Never mind all this gay stuff — when is parliament going to get on with the marriage legislation we really need? I’m talking about the law banning men from proposing to their girlfriends in public.
It’s been happening for years. Local radio was always the worst offender. ‘Gareth, I think you’ve got something you want to say to Julie, haven’t you?’ the vapid Simon Bates wannabe would leer. In fact I blame Simon Bates for the whole phenomenon: he legitimised this mawkish sharing of supposedly private emotion. Those of you old enough to remember his ‘Our Tune’ feature on Radio 1 will know what I mean. To the rest of you I simply say: you lucky, lucky people. Then it spread to TV, village fêtes, public occasions of all sorts. I once saw a man propose to his girlfriend during half-time at Charlton Athletic’s football ground, which has to be the definition of ‘taking the edge off’.
But then along came YouTube, and the problem went viral. Philosophers don’t discuss trees falling over in empty forests any more; instead they ask whether, if an event happens and no one uploads it to YouTube, the event really happened at all? These days your marriage proposal doesn’t count unless it achieves over a million views. A typical exhibitionist bestriding the bandwidth is Adam King (1,680,383 and counting), who hired a choir to secrete themselves around a carriage of the 19.57 London Overground train to Watford Junction. One by one they start singing ‘Lovely Day’ by Bill -Withers (it’s a great performance), then they all pause before the last line so that Adam can produce the jewellery box and pop the question. His stunned and teary girlfriend says yes, the choir finish with a resounding ‘lovely day!’ and everyone cheers.
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