Wheels of Steel

Today is my eleventh wedding anniversary, my steel anniversary. My need to litter everything with bad puns wants me to tell you I’m steeling myself for it. Maybe there is something in that Witzelsucht diagnosis I received from a “well-wisher” some time ago. It’s a rare set of neurological symptoms characterised by a tendency to make puns, tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations – there’s a career in a nutshell. Another sufferer was my wife, Kelly. The difference being she would often be stung by remorse afterwards, her guts in knots. She felt things keenly, too keenly. But she was so funny. Funnier than me. Funnier than anyone.

I remember early on in our relationship when I was still living in London and she was in Belfast I was over visiting and she arranged to meet her friend Joe in the John Hewitt Pub. It was her idea of a joke: she was pitching two preening ninny-men against one another. Nawaz and I locked horns for hours, tediously trying to out-funny one another like a couple of school swots desperate to let Miss know we knew the answers first. And she topped us every time. She would be funnier, faster, quicker. Not in the head-butting buffoonish way we were doing it. Just by being better. Joe and I got drunk and established an uneasy rapport, brandishing our wooden spoons and swaying at half-mast on the podium.

Kelly died eight years ago and one of the things I inherited was her friend Joe, who took me out when I was left on my own in Belfast and showed me the glittering wonders of the Cathedral Quarter. Tonight I’m going to be DJing in the Black Box with him, celebrating both that august venue and our mutual friend Graeme’s birthday. It’s an unusual way to spend a wedding anniversary but it’s what she would have wanted. Even if it almost certainly isn’t!

I’m not ready to spin “our” tune. But one day. One day.