Express & Star

This guy wrapped his friend’s birthday present in 10kg of metal for a laugh

Release the Kraken!

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(Oliver Crabtree)

Is your friend really your friend if they don’t try and annoy you at every available opportunity? And what better opportunity is there than a birthday?

That was clearly Nathan Freeman’s thinking when he got his friend of well over a decade Oliver Crabtree a bottle of his favourite rum this year.

Oliver was turning 25, and he loves Kraken dark rum. And now he has a bottle of it he’ll never be able to get into.

A bottle of Kraken rum wrapped in metal
(Oliver Crabtree)

“I’ve had people offer use of angle grinders etc to get it out,” Oliver, whose picture reached the front page of Reddit, said.

And it looks like, sadly, the Kraken won’t be released.

“I’d rather keep it as a badass ornament. I love Kraken and the aesthetic of the rough cage around it is pretty cool,” he said.

Nathan started the tradition of being a bit annoying on Oliver’s birthday last year, when he put his gift in a box made from wood and plasterboard – and filled it with glitter.

A present from Nathan to Oliver
(Oliver Crabtree)

“This year Nathan decided to go one step further and make it a bit harder to get my gift out.”

A lovely birthday “card” accompanied the bottle of rum.

Birthday card sent from Nathan to Oliver
(Oliver Crabtree)

“I’m unfortunately not as creative as him, and I’m much more lazy,” he said.

But he does have ideas.

“I’ve considered maybe freezing his present in a block of ice, though I’m still working out the logistics of that,” Oliver said.

Definitely annoying, but maybe not quite as secure as 10kg of metal.

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