Speech by David Peacock

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: David Peacock
Speech Date: OCT 2003
By now most of you know me, for those that don't I'm David or Spender to
my friends, which like it or not, I now count you all as.

First of all, on behalf of the bridesmaids, Karena and Debbie, let me thank Joel for his kind and true words. They do look wonderful and I'm sure you all agree they've done a great job today, so can I ask them both to come forward to receive a token of gratitude from the bride and groom…

…Right, onto the speech – when Joel asked me to be his best man I was
truly honoured and it's been with great pleasure that I've tried to carry
out all my duties. However, as this day grew so did has my nerves, the prospect of telling amusing and potentially embarrassing stories of the groom to the assembled guests and in – laws has filled me with dread.. never the less..

I started asking our friends for their favourite Joelisms, common themes
included his love of organising, his many shaggy hairstyles, his old Metro
car, his hypochondriac tendencies and his funky dance moves – which I'm
sure you'll be astounded by later! I'll come back to a few of these later,
but more importantly, the following were also mentioned. He's loyal, honest, up for a laugh, always ready to help, kind and funny. I could go on but I'd just be embarrassing myself ! Needless to say we all agreed that any group of friends would be lucky to count a Joel as one of it's members.

Hopefully that's enough crawling, so now I can get ripped into him! I'm
afraid this is the toned down version, after a last minute consultation
with the groom it was ‘agreed’ that a few stories ended on the cutting room floor. What he doesn't realise, there were plenty more where they came from!

I've known Joel all my life, in the younger days he was just another cousin that turned up at Christmas. However all that changed in our teenage years when we both joined the local Boys Brigade, where I first became aware of his darker side. I remember going on a weekend break and we were both sneaking off for crafty smokes, hiding from each other in case our parents found out! It wasn't until day 3 that we realised that we were both up to the same thing and a friendship was born that has gone from strength to strength.
A lot of my best memories and things have been shared with him ( Kirsty
not included of course ).

The first and last time Joel asked me for advice on his love life was when
we worked together at a local amusement park. Joel had a fancy for one particular colleague who worked at the hot food counter, and asked me how he should broach the subject. In my usual subtle style I suggested flowers, as usual Joel took it a step further. On a busy Sunday afternoon, in full view of everybody he decided to present the unsuspecting girl with a bouquet. Her response was rather crushing, literally, he was picking rose petals from his clothes for hours! However another among us was a little luckier and in his usual diplomatic fashion was later seen hand in hand with the girl – isn't that right Jonny!
Thankfully such advice was never sought or given again and I'm sure you'll
all agree he's done very well without my help!

As I mentioned earlier, Joel has always considered himself quite the organiser, but for us that know him better we're grateful Kirsty and all their support have been on hand to make today run so smoothly. A typical example was our first holiday with the lads. Months of planning, phonecalls, lists etc. with Joel at the helm resulted in six of us heading off for 2 weeks of sun,
sea and .. .. the only problem was that with only a few weeks to go Joel discovered he couldn't afford to go and had to be unfortunately replaced. Thankfully today after the months of planning Joel has gone the extra mile and actually turned up!

On to our brief, but eventful university days, where most of the censored
material comes from. To many of you Joel is a polite, level headed gentleman, but as I've hinted to already, beneath that calm and collected surface lurks the heart of a seasoned hard man, as one unfortunate doorman of a certain lowbrow Dundee nightclub found out. After a night's partaking of the generous offer of ‘ 10 pence for any drink ‘ after all it'd be rude not to, this abrupt doorman picked Joel up from his semi-conscious slumber on the dancefloor and frogmarched him out to the carpark. Joel with a fair bit of tequila courage in him wasn't best pleased. In a fit of rage that Frank Spencer would be proud of Joel made a valiant attempt to stand up for himself, well it would of helped if he could of actually stood up! Joel turned on the bouncer and upon seeing 3 of him decided to kick the one on the left, promptly breaking 2 toes against the wall! What followed was a night comparable with
Carry on Doctor at Ninewells Hospital with Joel pushing himself up and down the wards with his foot bandage on his head shouting " Look at me, I'm Captain Scarlet "
Seriously though, Joel was my rock during the first 6 months of Uni, sleeping on my floor and giving me the confidence to meet new people, and ultimately meeting and after many a late night heart to heart with him finally building up the courage to ask Gill out on our first date. For that I'm eternally grateful, and also for not advising me to ‘ say it with flowers’!