weddingspeech

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen

For those of you who think I'm some bum from the Black & White Minstrel Show who's strayed in here to blag a free drink and a meal...you're right! However I'm also a proud father who has just seem my little..little? girl married to a really nice man, what more could one ask? Now, I'm only going to speak for a few moments because of my throat....Lynda said if I talked for too long, she'd cut it !!

So if I can rewind for a moment...

Imagine the scene...

Me: Do I have to make a speech?

Thea:Yeah.. you are the father of the bride, after all.

Me:Who'll be there?

(Gets list which includes more than enough major worsmiths to choke the British Library, songwriters, poets and all manner of erudite folk and worse.)

Me: Sh...What am I going to say?

Thea: I don't know but don't offend anyone!

Me: Don't offend anyone?

Thea: No...

Me: Are you sure you're talking to the right person?

Now it seems to me that, in this situation, one has two options - make a really bland speech and send everyone to sleep but don't offend anyone or...offend everyone equally! Guess which one I chose.

My favourite serial social offender GBS once said that marriage was popular because it combined the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity - I can't imagine what he was referring to but anyone who has monitored the creative output from Pratchetts Row in the last few years can only believe he meant songwriting and music. If ever there was a true marriage of creative minds in evidence this is one. It's a beautiful sight and a creative one.

But I'd like to saw something about the protagonists in this ongoing mutual muse situation.

When I first met Nigel I didn't like him much, but then I got to know him and... I really hated him! Not only is he, tall, erudite, intelligent and with far more hair than is decent but the swine can play anything even a Melodica. Now I used to have a Melodica once but it bit me on the lip, escaped and went Native. How Nigel managed to domesticate his baffles me, but is just another reason why this multi-talented lothario is top of my hit list. Add to this the fact that he has led my youngest (and those who know Thea know just how maleable she is! ) into the seedy and uncertain world of 'music' - an optimist, after all, is a musician with a mortgage - and if that wasn't enough the smart arse can even do crosswords! As the list of his failings grows longer I have to say I begin to like him more.

What can I say about Thea? Well she held the record for finishing a baby bottle in the maternity ward at the John Radcliffe, a record which, as far as I know, still stands to this day and a talent which has stood her in good stead in her chosen career. She also had one of the loudest voices I've ever heard though she tells me that hers is a comparatively quiet voice in the industry - heaven help the husbands of her colleagues if this is true. She was insectivorous for a brief period but we'll gloss over that for the time being. ( I have pictures for any NoW journalist who's fed up crucfying supermodels - a stoned Moss gathers no roles and all that - might pay the PR budget on the next album! ) Seriously though Thea was a wonderful and obedient daughter – if with a bit of prompting wtih a long list of sterling qualities –
which include... sorry I can't read her handwriting.

So there we have it Thea & Nigel, a wonderful collaboration with an enviable track record ( no pun intended ) so can I ask you people to raise your glasses and toast Thea & Nigel may your harmony resonate to the ether and thence to others

Thea & Nigel

Without sounding too corny she is a wonderful person who deserves a good husband. All I can say Nigel is that you are lucky that you married her before she found one.

Don't get me wrong

Finally……Never go to bed in the middle of an argument – be a man stay up and fight

You’ve lost anyway so you might as well get it over with.

SPEAK TO US OF CHILDREN:

AND HE SAID:
“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

consider the words of Oscar Wilde, “Women are meant to be loved, not understood.”

me and a box of Imodium have been close friends for the past week

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it was and always will be yours.
If it never comes back, it never was.
If all it does is just sit in your house, messes up your stuff, eats your food, uses your telephone,takes your money and monopolizes the TV, you either married it or gave birth to it !

Making this speech is like being invited to go to bed with the Queen – It’s a great honour but no-one wants to do it.

Distinguished guests, those of dubious distinction and those of no distinction, family, relatives, in-laws and outlaws, young and old, friends, friends of friends, freeloaders and hangers-on – let me extend a warm welcome to Thea and Nigel's wedding reception celebration.