You know who you are, oh yes. Perhaps you’ve forgotten to email. Perhaps you posted something instead of emailing, perhaps you’ve lost the info sheet (you idiot) and haven’t quite gotten around to getting the common sense together to email me about it. Whatever the issue is, I need to know now!

I spent a lovely weekend with my family, unfortunately I was informed that the party’s rsvp address was not being flooded with responses. Indeed we did some maths and worked out (excluding family since that is kinda being handled out-of-band) that of 32 invites sent out covering 47 invitees, we have received only 14 yes I’m coming messages covering 18 (including a +1 we hadn’t expected, and lacking two +1s we had been expecting) people. We have received four ‘no’ responses covering 7 people (fortunately we’ve managed to have a mini party for five of those up here in Manchester) so that’s a mere 18 replies to 32 invites.

This isn’t just poor-showing, it’s causing problems. I can’t invite more people who perhaps weren’t on the first list because of space, without knowing whether or not people are planning on turning up. My parents (to whom the reply address goes) can’t book catering, plan for the bar, etc, without knowing who is coming.

I know some of you just don’t know yet, but a mail saying “I want to come, I’ll be doing ‘foo’ and will be able to tell you for sure by ‘bar date’” helps a hell of a lot.

If you’ve lost the inlay sheet, either email me and I’ll send you a PDF, or else find me on IRC.

At this rate, there won’t be much of a party :-(

As a reference, people who still haven’t replied include: a couple who used to (and presumably still do) own a cute orange snake which loves belt loops and pockets. An angry young man who lives near a Zebra. A chemist/astronomer’s namesake. Someone who owned a launchpad long before Mark did. An Audiophile. A brit in america with an american who is a brit at heart. Someone who simply doesn’t know. The suckee. A frenchman in spain. A Cambridge educated walker in London. La Femme, et sa Femme. Leif’s parents. An ex-uni friend of mine who works for the dark side. A release manager and his wife.

If you recognise yourself in that list, please email in your reply NOW.

To head off this question (already been levelled at me umpteen times)...

It feels exactly the same.

Yes I now wear a ring, but then again, I did before from time to time. Yes I have a bit of paper saying it’s all legal, but then legalities never meant much to my relationship before so why should it now?

In fact, the only thing that’s different is that people keep asking me if I feel different, which makes me feel slightly irritated :-)

My mother out^Win-law has put up a blog posting all about yesterday.

It has only just begun.

Today, myself and Rob Kendrick got married^Wcivilised^W^Wentered a civil partnership.

A while ago, I ended up using the term ‘drug fucked narcissistic megabitch gymbunny’ in a conversation about gay stereotypes and how I obviously fit them all so perfectly. Those words got jotted down in my “words” file where I keep interesting words or phrases which trigger a desire to write.

Here’s what poured out of my fingers when I let them ruminate on the above phrase for a few minutes…

It was early morning. Scrabbling madly within his pocket, his shaking fingers finally grasped the errant key. Slowly, painstakingly, the key was inserted and turned. The front door swung open, creaking as though in protest at the late hour of its use. He raised his aching red eyes to the mirror opposite the front door. 'Why oh why did I put that there' he lamented as he gazed distainfully at the visage which greeted him. 'Drug-fucked narcissistic megabitch gymbunny' he thought, 'Yep, about right'.

(What it slipped my mind I can’t be sure, but it made it fuzzy)

I was pondering this morning about names. It struck me that even eleven years on from when I left that particular set, I can list my entire class’s surnames from when I was in years 7 to 11. I can probably tell you the first names of most of them, but I can’t be sure on a couple.

Yet I cannot, for the life of me, tell you the surname of my first crush, nor my second crush, nor indeed the surnames of most of my fencing or clubbing friends from before I went to university. I can barely remember the surnames of those I was friends with at university, indeed only those I’m still in contact with do I really know properly.

So, if you’re Sam, Liz, Sarah, Joe, Russell, Ian, Dave, Steve, Jeff or Andy, and you remember who I am, perhaps you should remind me of your names; it’s bugging me now.