Among all the glorious coverage of Jordan's fairy-tale wedding to Peter Andre, one detail stood out. The glamour model had a chocolate fountain at her nuptials.
A real chocolate fountain. Now that is what I call class. A few short weeks later, I was lucky enough to find myself living a bit of her fairy tale when I stood drooling in front of an almost identical fountain at the very posh launch of a department store. I can now predict that these will soon be seen at all the best christenings, Communions and Christmas parties. As the dresses of their little darlings get ever more covered in brown gunk, proud parents across the land will lick their fingers and declare: bouncy castles? So passé.
Anyway, this chocolate fountain was like a mini version of Willy Wonka's waterfall. At the base, strawberries, marshmallows and profiteroles were laid out with wooden sticks. The idea was you stuck the food of your choice on to a stick and plunged it into the chocolate fountain, which flowed gently and almost hypnotically. This visual delight, rather than any Kate Moss-style shenanigans, explained the numbers of rake-thin women with glassy eyes standing in the vicinity of the fountain.
To avoid spillages, you were given tiny foil trays designed to catch any excess chocolate. These were mostly licked clean by the hordes, and not too surreptitiously, it has to be said. As I stood, deep in contemplation of whether nabbing a third chocolate-soaked profiterole constituted greed or mere healthy enthusiasm, I was almost knocked over by a couple of glamorous fountain-bound ladies. "Sorry," said one, guiltily. But, really, no explanation was necessary. A chocolate fountain can do strange things to a person. Two words. Augustus. Gloop.
At this stage some of the guests (OK, me) had already sampled oysters, savoury crepes and blackberry-infused pigeon pie. Some of the guests (OK, me again) had deliberately not eaten dinner beforehand and, in the interests of culinary experimentation, were trying everything, thrice. People swished elegantly around the rooms, looking for all the world as if they always went to parties where giant human lobsters danced, girls wore sticky-out 1950s dresses and rollers in their hair, and semi-naked women frolicked seductively in giant glasses of champagne.
I tried, for a while, to swish about in a similar manner. Unfortunately, it has always been a rule that the posher the event the less appropriate my behaviour becomes. I don't even have the excuse of some people I know who don't get out much.
Perhaps the problem is that I do get out too much. Being a messer just comes naturally to me, and somehow I always end up lowering the tone.
It didn't help that I met someone I suspect suffers from a similar affliction. She thrust her lipgloss at me, because mine was fading, and even though my sister is always telling me it's deeply uncouth to reapply make-up in public, I reglossed with abandon in front of Neil Hannon, of The Divine Comedy.
But the very worst thing she did that night was introduce me to a boy - he's a man now, but I knew him as a teenage boy - who back in the late 1980s was the heart-throb of the entire southside of Dublin. His legend was so great, and Dublin is so small, that I am sure some readers of a certain age in the capital will know who I am talking about.
I had glimpsed him only once, in my friend's sittingroom, but one look was enough to ensure devotion. And here he was, standing in front of me. He hadn't changed much. Or maybe I hadn't. It seemed he was still capable of inducing in me that intoxicating mixture of mild nausea and a vastly increased heart rate.
While we talked, I drifted off into a daydream in which I was actually 17 and at any minute he was going to ask me to his debs. I threw my head back and laughed, with what I hoped was intriguing allure, at everything he said. Just then a hand clasped my shoulder. It was Linda Martin, You're a Star judge and former Eurovision singer. She wanted to know if this nice boy was the boyfriend she was always reading about in this column, because, being a Northern Prod herself, she had something of a cleaning obsession and wanted to bond with him about bleach.
Shocked out of my daydream and feeling secretly thrilled, if a tad guilty that Southside Heart-throb had been mistaken for my boyfriend, I lost all co-ordination.
I knocked half my glass of champagne over Linda; then, in the process of trying to clean her up, I managed to splash her with the other half. "Sorry," I kept saying. "Sorry." "Will you stop saying sorry?" she said. "Sorry," I said.
We chatted about bleach and other cleaning products for a while, and when I turned around Southside Heart-throb was talking to a beautiful blonde in a sleeveless sequinned top. It was clear that this was the kind of woman who was more than capable of swishing around posh places without incurring spillages. Realising the truth of this at a very deep level, I retired to the chocolate fountain for the evening. I didn't spill a drop.
