Caracas? Minsk? Kinshasa? Where was I? And what were some lyrics lodged in my head -
Que reste-t-il de nos amours?
Que reste-t-il de ces beaux jours?
Une photo, vieille photo de ma jeunesse
Normally I get my bearings after seconds but on Sunday it was minutes. I clawed back my identity fast enough. The surrounding were more difficult. Eventually I pieced together that I was in a retiring house at the 'Two Brewers' pub in Olney, and that the day before my brother had got married.
I had given the best man speech. I had started at a canter and finished at a gallop. My aunt, my harshest critic, alleged that I had gabbled. There had been a sweep on the speech's length and I was measure at 10 minutes on the nose. If I had ambled and done some milking, I could have busked it out to 12 minutes, but 'get to the point', I say, and leave them wanting more, while you are at it.
Here it is reproduced in full. I hope that you don't view it as an intimacy that should not be air-ed. It is a significant piece of literary production. In 'Matthew Humberstone, Collected Works Vol.1 - 1970-2005 - the Years of Lead', it will be the sole constituent of the Orations section. Some of the guests were also keen to see the words pinned and framed.
Ladies and Gentlemen
It has fallen to me, on account of a filial bond and a booming voice to delivers today’s encomium to a man very dear to my heart Jim Humberstone. If during the course of this panegyric you find yourself reaching for a dictionary, comfort yourself with the thought a seven letter scrabble score has just become a little more attainable.
Now, due to a miscalculation on my part I have been denied the use of visual aids, so, in the later stages of my speech, if you feel more comfortable letting the mellifluous tones play upon your aural sense, and the images thereby conjured to flit across the theatre of your mind with your eyes closed, then please do not stand on ceremony, let the lids drop and let yourself be carried away.
I know it is the custom to keep the best man’s speech as hidden as the bridal dress until the moment when the guests are so inebriated that they abandoned their critical faculty and smile forgivingly if the speech goes a bit off-colour. If Jim has any worries on this account, he should let them go. I am a man of utmost discretion and I come to praise Jim, not to bury him.
Even passing acquaintance will make it clear that Jim is a man of-his-own-particularity. Born in Wycombe hospital, on arrival he had the appearance of a small vole. As a schoolboy he was of a light frame and the youngest in his academic year. Somehow since then he has unfurled into this large wardrobe of a man. Within his personality, paradoxes abound. Who would have thought that inside this graduate of Nottingham University, this sometime supporter of Nottingham Forest (this may surprise some of you who know him as a die-hard Arsenal fan) - this sometime supporter of Nottingham Forest, inside this English Man of Oak, there was an Irish Man waiting to get out. This man likes a flutter.
It began at an early age, betting on the National with his Maternal Grandfather, Tom. Tom was a bit of a rogue. He also corrupted Jim by inculcating in him a passion for that cruel and unnatural game Golf. With the betting, it started with 10ps, then moved swiftly onto 50ps and pounds. Fast-forward to the present and Jim is something of a face around Rings of this country’s race-course. He regularly lands touches in the region of a Monkey at stupid odds, from a Double Carpet to a Burlington-Bertie, both on the courses and at the Nanny. Most mothers are able to recall the significance moments in their son’s progress. However when I talked to Mum about what milestone sticks out most vividly in her mind, she said it was Jim’s first Grand. He made this out of some rigged race where the favourite Bismarck-ed and his nag came in on a Macaroni. Bloke down pub had told him. Me and some of the my muckers also made a few squid out of this intelligence. We asked for more. Jim realized that what he euphemistically calls his ‘hobby’ might burn the less adept and despite our pleas, we have had no further tip-offs.
Jim is unsentimental and gimlet eyed in his gambling activity. ‘Always bet on the National Team choking’, he tells me. Our recent pain bears this out. He also boasts no great allegiance to any particular sport. In the pursuit of ‘value’ he will lay pretty much anything. A favourite is minor US golf competitions. He will finds it difficult to express his astonishment when, in the Johnsburg Illinois Seniors, Kees Pronk Jnr is being laid at 25-1. Don’t these people follow form? He is so much better than the fancied Randy Ramusack at 10-1. Equally Jim has no qualms on setting people straight on all sorts of other sporting endeavours. At his time at the Sporting you may have known him as hard-edged Basketball Journo, Rip Davis, or Baseball Columinist, Chip Hightower.
