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Proof!

Miserable failure

1. Go to www.google.com

2. Type in "miserable failure"

3. Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button

4. Laugh

Bush to Rice: I need a wee

A photographer from Reuters has captured the text of a note President George W Bush wrote to his foreign secretary Condoleeza Rice during a United Nations summit:

"I think I need a bathroom break? Is this possible"

Elijah Wood

Learnt a bit more about the diminutive hobbit superstar Elijah Wood today...

Shelley-Anne McAvoy R.I.P.

The Portadown News is no more! The website that first brought Shelley-Anne McAvoy to my attention... I'm sure that many of you, like me, have a special place in your heart for Shelley-Anne and many fond memories of her exploits such as these:


Our local talent this week is 19-year-old Shelley-Anne McAvoy from Edgarstown. Shelley is studying RSA Stage III fellatio behind the Brownstown Post Office, and hopes one day to achieve a position where some bloke actually looks directly at her during intercourse. Shelley's interests include shopping for yellow leggings in Poundstretcher, shopping for plastic earrings in Argos, and shopping for chips just about everywhere. She can also often be found sipping coffee in Gaynor's - a regular member of Portadown's cafe society! Shelley has one son, 18-month-old Tyler. "I named him after his dad," she told us, "who is a tiler."

[from Portadown News, May 2001]

In the Pink - Stockholm 1987

So that's what became of Nemo

1983

My first Saturday job. McDonalds had just opened on the High Street in Cheltenham. I ceased to be Andrew and became Andy, with a green badge, no stars and smelling of chip fat. Starting salary? 93p an hour. Wow!

1982

'O' levels (like GCSEs but harder). Left the Boy's Grammar and went to the Girl's Grammar, in order to do Russian 'A' level. I was one of three boys amongst 800 girls. Can you spot me and the other two in this picture of our year:

1981

More spots. More hair. Shaving.

1980

My first holiday on my own. I flew on my own to Basel, where my Aunt Margaret lived. Fantastic four-week holiday. We went all over Switzerland, up to the Black Forest. I swam in the Rhine. Didn't want to come home.

1979

I was really getting into pop music now. Me and my friend Toby used to discuss the Radio 1 Top 40 rundown in woodwork/metalwork whilst filing down bits of wood/metal until they were next to nothing and completely useless.




Parallel Lines was one of the albums of the year for me. I got a record player of my own, and could start to buy LPs with the words and everything! Generally, this was a year of change.

In May the family went camping in Brittany. I started to get spots (lots and lots) and hairy armpits. This is me and Iain, camping in Brittany before the hell started:






There was a lot of hype during the summer about a singer who wrote her own songs being signed to Elton John's label. I immediately wrote Judie Tzuke off as a pale Kate Bush imitation and I was expecting the cover of her new album Welcome to the Cruise to feature a girl in a sailor's hat with big tits and a clip board standing on the gangway of a luxury liner. However, her single Stay with me till dawn became one of the hits of the summer (and sadly her only hit), I bought the album and she's been one of my favourite singers since. She is hugely under-rated. Get hold of one (or more) of her albums and enjoy!

1978

This was the year I discovered Kate Bush. I remember hearing this weird voice and watching this even weirder dancing one morning on Noel Edmund's Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. I was quite surprised that my dad, normally a Maria Callas fan, liked her voice and I soon got into it too and bought her first album, The Kick Inside. At the time, I just had a top-loading mono cassette player and my dad wouldn't let me or my brother anywhere near his hi-fi, and of course tapes didn't come with the words. I loved Kate Bush's voice, but couldn't understand a word of what she was going on about, so I wrote to EMI and asked them to send me the lyrics, but they wouldn't. Bastards.

Second year at CGS. We did the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors at Christmas. I was Amahl, natch. My music teacher was worried my balls might drop before we got to the performances and he thought strenuous exercise might accelerate the process, so he managed to get me off games and PE for the whole Autumn term, yey! After the school performaces I got roped into two performances in Christchurch in Oxford when their Amahl's voice broke. Halfway through the second performance my balls did indeed drop and I sounded like Jimmy Savile (that sound he makes before he says "owzabout that then guys and gals." This was my first ever (and one of my last) paid gigs, I got a whole £5, which I spent on Kate Bush's new album Lionheart.

Shortly after Christmas, I discovered what my right hand was really for.