It's been a good day for … wedding guests

It's been a good day for … wedding guests

Weddings can be good fun, dutifully bearable … or just a long and tedious undertaking. A bit like marriage, really.

The outcome depends on many things, not least the entertainment.

This started early for the happy couple and their guests in Oldcastle, County Meath, when the priest rounded off the ceremony by bursting into a rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The bride and bridegroom knew nothing about Father Ray Kelly's plan. He had even rewritten the lyrics to make them more appropriate for the occasion.

There was a standing ovation from the stunned congregation and the video of Kelly's performance has been watched on YouTube almost three million times in the past week.

Kelly, who is a trained singer, said: "The way I look at it is, it's a gift one has, and if you have a gift you use it."

It's certainly one wedding present that will never be consigned to the attic.

It's been a bad week for … workaholics

I've done it while celebrating a rather large birthday at Ayr racecourse. I've also done it halfway up a hill in Ardnamurchan and on a beach in Spain. I've even done it in the bath.

But that's life if you have been bestowed with a work mobile phone and answer it when out of the office.

I can't say it has bothered me over the years (although much as I value my colleagues in the press hall, I don't really want to share a bath with them).

But France has sounded an alert to workers receiving out-of-hours calls and emails. A new law says that if French workers happen to get a message from the office after they've finished for the day, they simply have to ignore it.

About one million French workers in the digital and consulting industries will be required to turn off work phones and avoid email before 9am and after 6pm, barring "exceptional circumstances".

The agreement, reached by employers federations and unions, also states that employers cannot pressurise their employees to ignore the directive.

While it would be tres bon to just say non, I fear I won't be switching off my mobile outwith office hours any time soon.

Call me an eternal optimist, but I still live in the hope that one day I might actually get some good news. I'd even take it in the bath.