Geofftech - 50 pence - Contributors 376 to 400

OK, Thursday 29th April, I get up, make some tea, am still sitting round in my pants (literally), I check my emails, and I only get a couple, but get an all important one from contributor Helen (#340) entitled "Whip Round", that's a PayPal payment, that says:

Payment Details

Amount: 5.00 GBP
Subject: Whip round

"Hello. Here's £5. Gosh. Anyway, we had a whip round so we did. Rugby FM - Listeners and presenters! I will send songs along when I can be arsed."

And a little while later, she can be arsed! So how about that? Ten people all in one hit - fantastic! And so the people from the lovely Rugby FM are:

Presenter Lisa L'Amoure (374) with Lewis Taylor's "Bittersweet". Chantal Rocha (375) chooses Joshua Kadison and "Jessie". Cheryl James (376) has Earth Wind and Fire's "September".

Jon Moss (377) and Dean Cain (378) both choose Pink Floyd's "Brick in the wall", which isn't really allowed, but i'll let them get away with it. Anne Green (379) chooses Maroon 5, "This love", which is handy because my girlfriend has just been out and bought their album on CD this week so I can pinch it from their.

Karl Watts (380) picks the Scissor Sisters, "Take your mama". Pat McGivery (381) chooses the UK's entry for the Eurovision song contest this year, which is James Fox "Hold onto our love".

Dave Hill (382) has Nickleback "How you remind me", Michelle Cooper (383) decides upon the Stereophonics, "Maybe Tomorrow", and I really dislike the Stereophonics (sorry Michelle!), but I'll do it, because you chose it, and then also attached to the email is a picture of Helen (#340) herself, because she only provided one of her friends cat Molly (#341) last time.

Also, in my inbox today I get a message from reserved contributor Alix (#413) who found on my website my weddings page. (I've been to a lot of weddings in my life) And she sent me her own facts she knew about the marriage ceremony.

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

Furthermore, in Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight."

You see? This website is educational - it's not just about selfish 50 pence-for-an-iPod collecting, okay?

What else today? Well - my banana-loving colleague Martin (contributor #299) at work, sends me a link to take you to this picture:

As does contributor Marco (#17) with something similar. It looks genuine at first, and would tie in with contributor Rick (#175) and his exploits in Iraq, but actually it turns out to be a spoof, as you'll see if you visit the root of the website here:

http://www.ryano.net/iraq/

You can type in any piece of text that you want, and it will generate that picture for you, with your piece of text written on the cardboard. Neat!

Also (told you it was a busy day), contributor Fergus (#310) over in the BBC office in Belfast finally sends me the picture of where he's made the paper ipod that you can download here, and he's put it up on his shelf at work. "It still attracts attention from people who think it's real" he says.

I'm guessing that's Fergus's hand in shot as well. Either that, or one made of paper.

Anyway, that's still not it for today, as I have one more contributor to mention! His name is Trevor Cox (384) and although he works for the BBC too, I'd never met him before and it's only because I'm on a course this week at the lovely Interquad training centre in the City of London that I met him, as I'm sat next to him all week.

Well, the 50p thing came up 'in discussion' (right in the middle of talking about Microsoft's Operations Manager, like you do), and so Trevor has a bit of a surf of my website, and quickly goes from "I'm not giving you any money" to (5 minutes later), "Oh alright then" - well except he doesn't give me a real 50p, he gives me one of his 50p Luncheon Vouchers, which I can in essence change up for a real 50p as if it came from him, so it's as good as. He then chooses the Stranglers classic "Peaches" as his song. Thanks!

I'm also still trying to convince the course instructor Gordon, (a very nice man), to contribute, as he said he'd "Go home tonight and have a look at your website Geoff, yes, now get back to your lab exercise", so with a bit of luck he's reading this now, and it'll win him over! I'll find out tomorrow.

And that's yer lot for Thursday...

Friday 30th April, and South West-Bleedin'-Trains continue to make my life a misery, and I make it to the the last day of my course a good 40 minutes late. Thank you (not!) SWT.

Still, on the plus side when the course ended it seemed a bit rude not to depart without trying to extract some contribution from my fellow attendees, and as it happens, one of them was already more than willing!

So step up Ian McGreish (385), who already had his 50p in his hand ready to pass to me before I even have to ask him! And he happily poses for the photo, too, but is yet to choose his tune. Thanks Ian!

