Speech by Paul

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Paul
Speech Date: 22/08/2011 13:18:32

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Paul and for those of you that do … well I can only apologise. I'm the eldest of three cousins from John's former home town.

My full name is ‘Paul Wanna-drink‘ . For those of you who I meet in the bar later, I'd appreciate it if you could address me by my full name.

[PAUSE]

Now, It had previously been suggested that I relay today's speech in both French and English so our new local family can understand me however,  as my better half Claire kindly pointed out, they are at no disadvantage, the majority of people don't understand me in my home country…let alone abroad!

[PAUSE]

Before I begin and while everyone are still friends, I'd like to cover off some thank-you's.

For those of you who like watching a man withering in pain, this next part is for you….

[Thanks in Foreign]

Merci beaucoup pour votre acceuil chaleureux.[Thank you very much for   your  welcome  warm.]Un grand merci aux parents d'Anne et Michael pour tous qu'ils ont fait pour avoir organize e jour special[A big thankyou to the parents of Helene and Jack for all they have done in organizing this special day.]Et enfin John – pour m'avoir propose comme temoigne de la fin de ta liberte…….oh pardon!           [And finally John – for having selected as a witness of the end of your freedom……..oh excuse me!]Je voulais dire — temoigne de ton nouveau bonheur qui commence.[I meant to say — witness to your new happiness that begins.]

[PAUSE]

Unfortunately Sally doesn't get much mention in the speech so I'd like to take this opportunity to say how absolutely beautiful she looks and I think I speak for everyone when I say how lucky I feel to be a part of her big day. So Sally as I move on with the character assassination, please don't feel left out, disappointed or short changed as there will be plenty of opportunity for that when you and John retire to your honeymoon suite later this evening !!

[PAUSE]

Now working in IT, I did actually find LOADS of ready-prepared best man speeches on Tinernet .… but sadly, NONE of them were about a couple called John and Sally ….so it looks like it's all down to me…

Living many miles away from John, it's been somewhat of a challenge to uncover any skeletons in his closet and many of his friends present here today, will agree that he's kept a pretty clean slate over the years – Either that or he has a sharp team of lawyers cleaning up after him!

I would like to point out however, that that John did hand me a list of subject I shouldn't mention today…  [PAUSE] I have them here…

• Drinking

• Barfing

• more drinking

• further Barfing… 

• numerous counts of Ingesting alcohol through a funnel system… aptly nick named ‘Fanny Funnel’

• .… followed by Barfing.. I think I have some evidence here! [FUNNEL PICS]

• it looks like he then raised his game to sessions of streaking..

• finally, threatening revenge during paintball by an act of man rape..– I'm not even going to try and explain that one away for him.. ..

Anyway, the file is full of this stuff if anyone's interested.

But seriously, other than being a walking larger filter, John, like most of us, has made some classic mistakes. The first was undoubtedly giving me the podium today, the second was trusting his closest friends to keep secrets for him….which brings me onto the one incident in particular that apparently..… [CHECK LIST] ….  I'm allowed to discuss.

[STORY]

The story centre's around a friend's birthday, Tom's in fact, who is in fact here with us today.. [WAVE]

The occasion was held in Nottingham. John, Brian and Sam, who is also present in the jury today [WAVE] were invited up for a night on the tiles..

It was a good night out but like most, was built on a foundation of drinking throughout the day.… this was to be John's down fall.

The new sleep depraved father was a little out of practice and cracks were beginning to appear early.  In fact John ‘s state can only be described as ‘volatile’ before the party even entered the city.

[SHOW GROUP PICS]

Once in the city John was supplied with more drinks until the point where ‘Fresh Air’ [FINGERS] became a regular requirement.

The night culminated with John and Brian unconscious in the lounge and the remaining posse scattered around the house for what seemed like a peaceful night..

At 7am Tom's phone became alive…  a message from John..  and quite frankly the kind of message nobody wants to receive..

“Tom I had to leave early. During the night I did have a problem. “ [PAUSE]

[CURTIAN PIC]

“ I have left £30 for the cleaning of your curtains and carpets.  I have cleaned the carpet but the curtains, were more difficult. “ – no doubt because they move and to a drunk must have put up a good fight!!

The message then fell into lines of guilt, remorse and regret-  [which where're obviously not interested in..]

At this point Tom is thinking what the hell went on down there?  But his head was pounding and so initially decided it can wait until more reasonable hours,  but scrolling through his phone he found 2 earlier messages from Brian who was also in the lounge…

3:18am “issue, you need to be downstairs now.”

