Ace people I love -Un

This is hero worship in no particular order so any friends that come across this and wonder where they are - do not fret. Your turn is coming.

Number one on the list happens to be none other than Mr Andy Doherty. I love Andy for so many reasons I don't know where to start. I guess, as Sister Maria once sang, at the beginning as it's a very good place to start.

I met Andy at possible one of the worst places I've ever had the misfortune to be employed by, the National Bank. We were in the same team in the call centre, copping 7 hours of abuse a day. One Thursday night, at an after works drink event, we finally got to talking and realized we had a lot in common such as our love of Jarvis Cocker, Pulp, footy and Viz magazine. After sinking several troughs of the amber ale, a friendship was thus born. That was in 1999 and from that moment on, many a good time has been had. If the walls at our favourite bar, Rue Bebelons in Little Lonsdale St could talk, it would recite a few stories. Along with all the other the other places we use to frequent like The Golden Age (sometimes also known as 'the wig and pen) when we worked together where we would nick down for a couple of pots with our 'salmonella and chips' - Andy's very spot on description of the food. They have since improved the menu but back then, I usually just ordered the chips as they were the safest bet.

There are wonderful memories of when we went to our first Meredith Music Festival together and Andy drank enough VB to kill a donkey. We lost him and then found him hours later in our tent, soaking wet because in his drunken stumbles had fallen into a horse trough. We dubbed him 'trough boy' until I found out this is a term for a gay fetish where one man lies in the urinal and other men pee on him. For those reasons we felt it best not to continue with this particular nickname. Then there was the time we went to Apollo Bay between Christmas and New Year for a few days worth of camping and of course, much beer consumption. Due to Andy having the flu, I was actually able to drink him under the table. We spent one afternoon lying on the beach reading old issues of Viz and laughing till we peed our cozzies. I'll never forget the story of the greedy vaccuum cleaner salesman who gave it all up to buy a farm and grow minges... and Biffa Bacon still rules.

Unfortunatly, we don't get to have these wonderful times very often as he now lives in Proserpine in FNQ, persuing his career as a paramedic. He hates the town but loves the work which I gues is the important thing. I keep wishing he could be here doing the same work and not just spending the days injecting junkies with Narcaine to keep the worthless sods alive to fuck someone else over. I miss you Andy and my life is forever changed knowing you are on the planet.