In Praise of # 6: My Friend Rick

 A welcome return to the 'In Praise Of Series' today, with a heartfelt ode to an old friend of mine, whom we will call 'Rick.' Tall and handsome, with a personable manner, he is popular and much loved, particularly by women. However, here are some awesome things he has done:

1. Forgot a 4 digit pin code for his locker in the gym (after 2 months of going there) so that he had to wait, in his speedos, for two hours for a locksmith to come and tell him that he was standing in front of the wrong locker.

2. Confused 'Belfast' with 'Belgium,' so that he travelled to Northern Ireland and was annoyed that the Bruges cathedral wasn't outside his window (the confused phone call where I had to explain that Belfast wasn't Belgium might have been the highlight of my life)

3. Confused the movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha' with 'Memoirs of a Geezer,' which he thought was a crime musical.

4. Thought that 'Hotel Rwanda' was a cartoon and took a girl on a date there... On a similar vein...

5. ...Taking someone to the movie 'City of Life and Death' on a third date (a graphic and dispiriting movie about the rape of Nanking).

6. Believed, and told people, that Pot Noodle was named in honour of Pol Pot.

7. Thought that this scene from Oldboy...

was from a documentary...

8. Got confused about which end to score on and scored 4 points for the other team in one basketball match.

I'd like to clarify that he was at least 20 when any of these things happened. The fact that someone like that has a successful job in Australia says a lot about the education system there. Anyway, I love being in his company and he's a great bloke, even if he is mad as a cut snake.