3:22am “Stand down issue solved I think”

Fearing a midnight-makeover had been performed on his lounge, Tom quickly made his way downstairs to find Brian sitting in the corner of the room acting like a trauma victim..

“So What happened???”

Brian stop rocking looks up and says, “It was scary, I was woken by John in the early hours. He was wondering around naked.. and then he noticed me.  He suggested I move to the Kitchen, so I did, immediately  … I mean I'm not one to argue with a drunken naked guy!”

For the next hour or so Tom and Sam pondered over what had gone on In the lounge.

[HOLD LIST] Now from John’ talent list, barfing up all over the lounge sounds the obvious weapon of choice, but alas no..  no mess and no smell anywhere, just a few miss placed items.

…Then a sinking feeling dawned over them,

Tom slowly turns to Sam and says “Oh no.. You don't think he would have pissed up my curtains do you !? “

At this point, Brian piped up.. “Yes..that's it….  I'm really sorry but he made me promise not to say anything, so I had to leave you guys to figure it out for yourselves..… erm, he's not coming back though is he????”

So it would appear in his drunken state, John mistook the lounge curtains for a 24 hour public urinal, relieved himself all over them and in doing so, added another talent to his bag of sordid tricks !

So John I would like to award you with some items that may come in handy for future mishaps.. I believe you'll recognise the material..

[Present Pants and Toilet Roll]

So Sally, what should you learn from this… well firstly, John's OCD cleanliness is so acute, that he even did a brilliant cleaning job cleaning whilst on location, naked and wasted!

Secondly, and this applies to everyone in the room.. When inviting John out for the evening, you may want to re-think the term ‘piss-up’ !!

 [Turn to John and whisper]  Sleep in the bath tonight….

[PAUSE]

I guess at this point and before I'm escorted out,  I should say a few about John and his life.

John has always been a grafter and always enjoyed creating and working with his hands. Indeed his house is full of often useless but nice looking items he's crafted at work under the guise of ‘teaching’.

I can only speculate that ‘show and tell’ under John's syllabus was more like ‘sit and watch’ for his students.

John would often spend days in the workshops creating items and toys by milling, turning and carpentry.. Until more recently he discovered the wonder of the cutting laser. Since then I believe he became more programmer than engineer!

[PAUSE]

So…Here we have a man who came from humble beginnings, keen on education. A man who is now quickly rising to the very top of his profession based solely on intelligence, grit and the willpower to push on where others have fallen.A man who is beginning to distinguish himself at the very highest level amongst his peers, and where none can say a bad word against him?

….But enough about me, I'm really here to talk about you John….

[PAUSE]

Many may not know this, but John is also a big lover of animals, in particular grey cuddly dogs. John used to own a cuddly ‘comfort dog’ that he quite literally loved to death… ‘Doggy’ was ‘regenerated’ more times than Dr Who over the years using a selection of materials resembling a grey colour.

Once this operation became too labourers, his mother resorted to re-skinning doggy with cheap grey zip up pencil cases – I don't John really noticed, he just though doggy had turned bitch and had a cheap belly ring fitted!

[PAUSE]

Being methodically minded, If John had placed an ad on a dating site it would probably have read something like this :-

Teacher for Teaching: Single self sufficient Engineering Teacher from quiet market town seeks live-in partner for Love, marriage, and family preferably in less than 12 months. (..… and he nearly achieved this)

[PAUSE]

Enter Sally.. a beautiful, kind, intelligent and yet persuasive lady..  So persuasive in fact that she managed to single handily convince John he was wrong about every rule he'd set in life. [COUNT ON FINGERS] No Marriage, No Co-Habitation, No Children and some would say.. No-hope.

[FINAL WORDS]

Fortunately for Sally my black book is empty and I had no leads so perhaps I'll finish up with some words of advice for a good sound marriage..

• John, firstly, set the ground rules and establish who is the boss:Then do everything Sally says.

• Never forget to tell your wife those three important words [pause] ‘You're right dear’.

• A happy marriage is a matter of give and take the husband gives and the wife takes.

• And Sally, remember, a husband is like a tiled floor [pause] lay it right first time and you can spend years walking all over it.

[PAUSE]

Pour termine – Je  voudrais propose un tost![To finish – I would like to propose a toast!]

J,invite tout le monde a levez leur verres pour souhaiter beaucoup de bonheure aux jeunes marries et leur  petit Timmy. [If everyone would kindly raise their glasses to wish John, Sally and Timmy all the happiness and love as they begin their quest through life together.]