Speech by Kevin Watts

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Kevin Watts
Speech Date: oct 2004

INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen, for the people who haven't met me before or don't know me my name is Kevin Watts and I am very honoured and proud to be Lee & Dee's Best Man on this special occasion of there wedding day.

I'm sure you'll agree what a fantastic day it's been so far Dee looking truly stunning, she looks absolutely gorgeous, she reminds me of Audrey Hepburn from the 1961 classic ‘Breakfast at Tiffany's’ whereas Lee reminds me of Marlon Brando from the ‘Godfather’!

Not many people know this, but Dee's had a bit of bad luck this week she had her credit card stolen on Monday…Lee has decided not to report it to the police cos the thief is spending less than she was!

It is lovely to see Lee & Dee get married and today its 568 days since Lee was the Best Man at my Wedding on the 12 of October 2002 moreover, today is also 568 days since Lee's spent a full 20 minutes in his Best Man speech libelling my good name and assassinating my character in front of my whole family, my friends, my future in-laws and my work colleagues!

Now apparently for the next 15-20 minutes Lees told me i'm supposed to sing the groom's praises and tell you all about his good points…well…unfortunately Ladies and Gentlemen…I can't sing and I certainly won't lie…!

I knew the Cold War had to end, I knew that Nelson Mandela would one day be free and I also knew that the Berlin wall would eventually come down…but I have to say I never thought that Lee would actually find someone to marry him, especially someone as lovely as Dee!!

I've known Lee for about 13 years, and of this time he spent 3 years at Lancaster University (sporting a hairstyle which was cross between Axle Rose and Chris Waddle I might add!) and the other 10 years living in Leeds, so coming from Hull, i'm afraid I only have hearsay and unsubstantiated gossip to go on, but as a wise man once told me, never the truth get in the way of a good story!!!

I have to say Lee has not changed a bit in the 13 years i've known him …well…apart from losing all his hair…putting on a few stone …and becoming a champion PC Gamer…sorry Lee a social stock market analyst …
I've many memories from our younger days, but it has to be said Lee & I didn't always get on. I remember times when I would call him ‘Smelly’, and he would call me ‘Big Nose’, and we would both go running home crying to our Mummies! But sure enough, our friendship was strong, the next day, Lee would e-mail me from work all apologetic and repentant and everything would be forgotten over a few pints at the local!

So what can I say about him?

He's handsome
Successful
Witty
Intelligent
Flash
Charming
Er..Er…

Sorry ‘Lee’, what's that say, I can't read your handwriting. Oh, yeah
fantastic in bed, sorry.

So where did it all begin for these star struck lovers?

Well Lee first knew Dee as a work colleague when she was a PR Manager at Ernst Young. A few years went by and they met at a friend's party where he attempted to chat her up with some slurring beer talk! As his chances diminished, eventually collapsing around him he thought he had blown it when an opportunity to apologise a few days later presented itself. Lee, our humble and chivalrous hero, seized the opportunity and I am pleased to say on the 3rd of November 2000 the relationship began and immediately blossomed. From there, just over 2 years went by and on the 25th of December 2002 Lee went romantically down on one knee and asked Dee to marry him in a picturesque park in Dublin which brings us to this glorious day today.
Now i'm sure, unless Lee is firing more blanks than the A team, that it won't be long before we hear the pitter/patter of tiny feet.

I thought I would give you an insight into Lee's youth by reading out some of his old school reports!!! I have to point out that I have been accused of embellishing facts in the past however, I can assure you these are 100% genuine – as Lees Mum & Dad will verify.

School Reports

Form Teacher 1HO (Saltshouse) – Aged 10 – (C M Howes)

Lee always needs to have his say. He does not intend to border on the line of being cheeky, but displays feelings of injustice when misdemeanours are pointed out to him.
This attitude is improving and Lee is becoming a pleasant child to know.

I think I sense a bit of adolescent rebellion their Lee!

Art 3MW (Malet Lambert HS) – Aged 14 – (Mr K Ranner?)

