence-annihilating effect of the film, I still fondly reflect on it. Mainly because it probably helped me avoid becoming a more wimpy-minded teenager than I was.

So now they're re-making it, and the involvement of CGI wankfest guru, Michael Bay, doesn't bode well. To be fair, the trailer (below) looks okay, but I've rarely been scared by a horror movie that was produced pre-1990.

For me, the saturated colours and clumsy editing of films such as Don't Look Now and Halloween added a gritty realism.

Modern horrors are too knowing, too self-referential, they're not serious attempts at art. Scream is entertaining, sure, but you can't really believe the character's psychological toils. The acting has gotten worse, and I blame irony. Irony and botox.

I still look back fondly at Nicholson in The Shining, Peck in The Omen, Lee in The Wicker Man, jumpers for goalposts, drinking Tab Clear in Laser Quest, nagging my mum for remote controlled cars in Toys 'R Us.

I've gone full circle here, but yeah, modern horror movies, they're not as good and stuff, innit?

Roll trailer.