Monday 29 July 2013

More Bits and Pieces




I turned 30 this year, which – touch wood – should mean I'm well under halfway through my life. So here’s my question – why does it feel as if the extended warranty on my body ran out a couple of years ago and since then everything has started to fall apart?

If you think it’s hard to find spare parts for a second hand European car, try sourcing them for a broken down body.

I first started noticing it when something as simple as moving came with it’s own soundtrack.  Five years ago, when I got out of bed in the morning, it was done silently.  These days it’s accompanied by a groan akin to a Hungarian weightlifter completing the clean and jerk, crossed with the type of phone call that’s charged at $4.95 per minute.

OK. I was out with my radio jock friend recently and he seemed a little too happy, so I asked him what the problem was. Seems his brother is getting married and he was asked if he’d be best man.  He loves him and all of that, and is privileged to be part of his brother’s special day, but secretly, I think he’s so pleased because he get’s a title – Best Man!!

I really don’t think he’s ever been referred to as ‘best’ of anything  To be honest, as the sort of bloke who calls ‘Hire a Hubby’ when something goes wrong at his house, he’s just pleased to be called a ‘man’.

It has to be said, though, that the title of ‘best man’ at a wedding is a little overstated.  For starters, your presence there is a certainly less important than, say, the groom, which immediately relegates you to ‘second best man’.

Of course, the priest is usually male, and if you believe in that sort of thing, he has a direct line to God, so that knocks you down the order again.  Then more often than not, there’s a father of the bride, which means you’re now not even on the podium, coming in as ‘fourth best man’.

I seriously can’t begin to imagine how it works at a gay wedding where there are two of everything.

This is how the conversation went – He said he was excited but also nervous about his duties.  He only has one brother so even if he’s the fourth best man, he still wants to make sure he does a good job.

He said he can handle the speech bit, but he’s not got any idea of the rest.  Does he book a stripper?  (For the buck’s party, of course as – he says – even he knows that it would be in bad taste at the church)
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Needing help, we took out the iPad, looked online and after spending a few minutes on sites that seemed to skip the ceremony and concentrate on the wedding night, we found that he needed a “Dummy’s Guide To Being Best Man”.

I told him he would have to dance with the bridesmaids.  Not a problem there, he said.  As long as they know the steps to the Macarena, the Time Warp and YMCA.  He is also happy to organise the tossing of the garter.  However he’s not sure if he can find enough single men, because, let’s face it, at our age ………… so would it be wrong to invite those whose relationships are a bit rocky?

Oh, don’t worry.  It’ll be OK on the night.  After all, you’re the fourth best man!!

Part of friend's column in the paper recently (which needed to be repeated) –   He's talking about Australia Making the World Cup:-

"It is sometimes said, and said quite insistently, that football is actually better than sex. At first glance. this seems a strange and highly debatable statement.  The two activities are so utterly different.  One involves sensuality, passion, emotion, commitment, selflessness, the speechless admiration of sheer heart-stopping beauty, rushes of breathtaking, ecstatic excitement, followed by shattering toe-curling, orgasmic pleasure.  
                                                           
The other is sex.  Certain women  who are not football fans - I am reliably informed that there are one or two such creatures left in this world - sometimes fail to understand the subtleties of this connection.  They simply do not relate emotionally to the blissful anticipation of the game, the sacred ritual of preparation, the joyful build-up to the main event, the veritable foreplay that is the brisk booing and tribal barracking of the opposing team and it's supporters, the plateau phase of the contest itself, as it thrusts first this way, then that, the feverish mounting excitement building up to ..... YES HE SCORES!!!"                                                      


I was listening to the radio recently, and they were interviewing Steve Waugh and it really made me laugh.  They were actually talking about ‘sledging’ on the field.  They said to him “So, Steve, if you were batting in a game of backyard cricket and your mum was bowling, and you got a little nick through to the keeper, and nobody heard it …. Would you walk?”    There was a bit of silence and then Steve said “You never walk, fellas.  Makes up for that time she gave me LBW last Christmas when it was clearly going down legside”.  Apparently one of the world cricketers accused the Aussies of being the best sledgers in the world   Although, I guess, I can understand why sledging by the Aussies puts batsmen off, after all when most cricketers tell you they groped your wife in a spa filled with jelly, you know it’s just mental warfare, but if Shane Warne says it, you might want to call home to check.

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