Some of the Jim’s wit and wisdom has taken book form. He is the first Humberstone in print. When I went to search for his book on Amazon, however, there was nothing to be found. Only and mysteriously a book by a Peter Humberstone called ‘Poems of Regret and Rancour’. Dad?
‘The 1000 Greatest Golf Courses in Britain and Ireland’ is the work of a discriminating palate. You’ll note the round thousand. What effort must have gone into whittling the candidates down to that magic number? I recall that at the time of writing, there was no let up in Jim’s cogitations. Did the greens of Lower Throcking’s Municipal Course eclipse the challenge posed by the bunkers of Broad Hinton? It would require a visit. And so began his extended junket through the fairways and clubhouses of these islands.
And now onto a more delicate subject. It is probably as well that we are no longer eating. Although we Humberstones rose up out of the Leicestershire mud and have for the most part enjoyed rude health, we have rather narrow tubes. When asleep we are noted for our throaty roar. Our piping is a bit of a botch job. Jim has had something of a dicky stomach for some time. I had put it down to Junior Jim’s overfondness for prawn cocktails but he recently discovered that the root cause again piping related. I will not go into the details. A correspondant noted that this unstable operating system proved a challenge when Jim first came to meet the In-Laws. Apparently he was performing well, respectfully fielding the social niceties attendant upon such occasions, contributing to the discourse politely as required. All was not well beneath however. Somewhere after the starter which I strongly expect was crustacean in nature, he asked to be excused and promptly decamped to the dunee. He was away a while and in the spirit of fraternal concern my informant went to see if all was as it should be. Quelle Horreur! The big match nerves had proved too much for my brother. Again I will hold back on the gruesome particulars. Suffice to say that the young man arose from the kneeling position, declared himself ready to return to the front and lead the way back to the table. He there resumed as though nothing had happened. My informant compares the progress of Jim in this episode to the serene movement of a swan across the mirrored surface of a pond. Beneath the surface the bird’s powerful webs are churning for all they are worth.
As well as this being an Anglo-Irish occasion, my correspondent noted that this is a coming together of North Bucks and South Buck. Milton Keynes for us squint-eyed sallow southerner has been until recently a faraway country of which we knew little. We are now being treated to a richer acquaintance with this bustling Metropolis, this Paris of the South Midlands. I recall that during the courtship of Jim and Maria, I thought the likelihood of a Milton Keynes wedding only a remote possibility. What I did not realize was that there were forces at work which were beyond my ken. Jim and Maria were in fact ‘star-crossed lovers’. Unbeknownst each to the other they had both at separate times worked at some grotty bookies in the slum area of Nottingham. Maria must have imbibed something in that smoke filled environment such that when Jim turned on the charm with talk of the 3.50 at Plumpton, or how his golf handicap was coming along that the usual stupor that falls upon his interlocuters did not fall upon her. And so here we are.
One thing I would like to say before finishing is to thanks Maria and Eilis for leavening the male atmosphere that has prevailed within the Humberstone family. It has certainly raised the tone.
So all that it remains for me to say is to urge you all to enjoy the venue, the selection of beverages, the entertainment and most importantly of all the warm feelings that an occasion such as this brings. My duties end at the point where I ask you to raise a glass to Judith and Peter’s Son, Maria’s husband, Eilis’s Dad and my brother, James Humberstone. To James.
After the high living of the weekend, I have not had the nerve to approach the scales. They are like that other site of contrition, the Lloyd's Cashpoint. Unlike other dispensers, the Lloyds one won't allow the user to escape oblivious of their balance. 'For those not wishing to know the score, look away now' as they used to say on the News, before the Match-of-the-Day. At this point in the Financial Year, when I am chomping into my overdraft, the Lloyds cashpoint is to be avoided at all costs. The wretched simultanaeity of the culture now means you can never preserve your oblivousness.
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