Geofftech - 50 pence - Contributors 351 to 375

It's Sunday 18th April and I'd just like to take a moment to tell you about one of the most common questions that I get asked my email, namely - "So where do you keep all your 50p's - in a jar at home?".

Actually, that's a complete lie, because in almost six months of doing this (six months!) I don't think anyone has asked me that question once.

But I think someone should have done, and therefore I'm going to pretend that they have, and because of it, you can have a photo of all my 50p's at home, where they are indeed all stored inside an old empty olive jar!

And yes, that is an 'iPod' purple-coloured postcard that you can see in the background.

I also need to give mention today to contributor Rachel (#1) - that's right, numero uno, "my mates bird, innit?", that started this all off by giving me that first fatal 50p back on November 9th of last year.

Why a mention? Oh, because it's her birthday today, and er.. I'm not trying to start a tradition of birthday plugs or anything, but I thought it was worth a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, because I know that she'll be reading this!

I should point out that I did buy her a proper present as well that was not at all 50p related...

It looks like I've been given another plug on PalmAddict again, because suddenly my inbox gets filled with people PayPay'ing me from all over the world again!

First up is John Galbraith (351) in Utah in the USA, who says he's a bit busy at the moment but he'll send his tune and website that he wants me to plug for him later - ok cheers John!

Tami Brisset (352) is next in my inbox, and sends me 50p via PayPal - she's in New Orleans, LA.

I email her back asking for a tune (she chooses "October" by Evanescene), and also sends me a picture of herself here [left] where she says "Here is a picture of me at a crime scene", as it turns out she's captain with the New Orleans police department! Hey - how cool is that? Well I think it's cool. And thank-you Tami.

Next up is David Lewis (353) who actually gives me two 50p's - a pound! (354) as well then, via PayPal, and he's 17 and lives in the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Most people in the UK should know where that is, but I'm sure there are a few reading this that might be thinking "Where the hell is that exactly?", hence one handy map for you to see where:

Take the Scottish mainland at the top of the UK, then head north a bit, past the Orkney Islands, and then even further north and you get to the Shetland Islands. So now you know!

David also does a show on the internet radio station CMP, and his website is at www.dlshow.co.uk which I'm more than happy to mention for him. And his tune? - is the classic "More than a feeling" by Boston. Thanks David! And the other 50p comes from Gary (no surname!) also from the DL show. Thank you!

Finally to report on tonight is Kirstin Prisk (355) who's down in Cornwall her in the UK and would appear to be a professional photographer judging by his website: www.kirstinprisk.com which is very good. He nominates the song "Money" by the John Butler Trio as well. And thank you Kirstin.

He also adds that "If you're ever in Cornwall give me a shout and I'll give you a photo shoot for you and your iPod!", which I think I'm going to have to do!

So that's a visit to Folkestone, Cornwall and Harringay that I've got to go and do now...

"Harringay?" I hear you cry - "You haven't mentioned that yet!". Indeed I haven't, but I'll do that tomorrow now, 'coz it's late and I want to go to sleep...

Monday 19th April morning brings me a very nice email from contributor Jan (#277) who I've been chatting to a bit over email since she contributed, and she did mention that she would try and get other members of her family on board, and she's now done just that! So I get PayPal'd four lots of 50p's from her (£2) who are from her daughter Caitlin Galbraith (356), and her twin sons Jake Galbraith (357) and Will Galbraith (358).

Then she puts an additional one in from their cat Sparky (359) who she says "Makes frequent appearances on Palm Addict".

It does seem that I'm getting a lot of cats contributing, doesn't it? I'm going to have to make sure that that's reflected in the next round of stats that I do!

I also later realise that contributor John (#351, above) is Jans other son, who independently contributed earlier over the weekend.

Then later, she sends me another email with a picture of her whole family, saying that she's now contributing on behalf of her husband as well, John Galbraith (360), and her other other married daughter Sarah Freeman (361) and her husband too, Josh Freeman (362). Which leads me to ask - just how many children have you got Jan?!

