Here comes somone elses bride...

Before, there was only Wan. Then Wan became two. I am of course refering the golrious uniting of Mr. Wan Norman Nasir and his lovely bride, Shireen. This all happened around the 28th of October, in the Garden City of Lights, or for those of you who are behind the current Tourist references, Kuala Lumpur.

Alice, myself, Mr. Moriarty and Mr. Ben were all imported from our various locaitons for this joyious occation. It would turn out to be quite a blast.

Norman and Shireen, the happy couple, had their actual wedding earlier in the day, and after having plenty of time for rest, their reception later that night. For both the 3 western guys and Alice, who is local, but Chinese, it was our first Muslim wedding.

Being used to alcoholic diversion at western weddings, we paid particularly sharp attention to the lovely couple and didn't miss a thing.

As we arrived, we were treated to a traditional drink of Air Bandung or Sirap as it is more commonly know, which amongst us western folk at least, weren't to popular. It could be described as a reddish drink, remenisant of raspberry, mixed with a milky fluid. The levels of the westerner's glasses didn't change to much - not, that was, until we had some of the fantastically hot curry over dinner.

After dinner and the formal proceedings, the regular crowd started to disperse. Little beknownst to the 'elders', Mr. Nasir had planned a quiet drink at the local watering hole. Again the western contingent and Alice (she gets dragged into things against her will), were first to arrive on the scene.

We proceeded to the upstairs area of the Shooters Bar, which was reserved, and consequently empty. As we were instructed before hand, we produced our bottles of Devil's Drink, and at about this time the Devil's representative, Mr. Moriarty, incarnated. The tools of evil included a bottle of Tequila, an expensive souvenir edition of Sydney 2000 Johny Walker Black Label Whiskey and a bottle of Kahlua.

The first silly thing to be done was a discussion over drinking habbits around the world. As Mr. Moriarty is also an Englishman, and drinking in the UK is as habitual as it gets, he dominated the conversation. The first poinsons were absorbed when an English student trick, a Snakebite, was demonstrated. This basically entails dropping a shot of your favourite liquor into your beer, the theory revolving around the exellerated factor of pissedness.

Needles to say, that got us all on our way. As Mr. Moriarty was the demon-strator, he took an extremely generous shot. This is the only explenation for what happened next... as per the pictorial to the right...

It was observed that Mr. Moriarty was busy constructing a grid on the handy-to-have whyte board. Upon inquiry he stated that it was the grid for the drinking competition that he had just instated. As everyone had had enough to drink not to realise to say no, everyone he had nominated, took part.

The format of the competition were simple... you were matched up against someone else, and had to scull the drink of your choice (Tequila, whiskey or kahlua) - any adverse reaction and you were out - otherwise on to the next drink. In the case of no decision, all three drinks were mixed and sculled. After that, there were no ties.

Mr. Ben was dropped in the first round as he had plenty to drink already, and were pursuing female interests on the dance floor. I (Jaco) dropped out in the second round against Mr. Moriarty after I realised that the whiskey was in fact burning my throat on the way down. Norman took it easy and only observed. Shireen battled it out against Alice in a vicious way, but conceded on ground of it being her wedding night.

Alice in the next round came up against a local, Fiat - a fierce battle ensued and Alice were taking Fiat head on. She conceeded after I reminded her of the last time she consumed vast quantities of shots. That put Fiat against Mr. Moriarty, and as Fiat was a skinny Malaysian (and as Norman proved, Malaysians aren't really hard liquor drinkers), Mr. Moriarty thought it was in the bag.

In this round, it took 1 shot each of tequila, whisky and kahlua, a tripple shot of the 3 mixed, and a tie-breaker of downing a beer, to determine the winner. It ended up being Fiat - how his night ended, we didn't know.

The consequences for all involved were disasterous, the night ended with both Ben and Alice being carried up to the apartment we were staying in. After they were both nursed and had that all important conversation with God via the big, white telephone, they got into bed, where they remained comatose until the next morning when severe hangovers were had all around.

It was legendary, and little did we know that Norman's Muslim wedding would turn out to be the party of the season. Well done, and happyness to both of you Norms and Shireen !!