Richard Curtis

Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and… , particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I've only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered… ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, "I think I love you," and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn't like to… Eh… Eh… No, no, no of course not… I'm an idiot, he's not… Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb… Better get on…

Well, I thought it over a lot, you know, I wanted to get it just right.

Ladies and gentlemen, l'm sorry to drag you from your desserts. There are just one or two little things I feel I should say, as best man. This is only the second time l've been a best man. I hope I did OK that time. The couple in question are at least still talking to me. Unfortunately, they're not actually talking to each other. The divorce came through a couple of months ago. But l'm assured it had absolutely nothing to do with me. Paula knew Piers had slept with her sister before I mentioned it in the speech. The fact that he'd slept with her mother came as a surprise, but I think was incidental to the nightmare of recrimination and violence that became their two-day marriage. Anyway, enough of that. My job today is to talk about Angus. There are no skeletons in his cupboard. Or so I thought. I'll come on to that in a minute. I would just like to say this. I am, as ever, in bewildered awe of anyone who makes this kind of commitment that Angus and Laura have made today. I know I couldn't do it and I think it's wonderful they can. So, back to Angus and those sheep.

Let me ask you one thing. Do you think - after we've dried off, after we've spent lots more time together - you might agree not to marry me? And do you think not being married to me might maybe be something you could consider doing for the rest of your life?

There I was, standing there in the church, and for the first time in my whole life I realised I totally and utterly loved one person. And it wasn't the person standing next to me in the veil. It's the person standing opposite me now… in the rain.

All these weddings, all these years, all that blasted salmon and champagne and here I am on my own wedding day, and I'm… eh… em… eh… still thinking.

Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe all this - waiting for one true love stuff - gets you nowhere.

Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him: 'Fat' seems to have been a word people most connected with him. 'Terribly rude' also rang a lot of bells. So very 'fat' and very 'rude' seems to have been a stranger's viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me and let me know that you loved him, which I know he would have been thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality, his strange experimental cooking: the recipe for "Duck à la Banana" fortunately goes with him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But I hope joyful is how you will remember him, not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favourite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I will remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately, there I run out of words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger: W.H. Auden. This is actually what I want to say: "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let the aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead, Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'. Put crepe bows 'round the white necks of the public doves, Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest; My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing now can ever come to any good."

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

Ah! You know, um, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.

Do. The SAS are absolutely charming. Ruthless trained killers are just a phone call away.

I love that word "relationship." Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship; a relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain. We may be a small country, but we're a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the President should be prepared for that.

Yes, in fact, I am. Merry Christmas.

Part of the service, now. Trying to get round to everyone by New Year's Eve.

It's fine, it's fine. You could've said "fuck," and then we'd have been in real trouble.

Yes, I'm afraid I am. And I'm sorry for all the cock-ups, my cabinet are absolute crap. We'll have to do better next year.

*You* have this kind of problem? Yeah... of course you did, you saucy minx!

I'm very busy and important. How can I help you?

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even / Brightly shone the moon that night…

Who do you have to screw around here to get a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit?

Yes, I would like that very much, indeed. Anything to put off actually running the country.

I'm not sure that politics and dating really go together.

Yeah, well, the difference is you're still sickeningly handsome, whereas I look increasingly like my Aunt Mildred.

I had an uncle called Terence once. Hated him. I think he was a pervert. But I very much like the look of you.

Option One: ask her out.

Fair enough. Option Two: become her friend.

Okay. Option Three: kidnap her and keep her tied up in your room until she agrees to marry you.

And quite rightly rejected on the grounds of...

So what's the problem, Sammy-o? Is it just Mum, or is it something else? Maybe… school - are you being bullied? Or is it something worse? Can you give me any clues at all?

Tell her that you love her.

Even better! Sam, you've got nothin' to lose, and you'll always regret it if you don't! I never told your mom enough. I should have told her everyday because she was perfect everyday. You've seen the films, kiddo. It ain't over 'til its over.

I think it's brilliant! I think it's stellar! Uh, apart from the one, obvious, tiny, little baby little hiccup...

