Diary: Nick Smith

Out on a high note with the low ones



Faux pas, embarrassing episodes, bad luck - call them what you will but we've all had them.

The case of foot-in-mouth often pricks our conscience and reddens the complexion.

Yet these unfortunate events can also provide some of the best conversation-stoppers we will ever have the opportunity to employ.

Believe me, telling tales of woe will win you friends and, if it doesn't influence people, it will make them laugh.

Try telling people how good you are or how well you feel, then compare their reaction to a story about how badly you behaved.

See. Nobody wants to hear the good stuff, but they are only too happy to share your worst memories.

This is my last column for the Herald. So here is a collection of my and my friends' worst moments, and I swear on the Karma Sutra that every mishap occurred, if not to myself, then to someone close to me.

One of my worst experiences happened quite recently, just before Christmas while attending a female friend's wedding.

I had met a friend of the radiant bride at a fancy dress party two nights beforehand.

At the party, he was dressed in a German Army uniform and spoke fondly of our mutual friend who was about to tie the knot.

At the wedding, I spotted an elegantly dressed man who appeared to be the spitting image of my wearer of uniform.

Of course, he wasn't the same man but in ignorance my opening line was:

"So, you decided not to wear the fascist Nazi German uniform to the wedding?"

"No," he replied, in what appeared to be a heavy German accent.

Doh!

I apologised profusely but it got worse.

He wasn't German; he was from another European country and a member of his family had been killed in the Holocaust.

Double doh!

Deplorable. Inexcusable. Unforgivable. Yet you laughed, didn't you? It's like that: the worse the offence, the funnier it is. Or at least funny later.

Weddings are usually good for a laugh.

Some of the stories are probably apocryphal, like the one about the bride, the best man and the groom's subsequent acerbic walkout speech.

But this one's true and it wasn't the groom walking out. No, he was too busy occupied in a cubicle of the men's toilets with the best man.

You've got to laugh, and this one at least has a happy ending.

As far as I know, the enduring childhood affection is maintained to this day.

Sex is often a cause for humour, as are toilet jokes.

Yes, toilet jokes are puerile, but I still can't stop myself laughing when my son tells old ladies that his name is Farty-pants.

Puerile, but not bad for a 3-year-old.

My friend was anxious to make an impression in London, but who would have dreamed of such a traffic jam preceding an onset of the runs.

Run? You bet she did and the cabbie never caught her.

Then there was the time I leapt on the restaurant table at a staff Christmas do while singing Little River Band's Hang On, Help Is On Its Way.

The table collapsed.

There is no point to these tales. Sometimes it's best not to ask questions or seek answers.

Sometimes it's best to laugh.