Simon who likes to tumbl

My Best Man Speech from Tusty and Soph’s wedding

Good afternoon everyone. Is everyone enjoying the day so far?

[pause for yes]

Yeah, good. Came round quickly didn’t it? No, just for me? First things first.

Thank you Mike and Paul for those speeches. I’d like to thank you all for being here to celebrate Paul and Soph’s special day. My name is Simon, and can I just confirm for everyone here that that was the last time I will refer to Tusty as Paul. For me he’s been Tusty for over 20 years and the only person who called him ‘Paul’ was his dad when he was about to get a bollocking when we were kids. Which was pretty darn often as it goes.

A round of applause for the bride, who looks absolutely beautiful today

[pause for applause]

And another for the groom, who has managed to coble together a jacket, trousers and shoes that all match, which I think we all know is something of an achievement for him.

[pause for applause]

I’m going to take a few minutes today, on this most special of special occasions for Tusty and Soph, to talk a little about myself - and what all this business means for me. I’m in something of an unusual position. Of course being the best man I have a close relationship with this handsome man to my left here, but I’ve also been lucky enough to consider Soph my other best friend for years now too.

In fact, it doesn’t seem so long ago that I’d be go to one of these guys to talk about the other one. Not always in the nicest way either, such is the nature of friendships on occasion.

Some of you may not know this, but it was actually Soph who first showed interest in Tusty. Hard to believe I know, but it’s the god’s honest.

And when she first told me she was interested in Tusty, I was a little bit skeptical. I mean (to tusty) you were rocking one of the most truly awful blonde curtain haircuts of recent history at the time.

But true love is more than skin deep and I was wrong. When I came home to Southampton for Christmas one year to find them a happy new couple I thought ‘yeah, this could be okay. I wonder if it will last into the new year?’. And it did. The next time I came home they were planning to move out of their parents houses for the first time together . And the visit after that they’d actually done it. By the next visit another Christmas has rolled around and they’d got a cat. At this point it began to dawn on me that this relationship may be more than a short, teenage flirtation.

So what is it that Soph found so irresistible in the first place? I for one love him like a brother, but what is it that could make a woman, seemingly of perfectly sound mind and body, love this man?

Could it be his culinary skills, which have thankfully improved over the years? When we were at school his signature dish was the McTust - a cheese sandwich made in the microwave. Not nice. He even innovated this masterpiece one day, creating the McTust with a twist - the twist being he was out of bread and simply put some cheese in a bowl and melted it in the microwave. Truly the most disgusting breakfast I have ever eaten.

So not culinary skills. Perhaps it was his well travelled nature and worldy outlook. Having moved out to Eastleigh I remember discussing possible future homes in England and abroad for when we were older. Moving to Eastleigh had given him a boost of confidence, and he proudly proclaimed he felt ‘I could move anywhere permanently now. Like far away. Maybe even all the way to Winchester!’

Of course he has travelled further a field than this, and he’s a master of different climates. The holiday in Grand Canaria was the very one he proposed to Soph. So it obviously went well, seeing as we’re all here today. But that wasn’t the only significant event for Soph on the holiday, in fact in her mind there is a close second highlight. Following a shower after a long day at the pool, he wanted to get from one slide of the bathroom to the other without stepping on the cold tiles. So he decided to shuffle across the floor on the bath matt.

Having heard a commotion and the sound of something heavy and wet slapping against a tiled floor, Soph burst into the bathroom, full of concern for her boyfriend, to find a crumpled, dripping wet, quivering mess of arms and legs on the floor. Of course, wet floor plus jerky shuffling had led to an arse over tit fall. In his defence, Tusty looked up at her, mouth slightly open and an expression of shock and confusion on his face, and said ‘I just wasn’t expecting that to happen!’

Well how could you have known mate? And even after that she married you.

Which is just like back at the beginning of their relationship, when I wasn’t expecting that to happen. But it’s a good job I did get it through my head quite quick. Cos here we are, some ten years on, at their wedding day. Which brings me back to my unusual position. Unusual because I have the privilege of watching not one, but my two best friends in the world begin a life long partnership together.

Not only that, I’ve had the greater privilege of watching my two best friends grow from being too randy teenagers infatuated with each other, to being in a committed relationship, falling deeply in love, building a home together, starting a family and ultimately becoming each other’s best friends as well as mine. I cannot think of two people more suited to spend their lives together.

So it is with the greatest of pleasures that I raise a toast to my two best friends, and one beautiful married couple.

To Mr and Mrs Tustian.

Nokia focuses on BBC to attract other VOD developers to Windows Phone

Good news for those fans of Sherlock and Doctor Who (and any of those other hundreds of programmes the BBC makes but are less good for SEO purposes) who also happen to own a Windows Phone – the BBC iPlayer is a comin’ to your device.

According to a Nokia staffer, the “BBC iPlayer is expected to arrive on Windows Phone within the next few weeks”. Nokia has become a sort of poster child for Windows Phone, and getting the iPlayer working smoothly through a dedicated app would be a nice tick in the box.

However, same said source also reportedly stated a similar app for Sky’s Go service won’t be ready for a “good few months”, and there’s no comment on other UK catch-up services from ITV and channels 4 and 5. Nokia could be thinking getting the BBC iPlayer on board first should attract developers from the other big players to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Which seems like a responsible assumption - but there’s more than one type of ‘catch-up’ Nokia should be concerned about.

@simonhill