Numbers 450-474
[Numbers 475-500]

Friday 4th June 2004

Right, here we go then, it's Friday and there's some stuff to catch up with, mainly due to my "D'oh!" moment from this week from not configuring my email client correctly. (See bottom of previous page).

A plug first of all to contributor Nicola (#444) who's seen the Bananapost pages elsewhere on my website here, and thus felt inspired to send me a can of tuna through the post to work. No kidding!

She didn't even wrap it, and the Royal Mail (bless 'em) even made sure all the stamps got, er.. stamped! Fantastic.

It now sits alongside my tin of Spam that I already have on my desk at work. (I do email stuff ... email ... spam ... geddit?)

Aside from that, the first of two two PayPal contributions is from Linda Dunford (450) who simply sends me an email that reads "Chris Green told me about you" - and nothing more! Chris is contributor #300, and I've emailed Linda back asking for a bit more information about herself.

She mails me back later, choosing Muse's "Plug in baby" as her selected song and attaches a photo of her self "When I was a bit drunk at my 40th birthday!". Thanks Linda!

My next one is a PayPal email from contributor Tami (#352), who must have read my plea the other day saying "Go on, get your pet to give me one of the last 50p's," as she's done just that by getting her pet chihuahua - Gizzy (451) to contribute!

"She's putting paws up to you!" writes Tami, and also chooses the song "Who let the dogs out" (naturally) by the Baha Men .. umm .. thanks !?

Also, remember the jar [left] which I keep my 50p's in at home?

Well, when chucking coins into it over the past few months, I must have missed, or one bounced out again and instead fell into another pot/container that I had next to the jar on my desk.

In that container, were lots of odds & ends, including some old 'AA' batteries which I had to clear out the other day because they started to leak, and at the bottom of that container I found a poor old 50p which had been affected.

So if you ever wondered what a 50p looks like when it's been corroded by battery acid, here is the answer:

Now i'll probably get lots of nasty flame emails accusing me of not looking after your 50p's properly, won't I?

Then I get a note off of contributor Andy (#297) who tells me: "Don't read T3 magazine this month by the way … they shoot a number of things with a shotgun to test ruggedness, including an iPod!". Excellent! Of course I'm going to go and read it now!

Also, I get an email from contributor Kristina (#202) who spotted this:

Toshiba announces plans for next video iPod rumour: Toshiba have bumped up the storage capacity of its 1.8-inch hard disk drive up to 60 GB which means we may soon see a bigger iPod!

Indeed, Cindy Lee, deputy manager of Toshiba Digital Media Network Taiwan's hard disk drive division, said Cupertino has already placed an order for some of the new drives...

So.. 60GB iPods before long?

Saturday 5th June 2004

Right, loads: First up, it's my Dads birthday today, but in the strange way that my world works, I'm not seeing him, because I saw him last weekend, and I'm seeing him next weekend too, but Happy Birthday dearest Daddy if you're reading this now.

Secondly, it's a near bloomin' miracle that you're even reading this at all, as last night I thought that my internet connection was stuffed for the weekend, when TWO power cuts in my area caused my cable TV/broadband box to stuff up and for a few hours it looked like I might be without cable TV and my internet for the whole weekend! All I can say is, is that after scorning other people who I know have got one at home, a UPS/large battery to keep them going for those few vital minutes so that you can shut down your PC and other gadgets cleanly is suddenly looking like a really attractive idea.

Thirdly, I'm off to the Epsom Derby today to go and watch the horse racing, and I'm going to see if I can gamble away the £230 in 50p's that I've already collected.

Kidding! But I will of course be spending some of my own already hard-earned cash on a couple of small bets, and I'll let you know how successful I am later.

Sunday 6th June 2004

Straight into the 50p's with a couple of PayPal contributions that turned up last night, but I'm just getting round to writing them up here now this morning.

Hello and thanks to Jon Burton (452) who emailed me saying: "About your honorable quest for 50p's!" and gladly contributes. He says he found it whilst researching the "proliferation of matrix schemes on eBay, trying to find a short cut to owning a mini iPod rather than coughing up £200+, when i came across your site."

I have no idea what that means! But he does pick Idlewild's "Live in a hiding place" as his tune.

And then, he follows it up with another 50p, this time via his daughter - Sarah - who has a monkey called Stanley (453) who'd like to give me 50p too! No problem Stanley, who also 'picks' the song "We're the monkees" by The Monkees! Excellent. Jon - you didn't pick a song yourself though - so eMail me back and let me know. In the meantime, thank you again to you, Sarah, and er.. Stan the monkey.

Oh, and don't ask how I got on at the Derby ...

Later on though, small children & alcohol - don't you just love 'em? Not mixed together, but as a way of extracting further 50p's of course. Whilst I've been doing this over the last 7 months, I've found out the two most powerful ways of getting 50p out of someone. And they are:

i) Wait until they've been drinking, and them ask them, and they go along with it for being such a silly idea, and they don't care because they're drunk. Or...

ii) Get a small child to contribute via their parents, for as sure as night follows days they're bound to have a brother or sister who gets a bit jealous if they can't play along with the '50p game' as well and they also want to give 50p (via the parent) just so that they can get their name and/or picture up on the website here too.

And sure enough, option (ii) kicked into effect today, shortly after Sarah Burton's monkey (#453) contributor, did I get another email from Jon (#452) concerning his other daughter Hannah, who along with Jack the Elephant (454) gave me another 50p!

Or as Jon wrote "The things I have to do to keep the kids from falling out!". She chooses McFly "Five colours in her hair", and if you look really closely, you can just see the 50p in the elephants pocket.. just below his nose.. Thanks again to all of you!

