Month: August 2017

My groomsdudes: #2 My brother

I first met my brother Dan when he was born. We didn’t really communicate too well at first. I was 4 and used very basic English. He mostly just screamed. Over time, the communication in our relationship became more of a two-way thing. Now I can understand most of what he says, except when he is talking about web design. At that point I just smile and nod.

Our interests largely overlap, similar to my interests with my dad. The three of us all love music and sport. My brother and I also share a love of games; both board games and computer games. When we were younger we would spend many hours on whatever gaming system we had at the time, either attempting to beat the other one or getting impatient waiting for our turn on the game.

One specific memory I have is that we were playing the latest version of Madden when the news about 9/11 was coming through. I guess everyone remembers where they were when they find out about stuff like that. Nowadays, me and my brother are more likely to be playing board games in a larger, more sociable group.

One advantage of having a younger brother was that I was able to inflict my musical tastes on him. Several artists that he loves would have come about from overhearing and borrowing my CDs. I then had a Mini Me to take along to gigs when no-one else wanted to go, which was quite often as I was a bit of a musical snob when I was younger and seemed to like a band more if no-one else had ever heard of them.

I’m sure most brothers fight, and we were no different. We’d fight about stupid, unimportant things. Things that are long forgotten about. We were competitive. We could both be stubborn. We’d both think that the other was wrong, or a stupid idiot or whatever. Now that we are “grown-ups,” we are slightly more mature and we have grown past this. These days we a lot more supportive of each other.

In recent years, we have generally only fought when we’re playing co-operative games and both believe we have the best idea about what to do. Obviously I’m right, but sometimes I have to humour him and go with his idea.

We even worked together for a time. We both turned up to a recruitment day at Saga, only finding out a few days before that the other would be there. We both managed to get jobs working in the call centre. One benefit to this was getting to spend more time together, as we had both moved out of home by that point.

We would hang out either during breaks or at the weekends we were both scheduled to work, as you would be able to sit anyone in the office rather than your designated desk. This resulted in the only song that we’ve ever written together, the infamous hidden track on my band’s second album. Thinking about how successful that collaboration was, maybe we should consider another.

Despite the fact Dan is my younger brother, there were definitely times when he had to look after me. I can recall several times when he had to assist me home after I’d had one too many lemonade. I can’t recall very many occasions where it happened the other way round.

Dan will be my best man, returning the honour that he gave me when he married my awesome sister-in-law 5 years ago. Before his wedding, I was unsure if I would ask him to be my best man if I ever got married. It would allow him to get revenge on me for the speech that myself and Mikey (his other best man) had planned, which focused around finding the most effeminate photos of him possible and talking through how we’d thought he was gay whilst drawing a graph penis on a whiteboard. Comedy gold.

After that day, there was no choice in my mind that he would be my best man if I got married. Partly because I’d never been so nervous in my entire life, and partly because I was proud that he had bestowed the honour on me and wanted to do the same for him.

Dan and I don’t look too alike, and when he met people, he would often introduce himself as “the younger, more attractive brother.” You can’t say he wasn’t confident. He was always a lot more confident in groups of people than I was. Whilst I always played music, I was happy being at the back whereas Dan seemed to enjoy centre stage whilst acting, and even won awards for doing so.

A few weeks before we got engaged, I got a text from Dan asking when it was going to happen as he had a great speech planned. I’m not sure whether that is a good or a bad thing. I will find out a month today.

My groomsdudes: #1 Dad

I first met my dad when I was born.  We didn’t really communicate too well at first. He used English. I mainly just screamed. Over time, the communication in our relationship became more of a two-way thing. Nowadays, I’d say we understand at least 60% of what the other one is saying.

I am very much like my dad in very many ways. One way is looks. When I was around 25, I was a little freaked out when found a photo of him looking identical to me when he was around 25. It made me wonder if I was actually a time traveller. We both had a very similar haircut and a very similar face. Now, over ten years later, we both have a very similar lack of hair and a very similar face.

