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I love Jim. He’s one of my buddies I really miss while I'm away from England like I am.
In fact I love all my LGS mates so much. But without Jim to bring us all together back in the day, it just wouldn’t have been the same. So, I was SO gutted I couldn’t make his wedding to Ali last month.
Going through all the old photos and videos to dig something up just brought back all the memories, and had me crying with laughter.
Every time we went out and Jim was there, something comedy would happen.
Newcastle 2005
The night would start with a pretty chilled out Jim, just genuinely happy to be with his best mates, a good listener if you had any problems, a good guy to have a one on one chat with. Then a few beers later, the comedy would start. In his prime, he’d be the most offensive b*stard anyone not in our LGS group could have the misfortune to meet, but always somehow managing not to get into trouble over it. Whatever torrent of abuse he’d give (usually girls, or Whelly’s mum), he’d always get away with it. At the end of the night, he’d always be the most pissed, but always managed to stumble upstairs before anyone had noticed and be asleep in the best bed in the house before his bright red, sweaty head hit the pillow. Then we’d usually try and shave his beard off.
Nottingham 2005
Check out the legendary Jonny Bancroft in the photo above. Jim’s done his best attempting to polish off the Biggest Kebab in Nottingham TM - you can see the trails of saliva on his top, and Jonny’s still going on strong, ploughing through his bouquet of kebab flowers like it were a ripe banana.
It reminds me of when Jonny and I shared a bottle of Vodka on my 18th birthday in Tenerife - I had to be carried into town, by none other than Jonny himself, then after a night spent either boffing up or passed-out next to the nightclub, got carried back home by Jonny who’d spent the night drinking normally and probably could’ve driven me home. What a legend. Look at his favourite tv show:
Enough about Jon, back to Jim.
As I couldn’t make the wedding, I sent a speech over and asked Whelly to read it as I knew he’d do it justice. Actually, I asked the best man Cyrus to read it, but it ended up in the very capable, if some what sticky hands of Whelband. Look at the comedy genius - he looks like he's delivering a sermon!
Whelly's comedy timing and comedy glasses took my humble speech to new heights and left Jim in tears of laughter and Ali in tears of disgust at the life she’d let herself in for.
Just remember Ali, we’ve all known Jim for about 10 years more than you, some of us even more than that, and there are lots more stories where those came from! Just to give you a taster, check out Jim when he was 17!
and a movie clip courtesy of wellybeard of Jim enjoying his stag!
Instead of trying to remember all the other funny stories, here’s the speech below, no doubt not half as funny without Whelly reading it, but at least anyone who has some other memories of Jim from school/uni can leave them in the comments below. Also, more stories on Jim here.
SPEEEEEEECH
Jim seems to have a reputation of being a bit tight with his cash, but I don't want to go on about that since a) Cyrus has no doubt talked at length about it already, and b) I wouldn't want to take too much of everyone's time from ordering AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE from the FREE BAR!
If stag nights were conceived as a chance for personal retribution for all the stag's misdemeanors over the past, I am SO annoyed that I missed the opportunity to go on Jim's. However, with mates like ours, I'm sure he got his just deserts, (as we all know Jim loves his desserts) but even so, I'd like to share with you a few of my own memories of James Austin over the years.
My first memories of Jim were from the first few years of school in Loughborough, 1990. He was every teacher's pet, the model student, diligent, polite, excellent academically and since 13-16 were his sub-200kg years, pretty useful on the rugby field too. He used to sit right at the front of the class looking like Harry Potter with his little glasses and eager eyes, smiling constantly at the teacher, taking notes in flawless handwriting. On top of all this, he was even popular with the girls.
Needless to say, I hated the little shit.
All his mates ofcourse, knew the other side to James. You see, all the parents in this room (excluding Richard Whelband's) probably see James as the angelic friend, full of smiles and polite conversation. You should see him after a few pints.
Ask Mrs Whelband.
I remember in the 4th year when creative James decided to fashion a blow pipe out of a biro, and some blow-darts out of the feathered tip from his shoe lace and some pins. Ofcourse, he'd only made it to mess around with at home, but we all took it the next step, and before he knew it he was part of the group firing off pins into other classmates' backs during History with Mr Wilson. When, inevitably we got caught and the teary-eyed James got his first ever detention, I'm sure I wasn't the only one laughing at his expense.
