Lets Review (Revue?): Alistair Bradley

Alistair is one of my very best friends, so I thought I would tell everyone lots of things about him. Here we go.

First Meeting

It was our first day of high school. Picture the scene, a few hundred eleven year olds shuffle around a large hall. Slowly they are herded into various corners, sides and even in the middle (There were only four corners and six or seven form groups (we really needed a pentagonal shaped hall)). I was stood in the back left corner of the hall. Alone. I came from a small school and all my friends chose French (I chose German). But then I heard someone walking up to me. I turned and as I did this I tripped this stranger up. I then struggled to help him (for it was a boy) back up to his feet (as he was twice my size (he is now thrice my size)). His introduced himself as Alistair (for it is he). I said hi. A few moments passed. I remembered to introduce myself. With that we decided, as Ali didn't know anyone either, to stick together.

The Early Years

Our time in high school was great, we did most things together (which was a plus for me as Ali is far smarter than I am). We joined rugby together (Ali 1 Owen 0) We join lifesaving together (Ali 1 Owen 1) We microwaved our pants together (Ali's mum 100 Ali disqualified Owen disqualified). Believe it or not, we were not inundated with offers from the ladies, so we spent our time playing stupid games and being on our own.
Alistair was always useless at turning up for anything. he would agree to meet us at the cinema and then after he was ten or fifteen minutes late we would call him and he would tell he is not coming. Often with some awful excuse, one (genuine) excuse was, "I cannot come, I have to buy shoes with my mother."
I actually cannot think of to many memorable thing we did, none that are worth writing about anyway.

The Post Early Years

Fortunately for Ali I didn't do particularly well in my GCSE's and moved schools for sixth form. This didn't get in the way of our friendship too much as we worked together at the local swimming pool and spent almost every Friday evening playing cards with our friend 'Tash ( 'Tash and I would always win, but Ali and I would always take the piss out of her and I have to wear glasses, so we're all even). This was also when Ali went through his 'Sarah' stage. Every girl (without exception) that Ali fancied was called Sarah (not a great anecdote, but important none the less).
I then proceeded to get a serious girlfriend. "Oh no!" you, the readership, cry. "Their friendship is doomed!". No such luck, my girlfriend and Ali got on famously (it was in all the papers).
Alistair could never hold his drink (more on this later). Once while we were camping he was so drunk he almost fell face first into a large fire. To compensate for this loss of excitement he spent the whole of the next morning vomiting next to his shoes.

Uni Years

Now came the time for Uni. Distance, a major test of any relationship. But true to for despite Me being in Cambridge (not the good one) and Ali being in Newcastle (Yes it's a real place!) and neither of us seeing or hearing from the other for months on end, when we did catch up it was like we never apart. For my 20th birthday Ali came to stay in our flat in Cambridge. Despite us going out as a large group the two of us won (or lost) the drunken race. The next morning I was meant to be going to London to see a band and Ali was meant to be returning to Ipswich. But alas, we were beyond hung over. So while everyone else left without us. Alistair moved from the living room to me and my girlfriends room, climbed into bed with me and we watched The Simpsons in our pants for a few hours.
For Ali's nineteenth birthday, my girlfriend and I went to visit him in Newcastle. We all went and sat in the pub. An hour or so in the women (everyone but Ali and I) went to prepare the food for his party. The pub was near empty, so I befriended the barman and together we conspired to get Ali absolutely rat-arsed. We managed. As Ali and I stumbled back to his halls of residence I remember thinking, "This is not enough". So when we got back to his flat I made him a special "birthday" drink that included (but was not limited to) all the different varieties of alcohol available, salad cream and sun cream. Ali drank this like a man. Paused. Vomited. Passed out. As we tried to carry him to a bed, he feel through some unsuspecting prole's door. She paid us no attention at all (probably a good idea). Anyway long story short, there were some great pictures of Ali sat on the toilet and he was in bed by 8pm.
More recently Ali and I have started making art projects and are planning to walk the entire south coast of England this summer (to kill some time). To end here are some awful picture of the two of us together (Ali has some even older ones, but he won't let me get my hands on them)