Wedding Memories

“The law is an ass” and “Only fools go to law” are two phrases that spring to mind when reading of the weighty matter that has been exercising the highest judiciary of the land, recently.
That their Lordships should have even contemplated hearing such a matter is a very good question. It should have been thrown out as being a “frivolous case.”
It seems that two rather poor thespians, poor in the sense of talent rather than money, had elected to get married at the Plaza Hotel in New York. No doubt in order to finance this (it is, I recall, a bit expensive there), they sold the rights to the photo coverage of their wedding to one of those moronic peddlers of so-called celebrity gossip, OK magazine.
That Miss Zeta Jones, formerly of Swansea and Mr. Michael Douglas, presumably from Hollywood, were so enamoured with themselves that they thought that pictures of their wedding, normally a pretty short-lived arrangement in their circle, were worth a million pounds sterling is ludicrous enough. That OK magazine thought so too is a testimony to the stupidity of their readers. For most of us, the situation is reversed – we have to pay the man to take pictures. But then you and I aren’t “celebrities.”
Predictably, another magazine on the same cerebral level, Hello, infiltrated a photographer and snapped the happy couple.
Horror upon horror. Apparently the pictures taken by the rogue cameraman were “seedy and voyeuristic.” Miss Zeta-Jones felt “devastated, shocked and appalled” by them but not, seemingly, by those taken by the OK man. Presumably they were OK!
Shots of her being fed wedding cake by her new spouse left her feeling “violated.” This somewhat revolting custom seems peculiar to America and perhaps is not common practice in Swansea. Perhaps it was the fact that he was using a spoon instead of a fork that led her to feel that way.
The happy couple then decided to take this serious matter to the courts. The first judge to hear their ludicrous claim pointed out, quite correctly, that a marriage is public ceremony. This was clearly an affront to two such clearly private persons. Presumably they had selected the Plaza Hotel for the ceremony instead of the Swansea Registry Office in order to keep a low profile.
After some six years of dragging its way through the courts, à la Jarndyce and Jarndyce, at the expense of some £8M, the case has now been decided by their lordships of the House of Lords.
You would think that they would have had something better to do with their time and your money.
Hello magazine might console themselves with the thought that, after six years, divorce time must be coming up.
Perhaps they can get an exclusive on that.