And in fact, if you feel like have another couple of kids, or just adopting a child or two so that I can get some more 50p's, then that would be great. Would you do that for me? Cheers.

Here's the photo of the whole lot of them then, and I actually have no idea who is who! So whilst it would be funny to stick numbers all over the photo and deliberately try and get it as wrong as possible, I'm going to email Jan back and politely ask her who's who.

And what else? Oh.. Caitlin (#356) is an iPod owner - the only one out of the Galbraith clan, and their song choices? Are...

"Calafornia" by Phantom Planet for Jack (#357), "Where is my mind" by the Pixies for Will (#358), "What's new pussycat" by Tom Jones for Sparky the cat (#359), and Caitlin has yet to decide. Tell you what Caitlin if you're reading this - assuming you're using iTunes, what's the track on your iPod with the highest play count? Surely that must be your favourite - why not choose that?

Ah .. except later she comes back with "Float on" by Modest Mouse. Sarah (#361) picks "Sugar, sugar" by the Archies, and Josh chooses "Three little birds" by the legendary Bob Marley. Last (but not least!), John Galbraith (#360) is having "Born to run" by the boss-guy, Bruce Springsteen. Nice!

One more thing.. got to give a quick mention to someone called Phil Bewick, who emailed me saying "Get a job you git", which is interesting because he obviously hasn't bothered to read through any of the previous pages I've written here with countless references to things like:

"At work, I asked my colleague...", and "Another person at work gave me 50p...", and of course that giveaway line where I wrote "As you may have gathered, I work for the BBC", you know things like that which do actually indicate that I do have a job.

No other emails in today, so nought to report on when I get home in the evening. Still expecting a couple in the mail at work, someone else has got in touch with a donation from their cat that I've got to collect, and also I've got to go to a pub in Harringay to collect some more in person!

Tuesday 20th April will and contributor Chris (#300) has come up with an excellent suggestion Re: what to do with John Lewis saying 'no'.

"Go in and buy twenty-five 10 gift vouchers" he says - "Each with £10 of 50p's (separate transactions of course) - say that it has to be bought like that as it is different peoples money (that you don't want to get mixed up) - technically true!".

Class idea! Now why didn't I think of that.. and I have to say, one that I'm tempted to do..

At work, an envelope turns up with 50p in it. Oh! Except it doesn't. It looks like it's going to be 50p, but when I open it up, it's from Barry Smith (363) and I remember that he said he only had 30p spare change knocking around, so would that do instead, and so I said "Yes". Note that I'm not about to start subsiding everyone that says "They've only got 30p", Barry was a one-off. Ok!

Also, in my email I get an excellent message from a guy called James Fitzell.

He says: "Hi Geoff, I'd love to give you 50p but I don't know how I can pay you. Also I'm wondering if you would like to donate a pound in my attempt to raise enough cash to buy crate of Stells Artois for this Saturday. Hope you can help! Jamie."

Just in case you don't know, Stella is a brand of very nice lager (beer) that we get here, and it's imported from France (supposedly), and it's very tasty indeed.

So I email James back and tell him that I'm happy to send him a pound, but he has to send me 50p first (to my work address which I gave him), and that when he does buy his beer, he has to send me a photo to prove it, which he's agreed to do on a camera phone.

But what really made me laugh is when he then came back with: "If you'd sooner you can pay the whole of the Stella fund in one go. I'm not picky. I think its about £14.99 at the local off-license".

Very good Jamie, but no! Mad I am, but not that mad. You get £1 in return for 50p, but no more...

Wednesday 21st April, and I get a polite email from Raf (no surname) in Belgium pointing out my mistake above - Stella is in fact a Belgian beer and not French! Why did I think it was French? I know why .. because there was an advert here in the UK for Stella many years ago, where the catchline was "Stella - Reassuringly expensive", and this whole advert was shot in French, so I just assumed it was in France, and hence - a French beer!

