Best Man Speech

On a dark night, a jot over thirty years ago, Elaine and John were on a boat returning from Monster Island. A stray velociraptor escaped and murdered the crew. John fended them off while Elaine gave birth to young Steven and steered the ship to safety.
At the same time, Nicola was running through woods, feasting on the blood of the innocent to keep her youthful complexion, which we can see has kept her looking radiant even to this day.

So that’s where our pair started in life. Personally, I met Steve on referral. A mutual friend, Kit, introduced me to him asking if he could join my gaming group. I figured he must have been shy to need someone else to speak to me first, but I swiftly learned how wrong I was. He joined us, and swiftly became known to my mother as, “The Loud One,” which, given his competition, was no easy feat.

He was on work experience in Germany when we numbered him as Steve One, a name he’s still known as to this day. We had no doubt he’d become one of us and pre-emptively numbered our other, newer Steve as Steve Two. After his return he became a core part of our gamer lifestyle.

People who throw dice together often become close friends. Not weird close… okay, kind of weird close, but more like Breakfast Club-meets-group therapy instead of anything involving bad touching. Mostly. My belated nights out clubbing were christened by the Steves, which was awesome and led to at least one Spider-Man-based drunken breakdown.

Steve himself was not immune to similar bad decisions, poor haircuts (before the hair, you know, went) and moments of drunken stupidity. He is well known and beloved for taking his shirt off and dancing in a moment’s notice, bouts of gay chicken much to Nicky’s dismay and/or delight, dressing in reflective spandex outfits or growing a moustache which made him look like a maths teacher who likes the company of young boys. Seriously, no more taches for you, Steve. I still fondly remember how he found me when I was thrown out of the Gloucester for being too drunk. Admittedly Steve was also being thrown out, too, but I’m sure it counts.

Steve was going to have a wedding a few years back which fell through, but I wasn’t best man for that one, so this one’s already a million times better than that one ever could have been. After that he became the latest in a long line of victims acting as a third flatmate for Ash and myself. He introduced our clique to the Guitar Hero games and Lee in that order of importance. I still remember calling it quits on a night out drinking with Steve and waking up to see him curled up in a ball rocking back and forth on the sofa watching Nathan Barley and repeating “the idiots are winning” over and over.

Once he’d regained his composure, stopped crying, shaking and watching terrible movies like Ocean’s 13, he moved out, and met Nicky. Compared to previous girlfriend choices, she instantly fitted in with our merry band of geeks. She is of course, not without her flaws, being a fan of Stargate, some questionable films, and being the owner of a fish who defies death more than Rasputin. Rather than be the poor, long-suffering, eye-rolling other half to Steve’s bouncy geek, she’s been an active part of his life, matching his drinking, bantering and acting like a total nerd. That said, I do fear that being five-oh, we’ll never find the body when Nicky’s fed up of Steve or if she ever sees the real photos of him and Shaun. When that day comes, I’ll be willing to help bury the body as long as I get his top hat. Of course, the same goes the other way round, as long as I get a cool hat, I’m in. You know your price.

Potential homicide aside, I hope you’ll all join me in raising your glasses and toast the happy couple.