Another very pleasing terms work. All pieces are up to date – including homework. His ‘Winters Scene’ shows great care and attention to detail, as does his biro drawing of your house. Lee appears quite interested in the subject and certainly shows potential in it.

Effort B Attainment C+

Needless to say Lee dropped this subject at the end of the year perhaps robbing the nation of a potential LS Lowry or even Damian Hurst?

Cookery 3MW (Malet Lambert HS) – Aged 14 – (Mrs Green)

Lee is making steady progress in this subject.

Effort B Attainment B –

I'm sure Lee would of done Mrs Green proud with his nutritional focus at University…apparently Lees stable diet over his three years there was pie, beans, spaghetti hoops and smash…frequently boiled in one pan for speed and polished off with a few slices of white bread!!!

Mathematics 3MW (Malet Lambert HS) – Aged 14 – (Mrs Marr)

Lee has continued to work hard and produces work of a high standard. He has shown a thorough understanding of the topics covered so far and does not appear to have any problems at this stage.

Effort A Attainment A

Good job we have proof you can add here up Lee, especially in your job!

Music – 1HO (Saltshouse JHS) – Aged 10 – (Initials JS?)

Theory – Very Good.
Enjoys Singing.

Attainment A- Effort A-

Was you a bit of a closet Aled Jones I wonder?…or just in the
school choir perhaps?

Now I don't want to sing his praises too much, but obviously I have chosen a few of these for entertainment value and therefore I feel compelled to say his effort & ability in Mathematics, English, P. E. & Attendance was absolutely flawless, he came top of his class in several subjects, with the other subjects coming close behind – Sounds like a School Swot to me!

So lets have a look at Lees Accolades

Well where do you start? his sporting prowess in his youth was so legendary only people like Alan Shearer, Steve Redgrave and Bruce Lee could comprehend his achievements.

He was a born sportsman. His Dad recalls the time he joined a kung-fu club and in his debut lesson he was thrown by a guy double his size onto his neck and even then had to be dragged away. Another time he was in a pedalo abroad, his dad had turned his back to buy some ice-creams and Lee decided he would set a new distance record for how far from the beach he could get in the shortest space of time! The next George (his dad) remembers was turning back round and seeing what looked like Lee in a speedboat fast becoming a dot in the distance. His dad recalls that's the nearest he's been to calling the emergency lifeboat and helicopter services, in the end he managed to catch him after ditching the ice creams he'd just bought and swimming for what felt like 2 hours only to be greeted with ‘now than dad what are you doing out this far!’

Well as in any Best Mans speech I feel obliged to reveal the truth and give Lee his dues

Lee has been involved in many sporting teams over the years (most notably football of course) and he's represented and captained his School, City, County, University and still plays today in the Saturday league for Morley Town, here in Leeds.

He even did a bit of football management at Uni, but unfortunately he tried so many different formations he was awarded the proud honour of ‘RUSTY STUD’…according to the Uni boys not the most sought after accolade in the clubs history!

Here is a selection of his greatest achievements

Bellfield Wanderers Cup Final under 12’s ‘Man of the Match’.
Under 57 Kilo Hull Kung-fu champion.
Under 19 East Riding County Junior football Captain.
Lancaster University first team Captain.

He was even offered an apprenticeship at Hull City Football Club, which he turned down in favour of going to Lancaster University.

At University he was extremely successful and achieved an upper 2:1 BA (Hons) degree in Accounts and Finance, after leaving University he was quickly snapped up by Robson Rhodes where after an interlude at Ernst Young, he's swiftly scaled the ranks of power to the present day, where he is Assistant Director at the tender age of 30.
…It's clear the sky's the limit for this pioneering young Sir John Harvey Jones!

BODY-COPY 2

Experiences

Onto the Stagy!

As you will probably all know one of my duties as Best Man was to organise a stag weekend.
I'm not sure how much you've heard about the outcome but we all really enjoyed Barcelona and had a really good time.
Unfortunately, I cannot say too much more as Lee's solicitor has advised caution until the court case next month…however, I have been reliably informed by the RSPCA, that the donkey will make a full recovery!!!