Now I realise that it could of course been set in Belgium, where they also speak French, but here's a fact for the day I've just learnt: They also speak Flemish as well, which appears to be a variation of Dutch, but I'm a bit confused as to what the 'official' Belgian language is. Anyone care to educate me furthur?

Oh, and Raf points me in the direction of this Belgian Beer website for those that are into their ale ... www.cmg.net/belgium/clubhub/message/

I also get an email from contributor Dan (#18) (Dan - Are you ever going to get your Dave Gorman Bookquest back up and running again?) who tells me that "You should get a couple of 50p's on the way soon from people that I know that I've told", but in the meantime could I link to this petition for Joe Scully that he's created as an alternative to the now defunct book. It's at:

www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?js3d1234

"Who is Joe Scully?" I hear you ask - he's fictional character from the Australian soap-opera Neighbours, and I can do is suggest that you follow the link above to find out what all the fuss is about!

And onto a 50p contributor for today! From the lovely Alix Stevenson (413) - that's right 413, as it's her birthday on the 13th (although she fails to tell me what month) and so the '13' ties in with the date, so she picks it and makes herself a reserved contributor.

She's a friend of my colleague and contributor Mark (#31) who told her about all this, and so she emails me, along with a picture of herself inside a bag. That's right inside a bag, which er.. I'm not really sure why quite frankly, but it looks amusing.

She writes - "I feel morally obliged to help improve your FPPD rating!", and picks the Elvis song "I want you, I need you, I love you" as her tune. Thanks Alix!

She also asks "Is there any relationship between who is donating to your worthy cause and what their star sign is? - Another pie chart perhaps? I'm a Libra for my sins".

Oh go on then, although this will probably take up more time that it's worth just to produce one pie chart!

If you've already contributed and are reading this again now, then why not email me with your Name / Contributor number and Star Sign, and I'll make up another statistical graph showing a breakdown of everyone.

Thursday 22nd April, had a slack day, and didn't do much 50p collecting.

I did however get an email from contributor Stefano (#327 ) who explains about the languages spoken in Belgium. He says: "Belgium has two official languages - French and Flemish (a variant of the Dutch Flemish). Think of us as well though in Italy where we have two regions each with two official languages! Alto-Adige/Sud Tirol with Italian and German, and Valle D'Aosta/Vallée D'Aoste area where they speak Italian and French.

This means that everything there is is bi-lingual: School, Justice, Police Signals, Road signs... really nice indeed.". So there you have it!

Oh and he tells me he's a Taurus. Come on everyone else - email me with your starsign for my new statistical chart that I'm making!

The 'Stella' topic of conversation rumbles on (so much so, that I even went out a bought a four-pack today, so here's what it looks like - left - when you buy it in the UK), as I get an email from Graham Hindle, telling me that he'll give me 50p when he can "Rake down the back of the sofa and find some of that funny British money" (as apposed, I assume to the Euro!).

He says he's lived in Belgium for five years and has "Studied local beer at some length". Stella Artois is apparently made in Leuven (Flemish) or Louvain (French), its on the label, in the Flemish area of Belgium where the language they speak is Vlaamse (Flemish).

He also tells me that he was in Leuven at the weekend, and that Stella is probably one of the least interesting things to drink!

Welcome to Friday 23rd April , where I did get some 50p's. But before that, I have to confess that I've been out on the Underground for most of the day today having a practice for our next tube record attempt, and a strange thing happens.

At 07.25 in the morning at Harrow & Wealdstone station (top of the Bakerloo line) I bump into contributor Alan (#181) who is also doing the tube thing! Seriously!

We meet by complete coincidence. Or rather we see each other and he says "You're not Geoff that I gave 50p to are you?", (which I am), and we have one of those 'Small World Incident' moments that you get from time to time.