You know, Sammy, I'm sure she's unique and extraordinary, but… the general wisdom is that, in the end, there isn't just one person for each of us.

So, let's go. We can definitely crack this. Remember, I was a kid once, too. So come on, it's someone at school, right?

Aha, good, good. And what does she - he - feel about ya?

Good. Good.

Basically, you're fucked, aren't you?

Jo and I had uh, a lot of time to prepare for this moment. Some of her, uh, requests - for instance, that I should bring Claudia Schiffer as my date to the funeral - I was confident she expected me to ignore.

Thank the Lord! Tell me.

That's right. Meatloaf definitely got laid at least once. For God's sake, Ringo Starr married a Bond girl!

And her name's Joanna?

Well, in one way then, we're in luck. At least we still have the god-like genius of Scott Walker.

She's going to say her final words, not through me, but inevitably, and ever so coolly… through the immortal genius of the Bay City Rollers.

No. As you know, that was a done deal long ago. Unless, of course, Claudia Schiffer calls, in which case I want you out of the house straight away, you wee motherless mongrel.

No, no, we'll want to have sex in every room. Including yours.

When she first mentioned what's about to happen, I said, "Over my dead body." And she said, "No, Daniel, over mine… "

You've seen the films, kiddo. It ain't over 'til it's over.

We need Kate, and we need Leo. And we need them now. Come on.

I'm afraid that there's somethin' really wrong, you know. I mean, clearly it's about his mum, but Christ, he might be injecting heroin into his eyeballs for all I know.

Well, maybe not his eyeballs, then. Maybe just his veins.

We're all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.

And in the end I think I've learned the final lesson from my travels in time; and I've even gone one step further than my father did. The truth is I now don't travel back at all, not even for the day. I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.

And so he told me his secret formula for happiness. Part one of the two-part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else.

But then came part two of Dad's plan. He told me to live every day again almost exactly the same. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be, but the second time noticing. Okay, Dad. Let's give it a go.

There's a song by Baz Luhrmann called Sunscreen. He says worrying about the future is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life will always be things that never crossed your worried mind.

No one can ever prepare you for what happens when you have a child. When you see the baby in your arms and you know that it's your job now. No one can prepare you for the love and the fear.

I always knew we were a fairly odd family. First there was me. Too tall, too skinny, too orange. My mum was lovely, but not like other mums. There was something solid about her. Something rectangular, busy and unsentimental. Her fashion icon was the queen. Dad, well, he was more normal. He always seemed to have time on his hands. After giving up teaching university students on his 50th birthday, he was eternally available for a leisurely chat or to let me win at table tennis.

And then there was mum's brother, Uncle Desmond. Always impeccably dressed. He spent the days just, well, being Uncle Desmond. He was the most charming and least clever man you could ever meet. His mind was on other things, though we never found out what. And then, finally there was Catherine. Katie. Kit Kat. My sister. In a household of sensible jackets and haircuts there was this, well, what can I call her - nature thing. With her elfin eyes, her purple T-shirts and her eternally bare feet. She was then, and still is to me, about the most wonderful thing in the world.

All in all it was a pretty good childhood. Full of repeated rhythms and patterns. By the time I was 21, we were still having tea on the beach every single day. Skimming stones and eating sandwiches, summer and winter, no matter what the weather.

And every Friday night a film, no matter what the weather. And then once a year, the dreaded New Year's Eve party...

No one can prepare you for the love people *you* love can feel for them, and nothing can prepare you for the indifferences of friends who don't have babies.

And so I woke up the next morning. Hungover. Ashamed of myself and not realizing it was the day that would change my life forever.

For me, it was always going to be about love. And that summer, I walked into the eye of the storm. Her name was Charlotte - cousin of Kit Kat's handsome but nasty boyfriend, Jimmy. And she was staying two whole months.

I know you've probably suspected this, but over the last month, I've fallen completely in love with you. Now, obviously this was going to happen because you're a goddess with that face, and that hair. But even if you didn't have a nice face, and even if you had absolutely no hair because of some bizarre medical reason, I'd still adore you. And I wondered if, by any chance, you might share my feelings?