One thing I did learn about Lee is never fall asleep sharing a room with him after a drunken night out. I still cringe at the scene when Lee decided at 4am to dive bomb an innocently snoring Paul at the other end of our room!
The first I knew what was going on was a voice shouting “garonimo!” as a crack of lightning lit up the room and I saw Lee flying through the air like a thunderous cannon ball in Paul's direction. As you can imagine the next scene was a scene of utter carnage, as the bed collapsed, and Lee, Paul, the bed, the lamp and several sundries items went in opposite directions.

After a few more misdemeanours from this hyperactive, social hand-grenade I felt compelled to take matters into my own hands and managed to put his lights out with a 2 litre bottle of water used as a club to the forehead. Needless to say he slept like a baby thereafter.

Happy days!

…Well that was just a snippet of Stagy scandal, I am obliged at this stage to state publicly, because of the ‘law of the stag’ I will not be coerced or pressured into leaking any more of Barcelona's outrageous behaviour …however, it has been known for me to succumb to letting out a secret or two quite freely under pressure (like now) or under the influence of alcohol later in the evening, so watch this space!

Dancing

Although you wouldn't think it to look at him, Lee has a bit of a reputation of being called ‘snake hips’ around local dance floors in the region. Now I know what you're thinking, how can a man with the body of Johnny Vegas and hairstyle of Lee Hurst possibly pull off moves only John Travolta is famed for. Well the reason is Lee does have his secret weapon…THE BUM DANCE and his self invented LUNGE MANOEUVRE!…

Let me put this into perspective – No, the bum dance is not an Indian Witchdoctors traditional rain dance as it sounds, it is actually Lee with the palms of his hands on the dance floor and his bottom pointing due North wiggling away like a flapping kite in a strong wind! If you can picture that and think that's bizarre the lunge goes one step further by pulling off such daring moves only a gifted athlete would attempt whilst limbering up for an Olympic event final.
QUESTION: Would you believe this works as a snare for the female sex????
…Well the evidence speaks for itself, as Dee herself fell victim to his hypnotic voodoo bum thumping…and looks what's happened to her!!!

Drinking Momentous Moments

I have to say for the record that although Lee doesn't get drunk that often, Alcohol and Lee are very strange bedfellows indeed. He does tend to adopt a bit of a Norman Wisdom/Frank Spencer persona once he's had a few beers. But, fear not, people are safe in the knowledge that usually it is Lee who ends up being the victim.

Now to give Lee a chance to recall such momentous events and therefore share in the laughter I am going to give him a clue to see if he remembers!

Drinking Mishap No 1 – Entitled; The Shattered Trousers! – Lee was doing a spot of bum dancing in Hull's Waterfront Nightclub and went for a cheeky lunge with the result being the agonising tearing sound of a ripping crotchment area, the result being Lee trousers were left totally destroyed. The damage was severe there was no inside seem left in his trousers at all and he was left looking like a transvestite man in a rather revealing pencil skirt!!!

I am fairly sure in the light that Lees bum dancing days are behind
him now he's married, he will agree to show off some of his nifty moves tonight to any young bucks out there wanting to get ahead of the game!!!

Drinking Mishap No 2 – Entitled; Midnight Postie goes for Gold! – This is were Lee attempted to leapfrog a post box on one of his local stag nights around Leeds, only to manage half the required height and ending up break dancing on the pavement…clutching his crown jewels!!!

Drinking Mishap No 3 – Entitled; English Cook Abroad! – This is where Lee, drunk as a skunk, knocked a full bottle of Red Wine over a white tablecloth in a restaurant in Barcelona and feeling so apologetic he decided to offer his services as a cook hand in the restaurants kitchen, to the utter surprise and astonishment of staff and diners alike – needless to say our stag swat team soon extracted him to a safe perimeter – not because of the threat from potential violence but to save the diners from Lee's cooking!!!

Drinking Mishap No 4 – Entitled; The W.W.F. Clothes-Line! – Lee was so excited and thrilled to be asked to be my Best Man he decided to thank me by clothes-lining me late one night in Leeds city centre resulting in me being knocked out cold for 8 seconds!!!

