Speech by Mark Dunk

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Mark Dunk
Speech Date: May 2002
It's great to be here with you to celebrate Mat and Jane's big day, although I must say that looking back a few years I'd have been surprised to be standing here at all!

In fact of all of our friends, I don't think any of us would have though it very likely that Mat would be the first to get married, let alone have a girlfriend by the age of 28!

It seems like just the other day, Mat didn't have much time for girlfriends – he was always far too busy entertaining his mates with his own style of highly amusing antics.

And look at him now – Jane, you've finally helped him grow up at last!

It's been almost 10 years since I met Mat at university in Swansea. Back then Mat reckoned he hadn't been out much as a teenager and proved it to us by getting pretty lairey after just one pint and virtually paralytic after just 2!

In the time since then, he has managed not only to handle his booze rather well – something he's proved to us many times over the years, but also to become the master of his old friend “The Beer Funnel”.

The Beer Funnel – a magical device brought back from his trip to Canada, which enabled him to down a can of lager in about 2 seconds flat. How Mat loved to demonstrate his drinking prowess by downing anywhere up to 8 cans of lager just to kick start his night off in true style.

Well, that was until the evening of the Millennium, when in Cardiff, Mat ended up so drunk after an evening on the funnel, that he had to be helped home by Jane and was out totally cold and tucked up in bed long before midnight, while the rest of us carried on celebrating. Poor Jane! We never did see the funnel again and I believe there's a ban on it these days.

After enjoying such lovely food today, I must say I really didn't expect anything like this. The last time Mat told me we were going for a nice meal, we were sat in Deep Pan Pizza doing the “All-You-Can-Eat” buffet special while Mat worked his way through an amazing 17 slices, as he tried get maximum value from his 2 pounds and 99 pence.

If that wasn't enough, Mat used to do almost anything for a pint.

In our student flat, we discovered a plate of mouldy baked beans that had been festering for 6 months on top our heater. This plate was totally covered in a dark furry mould while the actual beans themselves were all shrivelled and had now turned black.

Well, Mat said he'd eat 10 of them for a pint.

We readily agreed to this, but Mat was always one to haggle and upped the stakes significantly to 4 pints – 2 from Dave and myself each. We still agreed, but as a compromise, Dave personally wanted to choose the 10 worst beans for Mat to eat.

Mat ate them alright – well kind of swallowed them down with lots of water. He reckoned that the dose of penicillin he got from those beans would keep him free from germs for the reminder of the term!

In fact, doing anything for a pint became a bit of an obsession for a short while, with the task itself becoming more and more daring and outrageous each time a pint was offered.

The dares finally ended with Mat being dragged from the dance floor at Cinderella's nightclub in Swansea by the bouncers. This was after Mat had taken a bet to dance with his trousers down around his ankles. If this wasn't bad enough in itself, Mat being totally drunk managed to trip over his feet, came crashing to the floor, and exposed himself to everyone on the dance floor, including half the people from our course while the bouncers hurridly stepped in and dragged him away.

Ever the showman, Mat always loved to get on stage at the first opportunity. A couple of years ago he did a local gig here in Cardiff at the Working Man's Club. The story goes that he volunteered to assistant to a couple female dancers and ended up being stripped totally naked and wrapped up in a roll of cling film as part of the act. We never did find out what that trick was all about, but as far as I know it put an end to his stage career!

Well, you've got to hand it to him, Mat would do anything for a dare in those days. As an unlucky loser on the “forfeit wheel” in our student flat, Mat was dealt a terrible punishment one time by having to go for a bath in the stream!

Incredibly Mat went through with his punishment at Midnight in late January when it was snowing. Off he went, dressed in only his boxer shorts and towel heading into the darkness of the woods to take a late night dip!

I've really no idea why he did it. All I know, as the Swansea boys will remember, is that he got off light given the crime against humanity he committed in the student bar the previous Friday!

One of Mat's favourite university pastimes involved soaking as many people as he could from the top window of our flat. For our final year, he deliberately chose a sixth floor window directly over the entrance – just so he could soak as many unsuspecting victims as possible.

It came as a great surprise to many of us that he managed to get a first class honours degree because we thought the only trick he'd mastered was his aim out of the window, by soaking more than 50 people by the end of the year.

On one occasion, an angry mob came looking for the culprit – only to bang on Mat's neighbour's door – the room of Mat's old rival, the “reclusive” Jonny Raidar.

After a short scuffle and despite Jonny's desperate protests they proceeded to beat him up. The screams were so bad we could hear them clearly though the walls.

As Mat said at the time, Jon always loved the chance to meet interesting new people, and was a true “great mate” of his anyway!

When it comes to exam revision, Mat has an entirely novel and unusual approach that has evidently worked for him over the years.

For some strange reason, Mat seemed to believe that if you slept before an exam you'd forget all the information you'd stored in your head from that day and fail miserably!

His technique was to just stay awake all night and to keep studying so you wouldn't forget anything in the exam. Talk about bright-eyed and bushy tailed – Mat's bloodshot eyes told their own story. He was so knackered and had totally lost the plot that couldn't even hold a conversation anymore!

Despite being an esteemed academic, doctor, and self-confessed “clever bloke” these days, Mat has never been very good at geography as his brother Doug found out when he invited Mat along to his house party a couple of years ago.

Mat managed to miss the party entirely as he took the train to Gillingham in Dorset instead of Gillingham, Kent, where Doug actually lived! Mat just couldn't work out why Doug wasn't there at the train station to meet him, only for Doug to be sat there waiting patiently over 200 miles away!

Mat tried desperately to travel to Kent that evening, but missed the last connection because it was now so late and ended up spending the night sleeping on the London underground with all the homeless people.

As a poor student Mat had a couple of super cost cutting ideas I'd like to share with you all.

Firstly there was the “why buy beer when you can brew your own” idea. Just get yourself an enormous 20 litre home brew kit, hang it from the curtain rail in your room, add water and stink you room out! Mat managed to get a couple of good weeks drinking out of that bag with some of the most cloudy, disgusting and potent beer you'll ever taste – a sure way to get you really messed up before any good night out.

I was delighted to see that even now Mat hasn't lost his eye for a bargain. Only the other week, Mat again showed that he's lost none of his old touch as we sought the best deals on our nights out.

I thought I'd managed to get the bargain of the weekend with this fantastic 2 for 1 promotion, but I don't think any of us could actually beat the amazing 3 for 1 special offer that Mat found in Bournemouth on the Saturday night.

Another of Mat's great cost-cutting ideas was to not buy a TV license in the hope that the licence man wouldn't think to call around the student village. Just in case he had the cheek to show up and try to fine us, Mat had the ingenious idea of blocking the TV signal so they'd never catch us anyway.

Mat decided that the best way of blocking the signal was to wrap the whole TV in tin foil – apart from the screen obviously. This way it would be impossible for us to get detected and caught, so therefore no need to buy a licence!

We were a bit surprised to finally get a visit from the TV license man before the end of the year. Fortunately, Mat managed to talk his way out of that one but was absolutely furious with his flatmates because someone had stripped the tin foil off the TV and used it to cook their dinner. He reckoned this alone had alerted the license inspector and almost cost him a £1000 fine!

Well here's to the happy couple! I don't think you'll ever have a dull moment in your future together!

I'd like you to now all join me and be upstanding while your raise your glasses in a toast to the bride and groom.

To Mat and Jane – wishing you both the very best in your future together!