Best Man Speech - The COVID question

Now we are on the cusp on recovery, thanks to a vaccine injecting hope into the world for the first time since anyone can remember, it will soon be time to think about wedding speeches again, and for many that's about as welcome as a head butt.

Well, like it or not, your best man speech will be coming up to greet you all too soon, and the days of laying on the sofa in denial watching Netflix for hours on end, will be a dim and distant memory. Of course, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, there will be an overwhelming temptation to maybe mention Coronavirus in some funny way. You're very likely going to be making a speech that should have been made about a year ago, and so in a bid to give a nod to all the catastrophe that Covid has caused, you might want to have some fun at its expense.

There is of course a problem here, and that's mainly the one about death, insanity and the other people we share the planet with. I've had a good think about this, and as far as I can see there's very little comedy to be had with the Coronavirus, well, none that you could say at a wedding. Yes, teachers have all got amazing sun tans, thousands of kids can do incredible tricks on their BMX but can't spell their own name, and it turns out the one thing we all can't live without is bog roll. Every hedge, grass verge and gutter is decorated with the PPE remnants of a national virus party, and self obsessed, myopic, dimwit parents are getting asymptomatic children tested and then shutting down whole year groups.

No, there is nothing funny about it whatsoever. Yes, you might have a laugh about it in your speech, and then realise that the groom's 109 year old granny pegged out with a cough in August, but that's not really the problem. It will simply remind us of a time of panic buying, unbridled hysteria, and a complete dereliction of common sense. If I were you. I'd just forget it.