I'm making a list...

(poor photo courtesy of a mate on facey b)

Yesterday I wrote about the power of lists to Sort One's Head Out. Indeed, lists are powerful things.

For the wedding (I feel less inclined to write about the wedding at the minute, so bear with me - I WILL quit boring on about it soon. I also need to change my header which claims I'm 'preparing' to get married. I'll get around to it shortly, probably as yet another procrastination tactic when I should be planning a heeeeeuge scheme of work, or 'SoW' as I like to call it) we were stuck for table names.

We'd been to weddings before (more than one, would you believe) where the tables were named after different breeds of sheep. Blue-faced Leicesters, Suffolks, Texels...oh yes. At a wedding we went to this summer the couple had named all of their tables after different brands of tractor. I honestly didn't know there were so many different types. Apparently this sort of craziness is fairly common amongst farming folk. Another couple printed off polaroid-style pictures of places that were important to them and wrote a little piece about them on the back - the Tyne Bridge, a Brownie hut etc. My friend sent me photo text from a wedding she'd been to where all of the tables were named after achingly cool song lyrics. 

The weekend before the wedding we went to Corner of Eden - cue heavenly choirs - with our parents for some serious Chill The Feck Oot Time. On the Sunday night they'd departed and Bedders and I were left pondering the table name situation. With 6 days and counting to the big day, we exchanged some cross and naughty words.

Places we'd travelled to? Streets we'd lived on? Books we'd read and loved? Pubs we'd, err, got horribly drunk in? We started making themed lists.

A Damascene revelation followed: we chucked the 'themed' aspect and starting listing - well - STUFF.

LET'S LIST A LOAD OF STUFF WE LIKE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.

EVERY TABLE - GIVEN THAT WE ALMOST HAVE TWENTY SIX OF THE BUGGERS - CAN BE NAMED AFTER A LETTER.

WE'LL HIGHLIGHT THE WORDS THAT BEGIN WITH THAT LETTER IN BOLD.

AND WE WON'T HAVE AN X, Y OR Z TABLE.

Some of it can be serious.

Some of it can be funny.

Some of it can be a bit lovey.

Some of it can be a bit rude.

No one need understand all of the references - in fact, it would be impossible for any guest to 'get' them all - but it would provoke a bit of conversation, surely?

For example, if my mate's boyfriend Eddie was to meet my cousin Kath he'd know EXACTLY what the 'Are you a tinker?' reference was all about and SHE'D be able to explain Mickey Mac's to him, Mickey Mac being her brother and all.

Good eh? I love lists, me. I like Neil Gaiman's list of things 'they' (err, that would be me, then) don't teach you at school. I'd like to make my own version.

“They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

-Neil Gaiman

IThinking about lists, and specifically about why we (well, I) love lists, I found this: 10 Reasons Why We Love Lists. Oo, handy. Anyone would have thought I'd googled 'Reasons Why We love Lists.' Ahem.

Oo, the word 'list' was used by Shakespeare in Hamlet. Oo, I fancy doing a Benjamin Franklin and listing all the words/terms I can think of for being drunk. We were on about this in A-level English Language the other day - how they'll arrive at University and start hearing words for 'drunk' that they've never heard before. I still remember the look on my roommate's face when a TOTES rah asked her if she'd been 'smashed' the night before. Err, you what-what?

I need to go and do some work now. I'll blatantly start by making a to do list.