Rosamund Urwin: The hen and stag-do trade is out of control

Long stretches of “stag-flation” and “hen-flation” have meant that, as a nation, we now spend £300 million on pre-wedding piss-ups
Humiliations and hangovers: in recent years, these celebrations have morphed from a few hours of debauchery to weekend-long or even five-day affairs (Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty)
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Rosamund Urwin8 May 2014
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Yesterday was “Willy Wednesday” on funkyhen.com. The website — essentially a virtual Hades — sells hen-party paraphernalia: badges, balloons, boas, bunny ears and, of course, a variant of those ubiquitous slogan T-shirts that might have seemed witty back in 2002, “Keep Calm: it’s Chloe’s hen”. As a special offer, the site this week marked down the prices of 69 (yes, really) priapic products, from flashing phallic earrings to a pink penis piñata that, in a design that makes me fear for the maker’s grasp of human anatomy, comes with a grinning face.

Now that wedding season is upon us again, I bet funkyhen is doing a roaring trade. But the site is just the tackiest tip of the multi-headed hen-and-stag-do monster. In recent years, these celebrations have morphed from a few hours of debauchery that might see you slapped with a lifetime ban from the local pub to weekend-long or even five-day affairs. Often you’re forced to go overseas, where you’ll spot other “hens” and “stags” doing their bit for our “Brits abroad” reputation with street urination and streaking.

It is perhaps inevitable that in the dying days of my twenties, my weekends have become dominated by the matrimonial and that my gin money is going on heart-shaped Le Creuset casserole dishes. But I wish I didn’t have to wound my pocket on ever-more-lavish hen dos too. Long stretches of “stag-flation” and “hen-flation” have meant that, as a nation, we now spend £300 million on pre-wedding piss-ups. That’s a lot of penis piñatas.

It’s not as though these dos are actually that fun. Different groups of friends of the bride or groom are suddenly thrown together and you soon realise that the school mates hate the uni lot who hate the colleagues who hate the school lot. Then there’s the weird expectation that you’ll exclude half your friends from the invite-list on the basis of their sex.

Finally, there are the events themselves. As a woman, you’re supposed to get excited about yet another cupcake-decorating or knicker-making session. The Y-chromosomed, meanwhile, are usually forced to play macho man (shoot things! Shoot each other! Drink until you vomit!) or unreconstructed male at a Tits R Us bar, even though there are plenty of men who squirm at the mere mention of a strip club.

I’m not even sure that the brides and grooms enjoy them that much — especially when you factor in the humiliations and the hangovers. In that way, though, I suppose they serve a purpose: after the hurly-burly of the last hurrah to the single life, the deep peace of the marital double bed must seem appealing. Still, in the unlikely event that I’m ever a bride, I can vow that there’ll be no need for penis piñatas: I’ll be saying “I don’t” to my hen do.

Shame the web misogynists

Monica Lewinsky — once the butt of a thousand sexist jokes — has written in Vanity Fair about the fallout from her affair with Bill Clinton. The woman whose name became a synonym for oral sex says she was “possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the internet”.

Humiliation: explicit pictures of Ukip’s Lizzy Vaid have ended up on the internet

The first, perhaps, but certainly not the last. Public shaming — especially of women — is one of the principal currencies of the virtual world, a dirty trade in human dignity. Just look at

Lizzy Vaid, the Ukip political-aide-turned-poster-girl: The Sun rejected explicit photos of her taken by an ex-boyfriend so they ended up on the web instead.

Lewinsky says her internet infamy made her almost unemployable. I hope for Vaid’s sake that the digital footprints left by youthful misjudgments no longer kill careers.

I don’t need a robot in my kitchen, thanks

A drumroll please for the latest addition to the pointless invention club. LG Electronics, the South Korean technology giant, has decided that what we really need — the cherry on the top of human development — is to have appliances we can talk to.

In a press release that made me check the date wasn’t April 1, the company claims its new “intuitive interface, HomeChat, makes communicating with LG’s smart refrigerator, washing machine or oven much like chatting with a close friend”. If, that is, your close friend is a poor man’s Martha Stewart, capable only of telling you whether you’ve run out of mayonnaise, your laundry is still spinning and what you need to make a Thai green curry.

I can’t help feeling that “conversing” with technology should offer more. Surely a speaking fridge would be better used as an anti-obesity tool, barking that you’re on a 5:2 diet when you try to break your fast, before padlocking away the puddings.

Likewise, your washing machine could shame you into replacing your holey socks and John Major-esque underpants. All that LG’s current offering suggests is that we shouldn’t yet fear a takeover by robot overlords.

Renters, the forgotten class

In today’s Financial Times, three ex-Chancellors — Lawson, Lamont and Darling — have called on George Osborne to rethink Help to Buy, the Government’s mortgage support scheme. The concern is that it’s inflating a housing bubble, with Darling adding that the focus should be on increasing supply, not demand.

I suspect every Chancellor knows this. The problem is the desires of homeowners — who are more likely to vote — are put before those of renters. Is it too much to ask for wisdom in office, not just after it?

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