Speech by Paul Clark

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Paul Clark
Speech Date: oct 2004
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. For those who don't know me I'm
Paul, the ‘best man’. Now I'm well aware that I'm all that stands
between you and the bar, so I'll try and make this as short as possible,
hopefully you'll all repay me for this by buying me loads of drinks at
the bar later.

Before I begin exploring the seedier side of Kurt's life I'd like to
thank Kurt on behalf of the bridesmaids for his kind words. I think
you'll all agree that Lisa and Veena look absolutely gorgeous today and
have done of marvellous job of handling the bride this afternoon, let's
just hope Kurt's handling is as good later when he gets her back to the
hotel.

Now, for those who don't know, Kurt's early life was spent in Biddulph,
up North, and before university he decided to try his hand at being a
postman. Happy outdoors and looking forward to meeting new people Kurt
thought this the ideal job. On his first day a friendly local man
invited him in for a cup of tea. Now, this was everything Kurt had
wished for and fitted into his ‘Postman Pat’ dreams about the job. As
Kurt settled on the sofa he smiled as his new friend arrived with the
tea. Kurt's smile began to fade as the man joined him on the sofa.
Sensing danger Kurt rushed to finish his tea, but he was too late.
Slipping his arm around Kurt's shoulders the man whispered into his ear
‘do you do special deliveries’? Kurt tells me he fled in terror. The
other posties however, including Paul, who's sitting over there, tell me
that Kurt was an unusually long time finishing his round.

I've known Kurt now for 14 years; we first met at university in mid
Wales. Unfortunately I wasn't there to see him turn up on his first day,
wearing his flat cap, talking in a wide northern accent and sporting a
walking stick, the very picture of the typical Northerner we've all come
to love.

For those of you who think that Kurt has always been this lovable
tolerant, understanding person that we see here today, think again. In
his first year at Uni Kurt stayed in halls. Staying in the room beneath
him was a particularly quiet, religious young woman, her first time away
from home. Understandably she got upset by the foulmouthed drunken
northerner in the room above, who insisted on playing his techno at full
volume into the small hours of the morning. She not unreasonably made a
complaint to the warden, and Kurt was duly warned. Most of us would
leave it there, turn down the stereo and forget about it. But not Kurt,
oh no. From then on Kurt made sure he slept during the day so he could
exact his revenge at night. This began with Kurt bouncing a golf ball on
the floor of his bedroom for hours upon end to keep her awake. When he
got bored of that he span a metal plate on the floor, again over and
over, a kind of student water torture. Kurt lasted just 4 more days in
halls before being expelled.

Kurt and I actually met in the second year at Uni, our friendship was
cemented when Kurt offered one evening at the pub to help me move house
the next day, a typically generous gesture from Kurt, mind you he was
drunk. Next day, enthusiasm undimmed by his raging hangover, Kurt
pitched up and helped ferry my belongings to my new place. Little did I
know then that I would repay this single act of kindness over and over
as I moved his, and later Serap's worldly possessions around every
postcode in North London. Writing this speech I wonder what would have
happened had I refused that initial generous offer, the most likely I
could think of is I wouldn't now have a bad back.

After helping me move Kurt liked the place so much he moved in within a
few weeks. I was much kinder to him than his previous flatmates, and you
know who you are, Nobby, Dave and Andy, forgoing the daily beatings they
used to give him every morning to get him out of bed. However it was
noted that Kurt and I bore a passing resemblance to each other. Perhaps
in an attempt to differentiate himself from me Kurt decided to grow his
hair, something I couldn't really do, and as it turned out some six
months later something Kurt couldn't really do either. For those six
months we never saw Kurt without his baseball cap as a straggly pony
tailed appeared magically from the back of it. After six months the
baseball cap went, and so thankfully did the pony tail. To this day we
still don't know if it wasn't just clipped onto the back of that ‘dirty
old cap’.

Living in the Welsh countryside with Kurt was a real eye opener. I
hadn't known that as a child he'd wanted to be a gamekeeper. Kurt turned
out to be a deadly shot with an air rifle, literally decimating the
local rabbit population. His skills new no bounds; a master butcher, a
rabbit pie maker and in one of the more bizarre incidents stitching
together rabbit skins to make a pair of slippers for the winter. I had
to draw the line one day though when he arrived back with a freshly
killed squirrel which was prompted prepared and cooked as a kebab on the
barbeque. Hopefully marrying a vegetarian should help quell his rampant
blood lust.

However I'm reliably informed that Kurt was not always such a great
shot. I'm told that one day whilst practising with his gun in the back
garden of his mum's house he was distracted by his sister. This resulted
in him emptying the gun into his foot and being rushed to hospital. It's
funny, many of us think we've shot ourselves in the foot from time to
time, but few of us have to admit to doing just that to a doctor.

After uni, Kurt's life took him to Southampton, which he tells me is all
a bit of a blur, even he doesn't know how long he was there for. After
that onto London, where yet again I helped him move, this time to share
a flat with me and mates in Camden. After trying various jobs; a postman
in Biddulph, a bread mixer in Mid Wales and an insurance clerk in
Southampton Kurt had finally found his calling. Despite his continual
moaning about London Transport and price of everything down South he
finally seems to be happy and I think that's mainly thanks to Serap.
Mind you Kurt's never really lost touch with his old self, he's probably
the only city boy I know who wears a twenty year old German parka to
work with a post office satchel thrown over his shoulder.

Serap, I must say that today you look like one in a million, Kurt you
look like you were won in a raffle. You're a woman who deserves a good
husband, I suppose falling short of that Kurt should do, just make sure
you keep him away from the firearms. Seriously though, Kurt is a great
friend, someone who is totally reliable and would always go out of his
way to lend a hand, someone I'm proud to call a friend.

When Kurt and Serap finally got together it was pretty evident that
today was an inevitability, joined at the hip is an understatement, they
really do make the ideal couple, their lives more complete for knowing
each other. And I think we'd all agree our lives are richer for having
them as friends.

That's it ladies and gentlemen, I have no more stories that I'm allowed
to tell, and thanks Serap for editing the speech for me, so for the last
time please charge you glasses and be upstanding.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you, the bride and groom.