The knock-on effect from this, is that our course instructor Gordon Kneller (386) who I wasn't sure if he found the whole thing amusing or not, suddenly puts his hand in his pocket, and before I know it, is also gladly contributing to the cause.

I should point out that it's a small world because Gordon lives in the same town as me, and I found out used to be the deputy headmaster at Nonsuch High School for Girls, which is where my sister and a few female friends of mine now went to! Gordon picks Dire Straights "Sultans of swing" as his fave song. Cheers!

Also, can I just acknowledge that that's a really terrible photo of me [above, right]. Ah well - makes up for the one in [384] above where I think I look quite good. (Stop the vanity now Geoff!).

In the snail-mail today I get some more contributions. This morning, an official looking envelope turned up, with postmark on it that reads "NATO Air Command & Control", which has me worried until I realise that it's from Belgium, and this it's from Graham Hindle (387) who commented on the previous page in our discussion about Stella, as he lives in Belgium.

Anyway, he's sent me 3 Euros, which is the equivalent of £2.01 at today's Exchange rate, which is four contributions, one he's going to make from his wife (388) and the other two (389/390) he has yet to tell me. He does choose the song for himself though "People who died" by the Jim Carroll Band. Oh, and he's an iPod owner too!

Finally, a little bit special this, is the fact that I'm looking after contributors Ganine & Sheldon's (#105 & #106) cat all this week whilst they're on holiday, and so in the tradition of having lots of cats contribute here to the iPod fund, "Stinky" or "KitKat", as she's both known joins in by er ... 'giving me' 50p.

She's a little shy though, and is currently hiding under my bed next to an old pile of 7" vinyl records.

That's right kids - that's what us old people used to buy music on before all this new-fangled CD technology was invented, you with your MP3 doodahs, and iThingies, honestly, in my day, etc.. etc..

So - another cat takes me to (391) and the special part is that with the additional reserved/future contributors (of whom there are currently 9), that makes 400 people!

I won't start a new page though until I have 400, plus the reserved contributors, but mathematically speaking, I now just need 89 more people! With the FFPD currently standing (on average) at 2.6, the I calculate that I'll get to the £250 and 500 people mark in 34 days times, which is the 1st June!

Saturday 1st May kicks of nicely when I get a whole stack of emails in my inbox and contributions that I wasn't expecting. It makes me think that someone might have posted a link on a forum or similar to my site again, but I don't know about it yet...

So first in today's emails is Alexi de Rochambeau (392) who sends me a PayPal contribution, and finds the whole thing very amusing. "I might do that same sort of thing to get money for a new suspension on my car", he writes.

He obviously likes his car, as instead of sending me a picture of himself, he sends me one of his (what looks like to me) VW instead! Thanks Alexi! Oh, and he picks the Streets song "Sharp Darts" as his tune of choice. Check out his website too!

Tim Holman (393) PayPal's me next, and writes - "Good plan. Enjoy your iPod. I'm going to start a site up for a Ferrari Enzo in similar vein. I think there should be space for Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto on the iPod somewhere ?? ;)"

Uh-oh! Why do I get a bad feeling about that! Like that's going to be an extremely long piece of music.

[Goes off to Google to find a Rachmaninoff webpage...]

Ok, well there's this one here, but I'm still not any clearer on how long the second piano concerto is. Care to educate me Tim, or anyone else?

Tim doesn't send me a photo of himself, so we'll have one of Rachmaninoff instead I think. (He later sends me the picture of himself which I've now used here...)

I get an email next from Ellis Dawson (yes to contribute), but he says:

"Genius! It's ideas like this that solve World problems!! I was going to donate to Oxfam after seeing their advert but I've changed my mind, you have set me free, with my new 'paper iPod' I am now one of the 'Apple Crowd' and once i've sprayed two pieces of wire white and shoved one in each ear.. I will be a valued member of society for the first time in my life."

And I've given him my postal address so that he can send me a nice shiny fifty pence piece in the post!

In case you're wondering what he's talking about, this might be an opportune moment to re-plug the paper iPod that you can download here , print out, cut up, and fold it and glue it together and turn it into a life-sized shape iPod.