Me and my dad share many of the same interests too. I didn’t notice how much so until I was having a job interview a while ago and was asked to list my interests outside of work. I started talking about my love of music, which I think has been given to me from my dad playing records from as early as I can remember and from me borrowing his guitar and hitting it randomly. We may not always have the same tastes in music, he’ll often talk to me about musicians I’ve barely heard of from approximately one million years ago, but we both have a love of music in general.

After mentioning music in my interview, I started talking about my love of sport. I think that this was given to me from my dad taking me along to football matches from around the age of five. I would be the annoying kid always asking his dad how much longer was left because it was cold, and because non-league football isn’t always exciting to a small child.

I remember one of the first matches I ever went to was Folkestone Town v Kings Lynn. I’m not sure how I remember that fact. It’s not really an important one. I didn’t know where Kings Lynn was until I just Googled it. I mainly remember someone in a seat near to us shouting “Come on you whites!” and every time I would try to shout “Oranges” over the word whites. I was quite a confrontational 5-year old. I am less confrontational these days, except when I play board games. My dad probably used stronger confrontational language, although I’m sure he moderated it when I was younger. As I grew older, he probably moderated it less; as I grew older, my language probably became closer to his.

My dad is sort of a local celebrity. One of the things most people know about him is that he has a football chant for him. If there is ever anything for me to aspire to, it’s that. In fact, I should probably add that to my bucket list now. Ok, that’s done.

My dad became a local celebrity largely through the fact that he was a sports writer/editor on our local newspaper. As you can tell from the fact that I am currently writing a blog, I enjoy writing too. My dad had a column called Touchliner in which he would write about whatever is on his mind. He would literally write what was on his mind, before he’d put it through any sort of sense filter. I’m not sure that anyone aside from him ever understood the entirety of any column he wrote.

Not all of our interests overlap. I love cooking but my dad’s speciality is a microwave meal. However, I still remember asking him to make me toast when I was ill, as he would always cover it with more layers of Dairylea (my toast topping of choice, still do this day) than had any right to be able to fit on a piece of bread.

My dad was always very patient and always willing to help me out even at my moments of greatest stupidity. There was the time when I phoned him around 9am and he left work to drive me to university because I had missed a bus as I hadn’t bothered to read the timetable and I’d attempted to catch a bus that didn’t exist. In hindsight, I was clearly doing university wrong as any other student would have taken that as a sign to go straight back to bed.

A few months later, after I had passed my driving test, I had driven up to uni but had accidentally left my lights on all day. When I came out of my last lecture around 7pm to find the battery dead and I called my dad who very kindly drove up to Canterbury to rescue myself and a friend from the Poltergeist of Park Wood.* He also brought a toolkit so that I could remove the battery, take it home to charge and replace it the next day.

These were just two times when he saved my metaphorical bacon within the space of one year. There are countless other times he has helped me out, although most of the other involve fewer examples of my own stupidity and so the stories aren’t as interesting.

There are also lots of great stories about my father doing things which one might class as stupid, too. One favourite story of my sister’s is how he tried to use the phone as a remote control for the TV when he came home drunk one evening. Who hasn’t tried to do something like that after a tipple or two, though? I won’t mention any of the numerous times he’s managed to fall over.

My personal favourite story is when myself and Jo were out for lunch with my parents and I was talking about DIY that we were doing. I asked my dad if he had a jigsaw, as I wanted to borrow one. He thought for a moment before replying that he didn’t think so as, whilst he enjoys puzzles, the problem with them is that they take up a lot of space. This misunderstanding is the reason that I have been buying him jigsaws as presents ever since.

My dad has always been there for me when I need help and advice. One of the best pieces of advice he gave me (which admittedly I have ignored on several occasions) is to always stop drinking when you think you won’t remember it the next day. As I get older, this is a piece of advice I have started to heed more often.

* Note: for any UKC students, this is something I just made up and is nothing to fear.