After the sixth form and endless hazy nights in Echo's nightclub, and James forcing us to smell his fingers in school the next day, Woody, Jim and I took a month out to go inter-railing around Europe.
Those who know James well, and don't worry Ali, this isn't a reference to his sexual preference from coming from a boys public school, Jim is incredibly anal. Everything has to be neat and tidy, perfectly clean and in order, but obviously only his own possessions. Whilst he wouldn't blink an eyelid to leave our homes looking like pig-sties after a night out, dare to leave one of his CDs out of its case, or use the jam knife in the butter, and you won't be getting another invite to chez Austin in a hurry.
Anyway, back to the inter-railing. Whilst Woody and I were planning to see the month through on one back-pack full of the usual essentials, Jim turns up at the station with two enormous rucksacks, with 3 pairs of shoes dangling from the outside. It turns out Jim's brought a total of 6 pairs of shoes for possibly every circumstance you could ever encounter on a year long round-the-world trip, and about 20 pairs of underwear.... although seeing how he eats, we didn't blame him for that provision.
Watching him sweat his way around Spain was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Realizing his mistake in packing his heaviest shoes rather than wearing them, he's clomping around in his enormous black school boots, bright red in the face, a sweat-patch like a map of Africa on the front of his t-shirt, sweat seeping through the waist band on his shorts, and needing to stop every half an hour for a gallon of Coke, without ice of-course, which can cause stomach problems due to local waters, and remembering to tip the waiters with however little change, since failure to do so can cause bad karma for the rest of the trip.
Woody and I could relax for the whole trip, safe in the knowledge that worried traveller Jim would be up an hour before check-out, with us at the station an hour before train departure, with all the changes and reservations worked out for us in advance. I remember when I borrowed his magazine and brought it back from the beach with sand all over it. He didn't speak to me for about an hour after that one.
Last story, as I've a feeling this is getting as long as Cyrus' speech....
We'll call this one the "urine incident", just so that Jim can boil in anticipation.
After a night of underage drinking in the Mill in Nottingham, Jim and I got a taxi back to my place. Worried that Jim was slurring his words on the way home and burping more than usual, I decided to try and sober him up by walking him round the block a few times. This seemed to do the trick, as he was making sense by now, and assured me that he was sober enough to enter the house quietly enough not to wake my mum and dad, and not to vomit anywhere. So, into the house, the obligatory 4 rounds of toast and cheese for Jim, and up to my room for sleep. As per usual, Jim's helped himself to the best bed, and is asleep before his red face has hit the pillow, snoring loudly enough to make sure I stay awake for a good hour, during which time he's mumbling in his sleep and making me worried enough to go and get a bowl to leave by his bed. "Yeah, saaalright mate... just gonna sleep" ...he tells me.
3am, and I'm woken up by Jim getting out of bed, turning and walking the opposite way to the door..... over to my bookshelf in the far corner of the room.... and pissing approximately 6 pints of Super Strongbow all over my school books. After about 10 seconds of realisation that I wasn't having a dream about a waterfall, I ran over to him with the bowl, only to watch helplessly as he continued to cascade a golden rainbow all over the book shelf, my radiator, desk and art sketch book. Incidentally, at school on Monday, I had to try and explain to Ms Cumine the art teacher why all my ink drawings had run.
Anyway, after James had emptied the equivalent of 3 adult horse bladders over my room, he got back into bed, and started his pneumatic drill snoring again. The only thing I could do to calm my nerves was to get all of his clothes, and stamp them into a sodden pile over his urine pool, and hope it'd all be soaked up by the morning. This ofcourse, backfired horribly, when come the morning and time for our tee off at Wollaton golf course, Jim's clothes were still drenched, and he had to borrow an entire outfit off my dad, who was ofcourse interested to learn how James' clothes were stained yellow, reeking of piss and the books on my bookshelf were all buckled and faded.
Dad never did wear his favourite golf trousers again..
There's another pissing story, which features Jim, Jim junior and a polaroid camera, but fearing I've dragged this one out already, I'll leave the rest to the imagination.
The bottom line is though, everyone loves Jim and Jim genuinely loves all his mates, and no doubt Ali more than anything in this world...even food.
I'm so sorry and disappointed I can't be there on your big day mate.
Love Mark
PS.
Ali, remember to take Jim to the toilet before bed.
Tokyo 2004
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