Can’t tell you how wonderful the wedding was on Sunday. So I won’t. Fuck you. You should’a made the effort.

Oh, alright then, it was hot. Not as hot as it could have been because there was a bit of cloud cover, causing a searing, scalding 34 degrees to become a just mildly hot 28, which was tolerable. Made more so by alcohol. I don’t know why the doctors don’t recommend ‘serious drinking’ when you’re in super-high temperatures. Because once you’ve had your third aperol spritz and are moving onto Limoncello-sodas, you just don’t notice the heat. Another few JD and cokes and it becomes perfectly safe to ‘dance like a dervish’ til midnight, sweating like a proverbial ‘mutha’. Studies should be undertaken about the benefits of such imbibement on medical grounds. And then it would be free for the over-60s.

The bride was fabulous and, as she always is, really funny. And loud. Bless her. The food was wonderful… for Italian, and the setting, outside, middle of nowhere on a beautiful, massive estate, Mount Etna in the background, was simply sumptuous. Was truly memorable. Possibly would have been more memorable if not for the spritzes, sodas, JD, etc.

Yet here’s the thing. It was the most ‘inclusive’ wedding I’ve been to. My norm for weddings is inclusive to Jews. Possibly Christians. Long as it’s not too many. People of colour. Many colours. But this one took it further. The bride had two bridesmaids and a ‘brides-man’, who was way more feminine than either of the other 2. The groom had his ushers and an… usherette? A groom’s… sort of butch thing in a suit. Though she was pretty gorgeous. In a DON’T FUCKING PRESUME NUFFINK!!!, kind’a way. Or however you say that in Spanish. Which… they were. She was. Ooops.

Then, before traveling all the way back to Palermo for the flight home (there is always a price to be paid for £1 tickets; like a car ride across all of Sicily) we popped in to the local Greek/Roman archeological site/amphitheatre/piles of rocks, which every town, village and high street in Sicily must, by law, have. This one was in Syracuse and was… hot. Really hot. Pompeii hot. The Colosseum hot. That super heat reserved for piles of antiquated stone. It was great. Caves. Errrr… rocks. Stuff everywhere from 500BC. And in between, some truly wonderful modern sculptures of ancient legends. I’m talking proper ‘legends’ here, Icarus, Apollo, Zeus, not ‘legends’ like your best mate for buying you a pint, or Phil Foden or you bank manager for approving a loan.

And this pair of Icarii were there, (to be honest, everywhere you turn in Sicily there’s a headless Icarus staring at you), basically, to show the inherent gender ambiguity of the human condition. They represented the ‘multiplicity of being men and women’.

I’m still not sure exactly which of the 57 gender options I wish to pick, or maybe have a few, like the original Romans did, but inclusive is good. Multiplicity is good. Ambiguity is… different.

Happy working day

A xxxx