Drinking Mishap No 5 – Entitled; Drunken Burglar Alarms Neighbourhood! – On getting back to my house alone one evening he realised he could get into the house with the key provided but he'd neglected to ask me for the code for the house alarm, so after the alarm had gone off waking up the whole street at 2am, instead of just running up the stairs to bed and waiting for the alarm to reset Lee decided he would turn into Keano Reeves in the film Speed and disable the whole alarm system with his masterly knowledge of electric circuitry. The result was a completely destroyed house alarm, the evidence being a wrecked box of tangled wires on the carpet, £135 worth of damage and Lee walking home to his parents house only 1 mile up the road leaving the bell box screeching away and the front door unlocked!!!

ADVICE SECTION

Football

Well I feel at this point that it's my duty to offer a small piece of advice to the groom, and Lee will be pleased to know that a successful marriage can be compared to football, a passion of his; Here's some advice via a football analogy;

1 – Ensure you're fully committed every week
2 – Make sure you score every Saturday
3 – Make sure you change ends at half time
4 – Don't put your tackle in too hard or you might injure yourself
5 – No tackling from behind…especially on your wedding night.

Dee has also assured me that playing away from home could result in a nasty groin injury and is certainly the quickest way onto the transfer market.

Telegrams

Before I get onto the formal stuff I'd just like to read a couple of telegrams from absent friends.

1 – To Lee, we could have been so good together, but good look and take care…signed Nicole Kidman

2 – We've got one here just for Dee. It reads, My Darling Dee, together we were like yin and yang, day and night, Romeo and Juliet! Why did you settle for him? And that's from…Viggo Mortenson… Aragorn from LOTRs.

3 – Oh, this ones from Godfrey Lee's Barber. It says, "Lee my boy, I haven't seen you for 10 years…I hope I didn't upset you when I said
I think you were thinning a tad on top!…Congratulations and ‘hairs’ to the happy couple!

4 – Last ones for Lee it reads…Lee are you sure you're making the right decision – you led me to believe we were perfect together…signed Dale Winton

Moving on…Here's some more advice for you Lee, this is a warning for the future told through a computer analogy from a recently married disillusioned wife!

IT'S ENTITLED – INSTALLING HUSBAND 1.0

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance – particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as Championship Manager 3.0, Conflict Dessert Storm 2.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed…Desperate

This was the reply from Tech Support

Dear Desperate

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: "http colon I Thought You Loved Me.htm" and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. …Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta. Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background, that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). Also, do not attempt to re-install the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend First-Class Cooking 3.0 and Sexy Lingerie 7.7

Well they say the worst experience of the groom's day is the Best-Mans speech, that fair enough, i'll take that on the chin, I accept it goes with the territory! However, i'm fairly sure the worst experience of Dee's day was hearing Lee say ‘pleased to meet you’ when he was supposed to be saying ‘praise be with you’ in the Church earlier today!!!

So to the CONCLUSION

1st END

On a more personal note

(Turned to Lee), Lee you have pulled a blinder in marrying Dee. You have found someone who is Beautiful, Intelligent, chic, funny, affectionate, caring and a match for you any day of the week!

(Turned to Dee), Dee i'm sure you will agree you are one of the luckiest women in the world to have found Lee, he is genuine, witty, loving, thoughtful, clever and i'm sure he will do his best to love and look after you for the rest of your life.

(Turned to Lee) Lee, you and I have had some fantastic times together over the years (Spiders, Ibiza, Waterfront, Barcelona), and I know that we will continue to do so in the future. You have been a great personal friend to me and I know you mean a lot to all the other guys in this room too… The Uni guys work colleagues and personal acquaintances, and for me it is a great honour to be your Best Man…and Jac and I would just like to wish both of you eternal love and happiness for the future.

FINAL CONCLUSION

2nd End – The Toast

Could I ask everybody to be upstanding for a toast to your Bride & Groom…

Here's to the new husband
And here's to the new wife
May they remain lovers
…for the rest of their life.

Ladies & Gentlemen to Mr & Mrs Atkinson your Bride & Groom