We also have our photo taken as we make out way into town before going our seperate ways furthur down the line. I've now written up about Alan on my other challengers page in the tube section.

Later at home that evening, my friend Terasa Wilkins (364) comes round to see me, and happily gives me a coin from her, and two on behalf of her sons as well Lee Wilkins (365) and Luke Wilkins (366). Lee is down the pub when Terasa tries to ring him to explain what's going on and can he pick a song please, which he eventually does with Dave Matthew's "Crash into me". Luke later chooses Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet", whilst Terasa herself picks Muse's "Stockholm Syndrome", which led to a discussion about what Stockholm is (i.e. apart from the place in Sweden, that is) and what it's all about. Anyway, thanks for your tunes, and for yer money!

I also get a 50p Paypal'd to me from a girl at work called Marina Gollop (367) who actually paid via contributor Paul (#293) who she works with, and he helped me convince her. Thanks Marina! Now choose a song...

Saturday 24th April - T'was a beautiful hot sunny day today, and I got lucky enough to be spending it down at Sandown Park for horse racing for contributor Roger's (#498) birthday.

Now I've only ever been horse racing once before in my life, and had forgotten exactly how it works, i.e. not just betting to win, but with each-way bets, places, and so on - and so was extremely happy when on the second race my horse at about 25-1 came in and I won £50!

But by the time I'd paid for my ticket, lunch, and several drinks, and more bets, all my money had gone again. Ah well!

Back on the 50p front, I've got a 'cash is on it's way' Paypal pledge, from Christopher Van Sandt (368) who turns out to be another PalmAddict reader. "I will gladly donate money to your cause so you can enjoy the benefits of this wonderful device" he says. He also tells me that he's in Monterey, California and picks the tune "Levitz" by Grandaddy who is from his hometown of Modesto, Calafornia. Nice one, and thanks Chris!

Sunday 25th April will bring some welcome relief to some of you who've probably been wondering "Geoff hasn't mentioned George for a few days, has he not been emailing him?", so let me take this chance to assure you that George (#172) has been working tirelessly on nothing else it would seem other than finding iPod & Mac related items all over the internet for me to post up here.

In fact, it made me just go and have a quick count of which contributor I've corresponded with most, and yes - George is currently 'winning' with 57 emails to date.

I really ought to get out more!

But this weeks iPod plugs of "Accessories you didn't know you needed to have, but now you do", include:

A Gucci made iPod case - expensive, and probably worth more than an iPod itself.

Then there's waterproof headphones, and a complete water-tight case called the LiliPod to keep your 'pod nice a dry whilst you go, er.. surfing or water-skiing perhaps?

He also tells me that Apple are recruiting for their new Apple store opening soon in London, and perhaps if I got a job with them, then I could get a staff discount!

And finally, I confessed (as a PC/Windows user) to George, that when playing with a Mac in a shop the other day, I really liked the program launcher/task bar feature at the bottom of the screen that scrolls neatly from side to side, whilst sizing-up the selected icon that's in focus. [Cue: 100's of Mac users emails telling me what its proper name is]. Anyway, point is, with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery 'n' all that, someone's gone and written an equivalent app to run on windows, and it's called ObjectDock and you can get it here. I'm about to go and download it now...

Finally, George also spots a story on MacRumours that the iTunes store for Europe could be here in June of this year, initially just for the UK, Germany and France.

Monday 26th April kicks off with the postman delivering a book through my letterbox with a cheque for £1.50 inside! But more on that in a moment because ...

... I can't not mention the fact that Arsenal have won the Premiership, but amidst all the 'joy' at this, people seem to have overlooked the fact that my own team (Tottenham) got a vital point from the crucial game (the result being a 2-2 draw) and thus eases our relegation fears a little more. Nice one boys. I just wanted to mention that.

