MM

MM

It was like this: we were playing the midweek T20 cricket league, and MM went out to bat. “We're short on Saturday, can you play?” we asked. “Nah. Modelling job, need the money.” When, eventually, he was out, and made his way up the hill to the changing rooms, Mr B O'S, Rich and I spontaneously burst into song and dance: I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt, with those Saturday Night Fever poses. Words amended to He's too sexy for...He laughed, and told us where to go.

A fond memory is batting hours with him to get a draw at Dymchurch. His unflappable approach. The way he trusts his protective gear.

MM is comfortable. Anywhere. The world's his comfort-zone. He can put down the copy of Camus or Beckett he's reading, and go straight into full-on rabid Arsenal fan mode, then switch back. One of his earliest birthdays involved a trip to the Arsenal shop, then the Tate Gallery.

He gives me music and film (particularly foreign and American offbeat) tips. I give him hot curries and lifts to and from the station.

He's played at Highbury, on that hallowed turf, and he's a far, far better player than I ever was, technically much more adept, better at reading the game, maintaining concentration and shape. He does not stop talking for ninety minutes (neither did I, but he makes sense). He's playing for the London Universities Representative side. That takes some doing.

One of the things I love the most is that effortless and complete dovetailing you get with a very few people. Without daily, weekly, or even rarer telephone or other exchanges, when you meet up, it's as if you've never been apart. That's how I find MM.

Random memories: after the day playing at Highbury, at the tube station “where's my grass” “eh?” “my grass” “that lump of mud in your goody-bag?” “yeah” “I threw it away”. We went back to the wastebin on the lamp post and retrieved the grass he'd pinched. It grew for years in a pot on his window sill. He's continued to leave stuff on trains, buses, and anywhere where stuff can be left. He single-handedly keeps the mobile phone manufacturers in business.

Those long, long showers. “How much longer is he going to be?” “I don't know but we're seconds away from a hosepipe ban.”

The ability to build a EU general food mountain on a small paper plate. Then consume it all, without gaining an ounce, ever.

Animal Collective. Biutiful. My Morning Jacket. HMHB.

Leaving for the prom. Discovering just how happy he was to grab centre-stage.

That “right – don't touch those (kitchen worktops) while I get the others” followed by (another) trip to casualty. That was after a run of black eyes: settee onto radiator fall, Kiz hit him in the face with a bucket. Climbing frame mishap.

Winning the sports day sprint. A free reading junior school session, among the Janet and John level storybooks, he and a friend were pouring over the Observer Sport magazine.

Just last week the ball was going out for a goal kick from our corner, and stuck in the mud. He sportingly ran over and put it out of play. “He don't get that from me” I said.

He was choking on a soft jelly in Fuerteventura. I had him upside-down, and was reaching for the blockage, but it just felt like tongue. Eventually I just had to take a chance and hook in a finger and pull.

I love his company, his manners, his humour, his passion, and his smile.

Those Carling adverts, where someone does something fantastic, misses perfection by a shade, and consequently is refused the pint as a due reward? Well, if Carling did sons, they'd never beat MM.