Near the Post Office where I go to pick up packages is an hotel which is licensed to do weddings and civil partnerships. It’s one of those chains in which each weekend executives meet to discuss marketing strategies and finish the Friday evening disco with a compulsory rendition of “Simply the Best”, a song that’s a surefire indicator of an absence of musical judgement. If you wanted to say to your betrothed that this is a perfunctory gesture and that you’re not confident in the long term viability of the relationship it’s the ideal place to get hitched.

The Maldives pitches itself right at the other end of the market and packages of up to £15 000 per person are available. Included in the package you can have a ceremony in  the local language Dhivehi. One unfortunate celebrant got himself into a bit of trouble with his unorthodox approach substituting all the lovey dovey stuff with innovations like:

  "Your marriage is not a valid one,"  "You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel.

"The other, too, is an infidel – and we have reason to believe – an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion.

"You fornicate and make a lot of children. You drink and you eat pork."

He also threw in references to bestiality, sexual diseases and "frequent fornication by homosexuals".

Presumably he disapproves of all these things.

Now as D Wayne Love once remarked “there’s nothing worse than than some damned fool lying on some third world beach in spandex psychedelic trousers talking about consciousness expansion”. That thought comes to mind when you watch the part of the video where the happy couple plant a tree to symbolise some hippy spiritual bollocks or other. That’s because spirituality is the modern European shorthand for introspective selfishness, which makes it a bit  different  from religions which at least oblige you to engage with other people.

The man who produced the new version of the wedding ceremony was a bit of a pillock, not least because he’s probably done severe damage to his career in the hospitality industry. However resorts like the one where the ceremony took place  function in a total isolation from the rest of local society. The local legal fiction  to get round the unIslamic practices that happen there is that the resort islands are uninhabited. It’s no surprise that sooner or later someone who probably needs five years to earn what is spent on a ten day wedding package snaps.