Right, back to the 50p thang then, and it's another George-fest-Pilkington kind of day again. That book (above) that I got in the post? Well, it's from the man himself - turns out that he knows a thing or two about wildlife gardening and he has a book published!

So I am now the proud owner of a signed copy of "Gardening for Wildlife", and my copy very kindly included three more 50p donations, one from his dog Penny (369) and then his handwriting is hard to read but it looks like it says his in-laws, called Ray (370) and Eva (371) so if you're reading this now George and I've got that wrong please let me know!

Oh and here's a really bad picture of me, the cheque and the book itself, so why not go to Amazon and buy a copy today! (I'm not on commission, honest)

George then points me in the direction on some gossip about Apple possibly announcing a new 4th Generation iPod. Oops! Should I now hold out for that one instead? That could be an interesting dilemma.

Tuesday 27th April goes well as I pick up two more 50p's at lunchtime!

Contributor Janet (#63) continues to spread the word for me, and so when she saw that her colleague Lisa O'Brien (372) in her office had bought an iPod, she put her in touch with me and we chatted over email and she agreed to give me 50p!

She also managed to convince and collect 50p off of her colleague Jane Clancey (373) and so at lunchtime today I nip over to their building and meet up with Lisa to collect the two 50p's, and have a play with her iPod, and have our photo taken on the balcony of the new BBC building over at White City in west London.

The whole building is now new though, it's still got that 'new smell' to it that buildings have, and inside, it has vast cavernous space that have yet to be filled with workers, alongside space-aged concrete silver pillars, to the point where we we joked that it was like being on-board the Death Star, and perhaps "I should copy in the picture of a Stormtrooper into the picture, ho ho ho...", but of course me being me, I actually went one step further and did it, thus:

Oh, and Lisa picks the new Jet song "Do you wanna be my girl?", as her tune choice, whilst Jane went for Norah Jones "Come away with me". Thank you both!

Wednesday 28th April, and I got this envelope in the post today! Allow me to explain, as I need to have a non-50p related rant about something.

It's basically a really important piece of post meant for me, except that it's gone to a similar sounding (but completely different) address of a place just down the road from where I live - and it's not the first time it's happened either.

There are many people in this country who say that they think that the postal service (Royal Mail) is going down the pan, and based on this latest fuck up of theirs, I'd have to agree. In fact, there's even a TV programme tonight on Channel 4 about it, who say that they lose up to a million letters a week, 20% of which are stolen! "But it's not just in the sorting offices that problems occur. Inadequately trained postmen are being sent out on the streets with no training and just an A to Z for company. Channel 4 follow two Ghanaian students who fail to deliver half their mail and end up dumping it back at the sorting office."

So there you have it - the mail service in the UK is going down the pan. The only thing that made me smile about the whole affair was what the guy who it had been delivered to had written on the envelope! In case you can't quite read it, it says:

Fact:

1) I have owned Flat x, E-----r House for 4 weeks.
2) I have received a least have a dozen wrongly delivered items of mail.

Question:

1) Can your postman read?
2) Has your postman been properly trained?
3) Will you pay me for delivering mail wrongly deposited in my mailbox?
4) Have I received all of my mail? If not, please advise me where it has been delivered.

PS - If you do wish to reply to the above, it may be more likely to arrive if you address it to this address [ Arrow to my address ].

And whilst I'm annoyed about the whole thing, this did make me laugh.

Rant over!

Of course, the day wouldn't be complete without contributor George (#172) emailing me about a variety of things, including something which I was going to mention anyway, that being that on the one year anniversary of iTunes being released, their is a brand new version to download (4.5) from the Apple website with lots of minor, and a few major enhancements.

There's a good review of what's new in it at: http://macilife.com/

And so now I've downloaded it myself, and am now running it on my PC just in 'jukebox mode', ready to sync up with my iPod when I eventually get it!

And then, I get ten contributions all in a row from the same area/source, which means I'm going to quit this page of 25 people slightly early, and start over at the beginning of a new page...