Events
Sheen Unit: John ‘The Juggs’ 40th Anniversary - Brought to you by Sherlock -
It’s quite something to be invited to a family do, if the family in question is not yours.
It’s an honour, is what it is, but you know when it’s even better? When the singular award of being a friend of the family yet not in the family and still receiving an invite is made that much sweeter?
When no one else is invited.
No other friends. No acquaintances. No colleagues or peers. Just members of direct relation… and you!
I was invited to a 40th Wedding Anniversary of the Grand Parents of SuperSoaker. I’ve known the family for some years now, even competed in a pub quiz with them up until recently, and I’m quite well liked. Still, there are other friends… longer serving friends shall we say… who have many years on me and yet STILL had no place at the barbecue. His name is Ross.
Ross “The Gilbs” Gilbert DID NOT get invited to the party because he is, and I quote “A nuisance”. You see Ross has problems. He drinks very quickly, and so drinks quite a lot, and then once he’s drunk he does silly things like bring up taboo subjects with parents and try to find a club that doesn’t exist.
I was delighted to discover Ross wouldn’t be attending. Not because I don’t like him, but because I love exclusion when it’s everyone but me being excluded.
We arrived, myself and SuperSoaker along with his wife Annie, at around 11:30am. Quite early, even for a family barbecue, but we’d driven 150 miles all the way from London to be there so we weren’t begrudged our keenness. At first me and Nick waffled on whether or not this was perhaps TOO early to be having a beer. His Mum didn’t seem to think so, and nor did his Dad, but we were sceptical. I mean his two brothers were still in bed, no one else had turned up for the party. The grand parents themselves wouldn’t be turning up for another couple of hours… if we started drinking now we’d be a few beers deep by the time all the kids showed up and started running around and making a noise.
As I grabbed a couple of cold bottles from the mini-fridge on the tumble dryer, SuperSoaker tried to work out how to use his Mac in conjunction with the existing stereo system [Circa 1991] to put the final kibosh on his Mum’s “Jackie” album. With my guidance we achieved success, and introduced ourselves to the room as Nick and Gazz’ Ironic DJs. Playing the best music mix of the 80s, 90s and now… and some 60s thrown in to keep aunties and uncles placated.
While we were trying to find When Jesus Washed on Napster, SuperSoaker came across an MP3 called simply The Power Hour. Wikipedia reliably informed us that this was 60 songs, chopped down into a minute’s worth a piece, and as you play the medley you must drink at the conclusion of every song [the one we got had that clip of Quagmire saying Drink The Beer]. Obviously this game is no good for a family barbecue. There’s children around, parents and grand parents and such. It’s inappropriate to sit round doing shots of beer to the tune of 90s power rock.
Obviously GingerBalls James was up for doing it the second it was mentioned. He whipped out the new iPod that he wouldn’t shut up about and forced us to immediately transfer the MP3 to it so he could be ready at the drop of a hat. He actually fetched speakers. It was midday, at the latest, and he was preparing for the drinking games.
I mean clearly we played the game, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but not until it was more acceptable. About 7.
There was food of course, and SuperSoaker’s uncle Andrew, affectionately named Enrique by them and The Man From Del Monte by me, had turned up in quite the outfit. Somewhere along the way, during the course of his life and existence Enrique has been in British Home Stores and spotted, from the far side of the Men’s Casuals section, a lime green sweater. A thought popped into his head… “Hey now…” went the thought, in a Scottish accent cuz that’s where he’s from, “… that lime green sweater will go beautifully with my long sleeved salmon shirt.”
The second he got the sweater home and put it next to the shirt he new he was on to something special, but when he coupled them with the stark white slacks, his day was made. Not until his wife went out and bought a salmon pink skirt and a long lime green cardigan did they realise quite what they had done.
We did some dancing to Nakatomi’s Children of the Night, a tune that once caused SuperSoaker’s brother Neil to crash his car, and we ate burgers until the two gazebos [Boys one in which they played Warhammer and the girls one in which they made up a dance because that is what girls do] had been vacated of children. Dames was all over it within seconds. Speakers plugged in with use of an industrial extension cable threaded deftly through a conservatory window.
Me and Dames and SuperSoaker and their future Uncle-in-Law Craig took our places. In the meantime I’d managed to get TV’s Chris Hall [another friend of the family who had not previously been invited] along for the ride because I realised that while it was funny to have everyone excluded, it was even funnier if no one was excluded BUT Ross.
As previously mentioned the game takes one hour and involved doing a shot of beer once every minute. Unless you’re a stupid ginger bell-end. If you discover that to be the case you have to drink Omega White Cider cuz you’re the worst person possibly ever.
My favourite part of the whole game was how we started off very raucously high-fiving each other, jostling about and falling over, but the game progressed and we’d shot more and more fizzy bubbly beer the rough housing calmed down and instead was replaced by sitting incredibly still and stiff jawed, using controlled breathing techniques.
They failed me at around minute 27, but don’t let that fool you into thinking I only lasted 27 shots! Early on we’d come wrongly to the conclusion that you were supposed to drink once every 20 seconds, but when we listen to the compilation it turned out to be a minute. Fuck That. We did one shot every 30 seconds for about 12 minutes and then realised exactly what we’d let ourselves in for and reverted to proper one a minute rules.
As was the standard in the old LeedsMeUp days, I went off to be very very sick, but came back feeling pretty good and eating a jerk chicken thigh. I was still out of the game mind you, and Craig left the table some 7 or so minutes later leaving only The Super O’Mahoney Brothers to duke it out. Two of them anyway, because Neil fucked off upstairs to watch football with Chris Hall, the party loving fool!
Ultimately the game was a draw, but something of a massive anti-climax because when the last song, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN no less, started playing, Dames’ girlfriend tripped over the plug and killed the speakers.
“Is it… is it over?”
Marvellous.