THAT best man's speech...

It would seem remiss of me, after repetitively troubling you all with my best man's anxiety over the speech, organising the stag night and about a million other things, if I didn't at least try to entertain (!) or amuse you with an idea of what finally went down at Steve Brown's wedding.

I'm still amazed that one simple best man's speech could prompt widespread rioting, an instantaneous anulment and ultimately, political change. But that's what happened when the Scribbler stepped up...

Well, not quite...

I publish this for educational reasons; for anyone who might be tempted to be a best man, or if you're really crazy, a groom, in the near future. This is how to do it or not to do it, depending on whether you think it cuts the mustard or not.

So without further ado ladies and gentlemen, this then, is my speech.

(You might think it a poor excuse for a blog, but since I spent 6 months thinking about it and all of an hour writing it, it's had a heck of a lot more work done it than most of my postings have...)

So enjoy... the audience at the wedding may have done (although they were very polite so it's hard to tell.)

PS. Oh, and thanks should also go to the Mystery Blonde, for not only assisting with the ending of the diatribe, but also for bringing her shiny painted fingernails to the wedding itself. Just to reassure you, they were still attached to her fingers at the time.

THE BEST MAN'S SPEECH.

Before I start my speech I just want to say that I am incredibly honoured to have been chosen as Steve’s best man.

For the past 12 years, Steve has been the most incredible friend – and when he met Laura, I gained another friend…

Which is also great.

But, however much friendship’s worth preserving, there comes a time when the truth about a man has to be told.

Let’s start at THE BEGINNING. When Steve was a young lad!

Steve was a bit of a rebel. He was still at primary school when he had his first drinking session, so while his mum and dad were out on a countryside walk, Steve and an unnamed cousin decided they’d while away a couple of hours by drinking copius amounts of red wine.

Needless to say, the alcoholic stupor turned to queasiness soon after, and unfortunately, resulted in one living room carpet being totally ruined!

This however, did not stop his lifelong love for not only the grape, but also the hop, and the vine! Indeed, being a bit of a wild man as a young lad, Steve was no stranger to controversy.

The two events may well be unconnected, but a mysterious fire burned down the hall of his primary school the summer that he left - not naming any names.

Now it was shortly after the court-case, when Steve first arrived at secondary school, that I got to know him. Back then, Steve was a lot smaller than he is now.

This made attracting the opposite sex rather difficult, but through rejection after rejection, Steve never stopped trying.

I still remember his first kiss.

Too much cider had been drunk, and a vulnerable young lady sat down on the sofa next to him at a party. Ten seconds later, the kiss was over. Steve had become, if not a man, at least, a boy by then.

The girl was later revived though cardiac massage, while a steward’s enquiry went on into the night. You’ll be pleased to know that she later went on to make a full recovery.

After a summer of counselling.

After that first kiss, over the course of a summer, Steve went from being only 4 feet tall to a more respectable 5 feet 9 almost overnight.

On face value at least, he became a far more attractive proposition to the opposite sex!

Now, moving away briefly from Steve’s romantic life, when I first met him, there were quite a few reasons to think Steve might be a naturist.

First off, there was the time he cleared the tennis courts at Chipping Norton School by pulling a moonie during after school tennis practice…

Then during the annual school concert, which Steve won by doing his best impression of his hero, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve rampaged on stage wearing torn jeans that revealed just the smallest hint of his bottom, and sent the year seven girls into a mad frenzy.

Finally, and most controversially, at a house party, Chirstmas 2004, Steve shocked all of his friends, when, after several games of spin the bottle which had already seen him attempt to lapdance, Steve ran out of the bathroom and promptly gallivanted up and down the lounge, wearing nothing more than a sock – and not on his foot – to cover his modesty…

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is Steve Brown the naturist.

Another thing was Steve used to have a hamster which was kept on the floor of his dining room.

In the same room, we would play numerous games of table tennis on the small dining room table.

The games would inevitably degenerate into wanton violence as we started hitting the ping pong balls at each other. The ball would go flying around the room, hitting ornaments, the windows, and occasionally, the poor hamster’s cage.

This might be a completely unrelated incident, but that poor hamster passed away only days after a particularly fun-filled afternoon. We were gutted, and more than a little guilty.

Needless to say, that’s where our ping pong playing days ended.

Now, being more serious, Steve is one of the few friends I have who can walk into my family’s house and be accepted almost as a surrogate son. This is the emotional part of the speech, bear with me!

My family are deaf and use sign language. Steve was always really keen to learn, so he made a huge effort to go to sign language classes taught by my Mum, and became fluent enough to talk to any deaf person.

Fantastic, I thought. All that effort, just for me. My Mum, Dad and Two brothers – they’re here today, were ecstatic. He did it for us.

It was a few months later, when Steve went to university, that I realised he had an ulterior motive. One by one, Steve launched his dating career by dating numerous deaf women.

It was one drunken night when he finally confessed to me why – (SORRY, THIS PART IS CENSORED.)

The only other time I’ve seen Steve signing was at the end of another drunken house party when, with his teeth stained pink with red wine, Steve decided to start shouting drunken abuse at me – in sign language!

No-one here knows what this means – but Steve does. It’s time for revenge, mate…

(at this point I turned to Steve and launched a diatribe highly offensive but understood only by a few members of the audience... who promptly disowned the Scribbler and wrote him out of their wills, being his Mother and Father, after all. Edwin, my brother, seemed rather impressed. Ady was chatting up a jazz singer at the time and missed the whole thing)

For all our years of friendship, there was a big change in Steve when Laura came along. He fell in love (ah!) and I ceased to be the number one person in his life. Why? I asked myself.

Well, Laura just happened to be everything that I am not.

For a start, she is a woman, and it’s very hard to compete with that.

Laura by the way, looks beautiful today, as i'm sure every man in the room can appreciate.

Although I speak for every woman in this room by saying to Steve, you’re not as good looking as you are talented. Sad fact!

My final thanks are to an unconventional source.

The Beatles! Why? Well, I wouldn’t be standing here making this speech if it wasn’t for them!

Steve and I first became friends because we were cool enough to like their music.

Now it’s true that being friends with you mate, has sometimes been A Hard Day’s Night. But at other times, it’s been more like a Magical Mystery Tour...

Yes, there were occasions when I thought you were going to end up in Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but you found Laura, and I think it’s fair to say, She Loves You, Yeah… Yeah… Yeah...

You’re setting off on a Long and Winding Road, my friend, but I hope you’ll always get by with more than A Little Help From Your Friends.

And in Laura, I’ve Got a Feeling that you’ve found someone who’ll still feed you, and need you, and hopefully won’t lock the door, when you’re sixty-four!

Ladies and Gentlemen, please raise your glasses for a toast to Steve and Laura!

AND AFTER THAT, THE SCRIBBLER COLLAPSED IN A HEAP, WAS TAKEN TO HIS ROOM AND REVIVED WITH SMELLING SALTS.