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Cooper Brown: Victoria (my wife!!!!! How weird is that?)

He’s Out There: 'If you must fly with offspring, they should go in cattle class. I don't pay £4,000 to sit next to a child'

Thursday, 24 July 2008

The Cooperman is back from honeymoon – sorry, ladies, but it's true, I'm a married man, and a fully paid-up member of the landed gentry to boot. I was finally released from the Mauritian equivalent of Guantanamo Bay that Victoria (my wife!!!!! How weird is that?) chose for us to spend two very hot and annoying weeks in.

The only good part of it all was when I got back to Heathrow.

I normally get trouble from whichever ex-member of your now defunct global empire is scanning the passports. They always talk to me like I'm some member of the Aryan al-Qa'ida trying to house-break into your pissy little country. This time it was a big, fat dude and you could see he had an attitude. "What is the purpose of you being in the UK etc etc?" Normally I'd have had to talk about work and visas and all that shit. Not any more – I'm now married into aristocracy and you can't keep me out. I can live here as long as I want to, and I can even start freeloading off you all, should I so wish. Hooray for marriage... I would have given the fat guy a bit more attitude but I was in such a bad mood as the flight had been terrible and was just happy to get in no problemo.

If I had my own airline, it would be called Cooper Air and there would be some pretty strict rules. First, no kids or families in Business Class. If you're dumb enough to travel with your offspring then they must go in cattle class. If you can't afford a nanny to sit there with them then you'll have to. I don't pay £4,000 a seat to get some six-year-old suddenly discovering the excitement of the seat controls. I had one brat in front of me who would just lean over the back of his seat and stare at me for ages making dumb faces. I had to complain to the mom in the end and she got really pissy, like I was some child abuser or something.

There is also a new tendency to recruit "older" people as cabin crew. What, as Ben would say, is that all about? The regular flying makes their already wrinkled skin look like rotting walnut, and it's hardly a glamorous experience when you have to order a Bloody Mary off your grandmother. Also, I know that cabin crew aren't the sharpest knives in the block, but in the "unlikely" event of an emergency, I want some young, fit people in charge of the evacuation and not have to wait for them to get their Zimmer frames down the aisle.

One more thing – I'd ban the pilot from having his dumb little three minutes of fame when he talks over the PA. They always sound like some sleazy lounge lizard about to launch into some crappy musical number: "Hello, ladies and gentlemen, hope you're all sitting comfortably, we're currently flying at 35,000 feet and the outside temperature is -60C. This next song is an old favourite of mine, first made famous by the Everly Brothers..." Who cares what height we're at or what the weather is like outside? Just fly the plane and get us to where we're going while I get drunk and smooth-talk the young blonde stewardesses into the Mile-High Club... That's Cooper Air for you.

The new Mrs Brown loved the whole thing, of course – a long break from H-F and two weeks of luxury. She's a sucker for that sort of thing and was in a good mood for nearly the whole time, which was extraordinary enough. I call her Mrs Brown, because that is the law and the natural order of things – the woman takes the husband's surname as an acceptance of ownership etc.

Victoria is not keen, and wants to keep her surname for "professional purposes". This is in reference to the stupid jewellery business Trinny from the TV helps her with. I haven't put my foot down yet but this really pisses me off. The business seems to be going "tits-up" (as Ben would say) after a brief success, and I want her out of the clutches of that chick. I'm sure the whole "keep the name" idea came from that direction anyway?

As a husband I'm going to start asserting my God-given authority a bit. It's time she started to concentrate a little bit more on looking after the "family" and a little less on her own personal projects. I've got a busy year ahead of me, work-wise, and the last thing I need is to be distracted by household duties or child-minding.

I expound this theory to the bar in The Electric, where I have slipped away to on our first night home. There is a general murmur of approval from the assortment of barflies. Ben laughs his head off. He is very pleased that marriage hasn't changed me and I'm still "Coop da Loop", as he calls me.

Ben has brought me a lovely wedding present – a silver Pablo tube on a silver chain he had made especially. He had it inscribed: "Coop, for when the whole marriage business gets up your nose."

I totally love it, it's So Ben and very classy. He had it made at a top jeweller's and he said that they all knew what it was but turned a blind eye. I waste no time in road-testing it. It's good to be back in London – a married man with all my new responsibilities. Plus ça change... Cooper Out.

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