Just before I married Shanti on August 15, a weekend away with the lads. All pictures taken by my brother, Tom.
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It all started peacefully enough. Hard drinking had only been going on
for two hours while travelling back from Kent and a day's paintball and
clay pigeon shooting, so no one had yet fallen over drunk. Hence the happy
smiling figures downing their pints at a series of West London pubs.
It carried on that way as we travelled to the club, a rather nasty
eighties place called Club Fantastic. Not so many smiles among the other
passengers on the Tube, though.
Then we started dancing. No one can explain how or why I acquired the
feather boa from a random woman, although it had disappeared again by the
time we left.
Anyway, the dancing was along the normal lines: fling bits of body (and feather boa) around while drinking a seemingly unending quantity of shorts brought to the dancefloor by Corben, who - as my best man - also organised the entire weekend to the great delight (and amazement) of all present.
Mike also spent a lot of time at the bar. The object of his discussions - which no one claims were Ugandan, despite the fact it was a stag night - can just be glimpsed in the background.
Euan, on the other hand, was exhausted. Smoke got in his lungs, perhaps.
Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the rest of the weekend: the first night in a pool bar or the following morning, complete with hangovers, being handed shotguns and told not to shoot each other.
Drinking at the staggie were:
Richard Adams, Piers "Pedro" Allison, Zaid Al-Qassab, Mark Corben (best
man and organiser), Michael Gibbens, Henry Harrison, Mark "Hendo" Henderson,
Thomas Mackintosh, Ciaran Martin, David Powell, Euan Scott-Taggart, Adam
Shapiro, Andrew "Jockey" Wilson