something.’
‘He works for The Man Land. We’re in direct competition with them and you know it. By arguing with him, you’ve given him more publicity. Thanks to that little stunt on Twitter over the weekend, he’s gained another few thousand followers who are all laughing at his column with him while laughing at you and our magazine.’
‘Someone needed to call him out. He can’t just go around writing such horrible things about people’s wedding days.’
‘But not someone who works for the other magazine in this battle of the mags thing that Hambridge Publishing have got us embroiled in. Everyone knows it’s them versus us, but it’s meant to be in a professional way. It’s not meant to degenerate into petty insults and name-calling. How you conduct yourself online, even outside of work, reflects back on our magazine.’
‘I use an icon on Twitter. No one knows it’s me.’
Oliver rubs his temples. ‘You use a random photo of a wedding dress, your real name, and your bio says you write for Two Gold Rings magazine.’
‘It’s not a random photo – it’ll be my wedding dress one day,’ I mutter.
I don’t know why I’m trying to defend myself. He’s right. I love writing for a bridal magazine and I do mention it in my Twitter bio. The thousands of people who retweeted my argument with Mr R.C. Art over the weekend know exactly who I work for and the very public battle between us and The Man Land.
I try again. ‘He called the bride a twenty-one-year-old sentient boob job fake-tanned to the colour of an overcooked Wotsit and the groom a seventy-year-old walking bank account sponsored by Viagra!’
Oliver lets out a snort and I frown at him. ‘It’s not funny. He has no right to make fun of their wedding day and publicly humiliate them online. He called it the unholy union of a cross-dressing scarecrow and a taffeta loo roll holder, and I’m still not sure which one was which. It was totally unfair. It looked like a beautiful wedding.’ I scroll through my phone and hold it out to show him a picture. ‘See?’
Oliver glances at it and stifles a laugh. ‘Well, I’ve got to admit I admire the man for his way with words. He’s really hit the nail on the head this time.’
‘Their wedding day is their wedding day. Nothing about it has anything to do with him,’ I snap, yanking my phone back across the desk towards me.
‘Bonnie, you don’t even know these people. It’s not up to you to stick up for them. If they take offence at what he said, let them sue him for libel. Everyone knows this R.C. Art guy writes horrible stuff in his monthly column. It’s tongue in cheek, designed to get a laugh at someone else’s expense. He’s like the Katie Hopkins of weddings. He says controversial things to get a reaction out of the public. The Man Land don’t pay him for his writing, they pay him for the amount of press he gets them. The best thing anyone can do is ignore him, which is not what you did.’
‘He deserved putting in his place. It didn’t matter who he worked for.’
‘But you didn’t put him in his place. All you did was give him a petty, childish argument that he could use as an example of how crazed brides get.’
‘I’m not a bride.’
‘Well, for whatever reason, you have a picture of a wedding dress as your profile photo…’
‘Which is better than him. His profile photo is just two engagement rings with a big “no entry” road sign over them.’
Oliver slams his hand down on the desk. ‘Bonnie, you don’t seem to realise how serious this is. I’ve had the owner of Hambridge Publishing on the phone this morning and to say he’s not impressed would be an understatement. It looks like you were deliberately baiting R.C. Art and trying to draw him into an argument so The Man Land would come off looking worse than us.’
‘That’s ridiculous. If anything, he did it on purpose to make me look bad. He screencapped my tweets and posted them for all to see, and conveniently cut off his original post where he thought it was okay to compare a bride’s make-up to the zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and the wedding guests to Night of the Living Dead. He made it look like I was randomly attacking him by taking out what I was responding to.’
‘You shouldn’t be responding to anything in this situation. This thing between our magazines is a well-known publicity stunt and people are watching what we do.’ Oliver’s face is red and he looks like he’s one step away from banging his head, or more likely mine, on the desk. ‘I don’t care if you stood up for that couple with the best of intentions. You can’t keep fixating on other people’s weddings to detract from your own loneliness, and getting into a slanging match with The Man Land’s high-profile anti-marriage columnist is asking for trouble. Quoting his column and trying to incite your followers against him reflects badly on our whole magazine.’
‘I didn’t try to incite anyone! I just pointed out that there are some twats in the world and most of them have a Twitter account. And what about him? Have Hambridge been on the phone to his boss this morning yelling at him too? He posted screencaps of my tweets and told his followers that I’m the kind of idiot he has to deal with on a daily basis.’
‘So you react with dignity, poise, and silence. Trolls go away if you don’t feed them. You served him a seven-course meal with extra dessert. You may as well have called him a poo-poo head, blown a raspberry at him, and ran and told your favourite teddy bear. Actually, on second thoughts, that might have been a more mature way to deal with it.’
‘R.C. Art,’ I grumble. ‘What kind of a stupid pseudonym is that? It sounds like a school class, which is fitting given his level of maturity. He probably looks like the offspring of a flying monkey and Yoda. No wonder he hides behind a picture and uses an alias. He’s probably a bitter and twisted old man who’s so bitter and twisted because he’s too horrible to have ever found anyone to marry him. He wouldn’t be so nasty if anyone loved him, would he?’
Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. Again. ‘Says the woman who has a wedding dress but doesn’t have a groom to go with it.’
‘I don’t have the wedding dress. I’ve only paid a deposit and it’s on hold for me at Snowdrop – you know the little bridal boutique tucked away near Marble Arch?’
‘No. I’ve been divorced for four years. Oddly enough, I have no knowledge of bridal shops and nor do I want any.’
‘You run a wedding magazine!’ I say, wondering why I expect anything different from a man who has the Ambrose Bierce quote ‘Love is a temporary insanity curable only by marriage’ printed on the wall above his desk.
‘I edit a wedding magazine. I rely on you and your colleagues to provide the content. I’m just counting down the days until I retire and never have to read another comparison between napkin rings or essay on wedding favours ever again. Only three years and ninety-three days to go now. What I really don’t need is to have to find another job at this time of my life if we lose Two Gold Rings, which we are going to at this rate.’
‘We won’t. The Man Land prints nothing but sexist, unfunny drivel. Two Gold Rings has been going for decades and thousands of brides have turned to us for all their wedding-planning needs. It’s good versus evil. Love versus misogynistic sarcasm. There’s no way they’re going to win.’