Ah! Next is an email which explains the sudden 'surge' of responses that I've been getting. Wayne Johnson (a non contributor) emails me, pointing out I've been mentioned on someone's MSN Money diary page, entitled "Ways to earn money without working", and she links to my site (See it here)

The girl who writes it (Jo Walters) says: "I came across a website where you can donate 50p to help buy some guy an iPod (www.geofftech.co.uk). Inspired by this I’m asking people to donate 50p to the ‘Buy Jo Some New Jeans Fund’, but it’s not going well so far!"

Jo. If you read this and email me, I promise you I will send you some money for your new jeans fund. Okay?

But it's good, because suddenly I've had a whole new wave of people email me contributing money! I'll catch up with them all tomorrow.

Well today'll be Sunday 2nd May then, and I've got quite a few emails come in since yesterday from people asking for my snail mail address so that they can post an actual 50p to me, so they should hopefully all turn up later this week. I do get some direct PayPal contributions as well though, including..

Richard Ward (394) is from Horsham here in the UK, and sends me a simple PayPal 50p email. He too spotted me on Jo Walters page. "Good luck" he says and he was in a "Charitable mood" which is why I got his 50p! He later emails me back saying that he'd like "Hey Dude" by Kula Shaker as his song choice. No problem Richard, and thank-you.

Also, a chap called Andy McKay emails me, saying that he'd like to non-contribute to the fund (No problem Andy!) but he enjoyed looking round my site anyway, and it reminded him of a friend of his, Martin Kleinman who's at www.martinkleinman.co.uk

He also thinks that "iPods are poo", and that I should try the Nomad Zen Xtra by Creative Labs instead!

Then I get an amusing email from contributor Andrew (#247). He says that he thinks he sent me 50p, but it "Must have got lost", because he didn't see himself up on my webpage, and he's therefore PayPal'd me now 50p!

Well I check his name against my spreadsheet, and Andrew is listed at number 247!

Then I check my sent items folder, and I confess that I might not have sent him an email which I do to everyone saying "Thanks! You're up!", so I email him back now and explain all this and apologise and we laugh about it, and he puts it down to his "Alcoholic tendancies from too much cheap student beer", and so he decides that the 50p that he's just sent me can be from his flat-make Tom Baker (395) instead, and he sends me a picture of the two of them (trying out some of that cheap student beer...)

Hang on ... Tom Baker! No sorry, I won't do it, the poor guy must have heard all the Dr. Who references already, so there's no point in me doing them as well, surely?

Instead, I'll give what must be Tom's football team West Bromwich Albion a plug instead, as that looks suspiciously like one of their shirts that he's wearing.

Anyway, thank you for your 50p, Tom, and Andrew (again!), and Tom chooses a song by The Calling, but doesn't say which one!

Monday 3rd May then, and people in the UK are having a national holiday today, except that right now it's pissing down with rain outside, and it's generally a really rather miserable day which isn't motivating me to anything else besides updating my website.

George (#172) emails me this morning a whole list of things from an article he found about people who have requested the engraving service on their new iPod, only to have it rejected by Apple for editorial reasons. My favourites include:

• 10,000 Stolen Tunes Inside
• I Don't Do Windows
• If only women's buttons were this easy to push.
• Size Does Matter
• Lick My Shiny Metal Ass
• CDs are for amish people!
• Warning: May cause people to listen to music for hours
• Steal this? Will self destruct when used
• Why drink and drive, When you can smoke and fly
• I last 8 hrs. You last 2 minutes. Who's the man?

You can read the full list here. And don't forget the fun online engraving service where you can get a virtual engraving done.

Now it's not usual for me here to give mention to anyone until they've given me their 50p's. ie. a get quite a lot of people that send me their photos, requests for weblinks etc... and I put them all in a 'holding' folder until that persons 50p actually turns up in the post.

But this one made me laugh as Helen Kent (50p on it's way...) and her friend also called Helen sent me quite a lengthy email, with various pictures attached, including this one of the 118 118 mystery runners, but with their faces in place instead. It just made me laugh. Anyway, 50p's to me ASAP please Helen!

Tuesday 4th May, and I've just spotted that my guestbook has got a couple of excellent negative comments, one who was brave enough to slag me off, but not quite brave enough to leave their real name.

Wednesday 5th May. Hello, I was a busy today, hence no update, in fact - a lot has been happening, so I'm going cut short this 'group' of 25, and start a new page, as it's going to be a long one!