the passable man

1.

So it was my brother's stag do. I was best man. This was not a position I was really comfortable with. I would never normally aspire to the heights of 'best'. 'Quite good', maybe. 'Passable', sure.

Almost, I would prefer to be the worst man, and perhaps I was. When Justin said he didn't want any fuss made - no strippers or silly costumes or anything like that, just a quiet night out - I actually listened. When what I should have done, as best man, is agree with him - then, on the night, force him into a mankini and have everyone beat him with rubber hoses.

I did have one 'brilliant' idea, which was that everyone should wear eye patches, which Justin does all the time, one of his eyes having been paralysed after a motor cycle accident. This struck me as admirably fair, appropriately jolly, and visually pleasing to onlookers. However, Justin felt that it would make him uncomfortable - and I suppose it's true that were he - say - a hunchback, and everyone turned up with a cushion stuffed under their shirt backs, that might come across as offensive, not to mention sinister.

That one idea completely exhausted my imagination, so on the day itself I was shocked to realise that I had nothing arranged. No outfits, no planned humiliations. In a sudden panic, I took with me a blow-up doll which had represented Justin, in his absence, on the hen night. Perhaps I would not have bothered had not the doll (with no modification other than an eye patch) so closely resembled him.

So doll in bag I went to the Green Man and we sat outside in spite of the unsettled weather, eight or ten of us, drinking. I had made no plans about getting to Brentwood, three miles away. I had imagined that we might walk through Thorndon Park - I had visions of making a ritual sacrifice to the Great Stag Lord, as dictated by family tradition. The Great Stag Lord would then summon a fleet of helicopters in gratitude.

We got cabs. In O'Neill's Phil got me to go to the bar to order a round of the 'Bramley's apple' shots he had seen advertised on a board there. When I got there, it turned out that he had been misreading the dessert menu. So we nearly had ten blokes downing ten bowlfuls of apple crumble and custard in one. Which really would have been messy.

By this stage the inevitable parrot had emerged, along with the pirate costume. It was so obvious that I hadn't thought of it, but luckily Alex had. So Justin was decorated with inflatable parrot and hat, plus a wig that carried more of a suggestion of Whoopi Goldberg than Johnny Depp, or so I thought. And there he sat, as the alcohol really started to kick in, looking like a waxwork on the verge of melting.

But he did not melt: he went to The Swan along with the rest of us. There, by a happy coincidence, his 'teenage fanclub' awaited. Or so they were once known - a group of girls who he used to encounter, over and over, during nights out in Brentwood. They are no longer teenagers of course. But the blow-up doll was at last inflated, and tossed over to them, and in all their excitement they ripped its arm off, possibly with their teeth. The necessary sacrifice had been made.

A curry followed. Alex was sick on the way to the curry house, and he was sick on his return home later, but while in the curry house he cunningly managed to reverse this process, even to the extent of acting as a receptacle (albeit an unknowing receptacle) for other people's unwanted chillies. The word 'hero' is often misused, but here it does seem apt.

2.

In the speech I would describe the stag do as 'a riot'. Then I would go on to say: 'And if anyone wants to buy a plasma TV, see me afterwards.' This was a joke referencing some riots of the time, which many readers will no doubt remember. I myself remember watching it on TV, mainly a burning furniture store which News 24 chose to focus on as iconic. Not that there were many rioters around, or people of any kind. Even firemen seemed to be keeping well out of it. A (false) rumour came through that Primark in Romford had been targeted. 'Tens of pounds will be lost!', I wailed. I was becoming hysterical.

Even more alarming to me was the consequent appearance of armies of people in the streets, wielding brooms - 'Oh my God, it's the Big Society!', I screamed from my hiding-place behind the sofa. It was almost as though those riots were the 'culture change' deemed necessary for Cameron's brave new world to be ushered in. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist but - hmmmm... Lorraine, on the other hand, thought that the police started the riots so as to demonstrate that they should not be subject to government cutbacks. This seems equally plausible. I wish these conspiracy theories were not incompatible so that I could believe them both. As it is, I shall have to believe them on alternate weeks.

On the radio, Jeremy Vine was busy fielding calls from people wishing to bring back National Service. One female caller suggested that the rioters should be 'systematically sprayed with dog poo'. I liked her use of the word 'systematically', and wondered if she had a system in mind.

3.

And so to the wedding. This took place in Brighton, in the week after Gay Pride. Brighton, then, wasn't especially gay - shame had set in. Ross hypothesised an event called 'Gay Prude', involving lots of repressed gay men and women in drab and securely-buttoned clothing. Who nevertheless feel a need to parade.

He then went on to suggest that Aswad's Don't Turn Around is about golden showers, and that the chorus goes: 'Don't turn around/It's only warm water.'

I don't think I should listen to him. He seems untrustworthy.

I was down there from Monday. On Tuesday I was wandering through a museum exhibit of idols, masks and totems from various cultures. One was intended to embody a spirit that would help with the smooth running of 'the ceremony of the yams'; I wished that I had a spirit whose aid I could call on for the best man speech. Perhaps I accidentally invoked an evil spirit, because although the speech went fine, my Mum fell over in Brighton town centre and had to attend the ceremony in a wheelchair provided by the Holiday Inn. At least we got to see 'the real Brighton', in A&E, where a man in one of the cubicles was steadfastly refusing to get on a trolley, so that a nurse walked in and accused him of 'not using the cubicle effectively'. That was telling him.

The wedding ceremony was effective - light-hearted, with a reading of a poem about old people having sex. The ceremony of the yams also passed off without a hitch.

Then the speeches.

People had been full of sound advice about this. 'Whatever you do', they said. 'don't fuck it up. That would be a disaster.' In my anxiousness to shrug off all my responsibilities, I had recruited three other people to help deliver the best man speech, and ended up writing four speeches instead of just the one. Dave Sullivan and Kevin then threw my speeches away and did their own, which only added to my anxiety, given Dave's notorious fondness for four-letter words and Kevin's penchant for ranting about women, or 'whores' as he calls them. In fact, Dave's swear count only came to two shits, a prick and a plonker, and in any case he more than redeemed himself by putting it all in rhyme.

(Some maintain that 'plonker' is not a swear word, but I would suggest that it may be one when used to refer to an actual penis, in this particular instance my brother's. However, the sting is surely removed when, as here, it is rhymed with 'Tonka'. And it is also fair to say that Dave's 'prick' was not a real one, but a splinter.)

Kevin also acquitted himself well, steering clear of my proscribed topics (paedophilia, rape, and genital mutilation), as did Phil (obligingly reading what I had written for him), and then I stood up and said: 'That's all we've got time for.'

Joke.

Afterwards, my part of the speech was mainly remembered for one particular joke, which I didn't think would go down as well as it did. I had talked about my qualms about joining, via Justin, such a big and complicated family as the Backhouses, and then I said: 'But I'm sure Bobs felt the same when I first showed her my extensive collection of mummified badgers.'

I had thought this rather obscure, but no, it seemed to be the jest of the season. There may well be people at that wedding whose only knowledge of me will rest upon that association with 'mummified badgers'. Just as well I didn't put 'child pornography' after all.

When all the tension was over, there was one delightful sunny day, before it was time to return. We sat by the beach, next to a plate of spare wedding cake sweltering under clingfilm. Children threw stones into the sea, as though in a futile attempt to destroy it.

On the very last night I sat in a curry house opposite Christopher, three and a half, who talked about his recent experience of doing a poo. So young, and already a perfect mastery of curry house etiquette!