The most fun person I ever worked with…

In my whole time at the Old Place – barring two months at the end, of which I was absent for more than a quarter – I was sat opposite one person. His name is Dave and he is the most fun person I’ve ever worked with. Before I start with the inevitable flood of nostalgia, I must stress that Dave is not a Colin Hunt. He isn’t the "wacky" guy that thinks he’s hilarious but is actually not in the least bit funny. He isn’t "zany", he isn’t "mad" and he isn’t a tedious twat who people are glad to see the back of. You know the kind of person I mean – you may even be one yourself – but Dave is not like that. I just felt I ought to make that clear.

I missed what some would consider the Golden Age of Dave. The time when he looked like Johnny Rotten and lived in a manner that would put most students to shame. He’d apparently grown up a lot by the time I met him back in the summer of 2000. He was past staggering drunkenly round a friend’s house and, thinking he’d found the toilet, pissing all over the chair on which his chum had laid out the following morning’s work clothes. He was past wetting the bed because it was easier than getting up. He was past weeing on an electric fire and narrowly avoiding death by sparking urine. He was, in short, out of that part of his life which revolved almost entirely around micturition.

He – and if I slip into the past tense it is only because I no longer work with him. He is, as far as I know, still very much with us – has the most amazing self confidence. I can be amusing and droll and witty with maybe two people at a time. Three if I’m having a good day. Any more than that and I almost literally disappear. People can forget I’m there even when enclosed in a space as small as a lift. The photographs which accompany this article show how Dave will do whatever it takes to get a laugh. Not in a desperate way, but in a way which lives up to the League of Gentlemen’s motto "never be afraid to look ridiculous". I am painfully self conscious and refuse, wherever possible, to have my picture taken at all. Dave positively loves the camera and will play up to it regardless of the consequences. Suggest something to him and chances are he will do it.

He also "got" me. His mind worked in a similar way to mine and he could follow my contorted logic and general weirdness. That we both share a passion for Eddie Izzard is no coincidence. Ditto Chris Morris. Many is the bizarre conversation we had about things in general. He could not only "get" me but could also up the stakes. Whether he was just humouring me (as in the Izzard routine about how to deal with the weirdo on the bus – "I am a fish… I am a fish" says the strange one, "I am the KING FISH" replies Izzard and defeats the madman by out-weirding him) or not I can’t say. But I do know that we passed many hours, while ostensibly in the service of a shit company that will one day burn in hell, engaged in conversations that a lot of people would pay money to hear. Or pay good money to stop. I can never remember which it is.

I have so many memories that make me smile. Like the time he was lost for a retort and had a moment of pure Alan Partridge. "Yeah? Well you’re a…" he began confidently, paused for an endless second, "ignorant shit!" That became a running joke and I was more than happy to be an ignorant shit. Maybe on some tiny level that was me living up to the League’s motto. Then there was the time he got his foreign idioms wrong. He wanted to say "seize the day" (carpe diem) but instead proudly declared "Trompe le monde!" That also passed into lore as a running joke whenever a foreign phrase was required. This was trenches humour, ladies and gentlemen, as the management shells crashed around us we kept our spirits up.

Dave is one of those people who left school as soon as he could, having done as little as possible, and then discovered the joy of learning later in life. Not that he is old. He’s younger than me (the bastard) but we never admitted that. He was always thought of and spoken of as being in his early thirties (which annoyed him no end). To that end he read books and watched documentaries on subjects which interested him. Such as astronomy and psychology. He even started a degree in the latter before pressures of Real Life caught up with him and it went on the back burner. He knew the ins and outs of current affairs and put me to shame with my scant knowledge of the latest depressing events in this once promising world. He is one of those multidimensional people that I have spoken of elsewhere who impress me no end with their ability to be more than one person. I am strictly two dimensional. I am a piece of paper with "Crap" written on it in big letters. A really thin piece of paper, obviously, as we wouldn’t want to give it that all important third dimension.

Dave is now a civil servant and goes to work each day with his brolly and suit. I wonder if he finds his new environs as uninspiring as I do? I once had a dream where the two of us were morning DJs. One of those double acts that gets paid to talk crap for three hours at a time. We did get paid and we did talk endless crap but it wasn’t the same.

If you are ever passing a pub, dingy night club or Wembley Arena and you see a poster advertising a gig by "Cosmic Zoo" then it would be worth popping your head round the door. That’s Dave’s band (if he ever gets a few more members) and if he’s half as entertaining a singer as he was an executive pensions administrator, he’ll out-Bowie David Bowie.

Postscript - Well this is just the arses arse. I can't find the disc with all the best Dave photos on it. The pictures above aren't the ones that were in my head when I was writing it. I shall pester the Amazing Chan until he gives me the good ones. Sorry. I guess I am an ignorant shit after all. Oh well - trompe le monde.