Hey - let's play a game. We'll need some information to start with. Sexual preferences. Major emotional weaknesses. Flashpoints between you and your partner. Yeah, write it all down. Pass your answers over here, and then what we'll do is keep them. That's right. You're done here. We're going to keep them. You toddle off home.
The fun part? That's when we quiz your partner on them in front of her best mates, who will be in that state of advanced, alcohol-induced shamelessness that passes for 'being fun' now Britain is run by reality TV production companies and global beverage corporations.
You won't be there, of course, but the chances are you wouldn't want to be. How do you win? We'll get back to you. Thanks for playing. Reverse cowgirl, eh? Dirty boy.
That, roughly, is what hen nights have done with the venerable TV format Mr and Mrs. It was a lovely show. A nice show, firmly in the tradition of family entertainment. Couples went on together, answered a few gently probing questions and compared their responses. If it turned out they knew each other really well they won a fridge, or something equally exciting.
Tame as you like, it was popularised in Britain by Derek Batey, a former ventriloquist from Cumbria. Now in his eighties, he apparently still contributes to ITV's retooled celebrity version, helping it to remain studiously inoffensive - unless you have unusually strong opinions about Holly Willoughby's favourite shoes.
But in roped-off bar areas and rented cottages up and down the country, Modern Woman is turning the game into a bloodsport. Instead of joining forces with Lucy to compete for white goods, I'm being milked for embarrassing titbits that can be used against me in my absence. He's into what? Wait, and you let him? Ugh. Men.
And for my co-operation in this horror show, I stand to win precisely bugger all.
Clearly I won't be refusing, since these are her trusted lieutenants. Like Margaret Mountford, they can consign me to obscurity with a well-timed raise of the eyebrow. But I - we, because we grooms are in this together - can bring the game down from the inside. It feeds on fun, so aim to make every answer require extensive use of a dictionary and encyclopedia. Favourite position? Lyons stagecoach. Weirdest place you've ever done it? The lee side of a monadnock. Her most annoying habit? Antonomasia, for sure.
People are already calling it #OccupyMrandMrs. (I'm people. It counts.) Just agree to the hens' questionnaires, then fire up Wikipedia and turn the party into an Open University broadcast. Stay obscure. Stay strong. We'll continue the fight until the system breaks, or someone gives us a fridge.
words Nathan Midgley
Copyright WED Magazine 2013
