The cocktail party: the speeches.

Paul tapped on the microphone and shouted over the noise of the party, calling everyone to attention.

There is something hilarious about someone announcing speeches in their own honour. Paul had organised three speakers, one representing each branch of his family and the third representing his friends. It sounds like he's conceited but he's not, he's just eccentric. (He also got one of his film crew friends to film the whole party. The guy had been walking around all night with a Arriflex on his shoulder followed by a sound man with a boom.)

Someone from Paul’s father’s side of the family, a shaggy professor of something or other at some university, got up and droned on for about half an hour about fighting the good fight and never giving up and being a rebel and the Eureka rebellion and union struggles and doing everyone proud; and in between all of that, he told a few anecdotes, apropos of what I'm not quite sure. Tittering and chattering could be heard from the back of the room. It was the kind of crowd that only half-listens to speeches. After about twenty minutes I thought I heard the professor say Have a Happy Birthday Paul but I couldn't be sure. It could have been How's the Weather in Perth, y'all? He had a beard, and it muffled his words. His beard was still going up and down when someone dragged him away from the microphone by the arm of his leather-elbowed jacket. It think it was Paul.

Then someone from his mother’s side of the family, the English side, got up to speak. It was a distant aunt or a second cousin or something, a short, strong-featured woman in her fifties wearing a tweed jacket over trousers and a pork pie hat on her head. She looked like a cross between Princess Anne and Ronnie Corbett. Did someone say eccentric? The aunt started her speech by announcing that she was writing a new book and then she spoke at length about her old book, gushing at the crowd as if expecting everyone to rush up and ask for a signed copy. Then the aunt described the countryside where she lived and after that she discussed the habits of beetles, for all I know. I wasn't really listening. I was wondering what extended family life would have been like for Paul while he was growing up.

Towards the end of her ramble the aunt seemed to remember where she was and that's when she mentioned Paul, in passing, like a footnote; as if she had only just met him. Maybe she had. The aunt floated off the stage with an assymetrical grin on her face.

Then the third speech. The friend took the microphone. He was one of Paul's musician mates, a session guy with the droopy moustache and the long grey hair and the down-at-heel semi-western denim look they all affect so effortlessly. He had humour in his eyes and a no-nonsense manner and he got straight to the point, something no academic on earth has ever been able to do.

'I have just realised in the last few minutes,’ he started, with a flourish of his arm across the crowd, 'that I am the only normal person in this entire room.’ He paused for effect. The tittering and chattering started to die down.

The musician friend went on: 'Out of Paul’s entire family, one half are loony lefties ... if that's not a tautology ... (another pause for effect, during which the air suddenly got colder) ... and the other half are completely off the f****** planet!’

He beamed a huge smile around the room, as if he’d spoken an obvious truth.

The room suddenly went very quiet. You could have heard a pin drop, except they never do. All you could hear was the quiet chattering hum of the Arriflex, filming everything.

A moment like this always ends in one of two ways. The first way - the way you want it to end - is that the comment is taken as a joke and there’s polite laughter at the front and a few louder knowing guffaws at the back. The second way - the way you don't want it to end - is that there is an all-in brawl, the speaker is lynched and the party ends in a riot. This happens especially if it’s getting late and the party isn’t fun any more.

Several seconds passed. Then someone laughed and was joined by some more people. The party must have still been fun and nobody wanted to mess their clothes up yet. The musician friend resumed his speech, outlined Paul's achievements, congratulated him on reaching fifty - 'against the odds', he said, casting an eye at Paul's assorted relatives - and was off the stage in five minutes flat. I liked it.

Then it was time for another drink and maybe another snack and a chat with the friendly waitress. The things on the trays were sweet now, little biscotti and petit fours numbers and tiny chocolate shapes that looked like they were crusted with jewels but it was just sculpted sugar frosting.

Some time later, the musician was back on the keyboards and the band was playing Crossroads and people were dancing like it was 1970. The guitarist was no Eric Clapton but he was passable. Over in a corner, the professor was deep in conversation with the pork pie lady. His beard was wagging up and down furiously and she was nodding and beaming. I wondered what they were talking about, and then they left together.

Out on the balcony, the judge was all by himself in an easy chair facing the water. An empty glass was on the table beside him. His head was tilted way back and he was still as loud as before. He was snoring.