Monday 7th June 2004

Oh, it's gonna be a good day! The sun is out, it's blistering hot, and I'm in a happy, upbeat, take-the-piss, you can't shoot-me-down mode today!

And from this, I'm 'out for the kill' now to wrap this darn thing up and get as many bloody 50p's as I can!

The day starts well when I get two immediately in the post, one from Matt Turley (455) who is friend of contributor Chris (#300) - in fact, it's Chris that's sent the 50p through to me and not Matt himself! There's no song choice though, so I will pick him up on that one later.

Next up, is a very pretty envelope (it can only be from a girl!) and I open it up - and it is from a lady - Ema Delaney (456) who is contributor Jenny's (#443) sister. "Good luck with the 50 pences and a great website!" she writes. Thanks Ema! Oh, and she picks the Weather Girls "It's raining men" as her song, as well as providing a Fox's Classic bar wrapper inside too!

Later I'm on the phone at work to a guy who works over in another building that I speak to occasionally.

I've no idea if he even knows about the 50p thing or not, let alone whether I've asked him before, so he starts to ask his work related question, but I interrupt him saying "Before we get to that, do you want to give me 50p?" and he laughs, he does know what I'm talking about, and good old Nick Barrar (457) signs himself up, puts 50p in the internal mail to me straight away.

He also chooses Kylie Minogues "I should be so lucky" as his song (just to take the piss I hope), and then when I bug him to send me a picture of himself (he said he'd take a picture right now of himself with his cameraphone), he then emails me sayings that he "Can't find" his phone right now, and so I'll have to use this one of him when he's 3 years old standing in a river in Papua New Guinea where he used to live when he was a lad. It's also a good "Fat stomach" shot according to Nick!

A few minutes later, he emails me again saying: "I've just noticed that there are opportunities to 'not' give you 50p! Damn.. that's annoying as my 50p is gone now". Hee hee!! Sorry Nick.

I come off the phone, and my good colleague and contributor Reza (#24) who sits next to me who's heard me on the phone to Nick says "Hey buddy - haven't you got that bloody iPod yet?", "No!" I tell him, "But it's getting close", and when he hears of how close he immediately decides to chip in 50p on behalf of his lovely wife Ekaterina Maleknia (458) who chooses the song "Not gonna get us", by T.A.T.U (She's Russian!).

And then, Reza's mind ticks over, and a few moments later it obviously suddenly occurs to him that he can help me further along by giving me another 50p, this time 'from' his son who's only a few months old, and so Denie Maleknia (459) I think becomes officially my youngeset contributor to date. Thanks.

And there will be more to come today I suspect, so watch this space!

Ok, I just had a very strange 20 minutes at work.

Someone else (not me) brought up the subject of 'My iPod thing', just as Reza (#24) wanders back into the office. "Are you still going on about this?" he exclaims, and then obviously decides to make it his mission over the next few minutes to get as many people as he knows in on it to help me, and immediately starts to phone people.

There's a server/network guy - Ash - who's in another office who I do know, but not that well to feel that I can ask him personally. Reza knows him well enough though! So he just calls him up and shouts "Ash! You're giving Geoff 50p, okay? Now pick a song!" down the phone at him, and the poor guy probably wonders what the hell is going on!

No matter to me though, as Ash Birdi (460) 'gives' me 50p and also chooses Michael Jackson's "Don't stop 'till you get enough" as his tune. Cheers Ash! I nabbed this photo of him later (and he still seemed a bit confused about what Reza had talked him into...)

And Reza's off again.. I can't stop him, he's on a mission now, on the phone again to all-and-sundry, anyone that he can think of to practically bully them into giving me 50p! He rings up a girl called Alina ... again, I'm not sure if she's clear on what's going on, but Reza tries to explain, and I catch snatches of what he's saying...

"It's a long story man ... this weird f**king guy I sit next to at work ... you must have seen him man, he's been on TV doing weird tube shit ... he's a nutter ... can you give him 50p? ... I just want to shut him up about his bloody iPod..." and so on ...

And what's more he gets a picture of her by getting Alina to tell him her password to her hotmail accounts so that he can jump into it, and grab a picture of herself that she's got stored their!

And so, Alina Kanygina (461), picks Madonna's "Like a Virgin" as Reza makes her give me 50p. Thanks Alina!

But that's not enough! He's off again ... ringing someone else ... no good ! They don't have a photo of themselves ... no worries- next! He's off ringing someone else ... engaged! So he flips through his mobile phone contacts looking for someone else, and rings them ... "They've got to have a photo" Reza declares, "I want to get as many good looking people on your website as possible...".

Fine by me, but what's this? The next person is not a good looking ladeee, but Reza's work agent instead - Paul.

More rushed explaining later, Paul Killikita (462) submits and tells Reza to give me 50p via him. "Cheers buddy" he says, and slams the phone down.

"Umm.. did he pick a song?" I tentatively ask.

Reza un-slams the phone back to his ear, calls Paul again and he chooses "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

It was a very strange and surreal 20 minutes! But it was three more people, and another below - giving me 9 in one day today!

Later on in the day, it occurs to me that I still haven't nabbed everyone in the office, so when Nin Kumar (463) wanders in I decide that it's about time to go and see if I can extract some money from him ... and I can!

He's a little, er - shy? though, as he doesn't want me to take a photo of him at all, and so instead provides this weird picture of an 'Angry Imp' instead to represent him. Oh, and he picks a rather rudley titled song by the 2 Live Crew as well, which I'm not going to write up here - but I know which one it is.

Thanks Nin!

After work, I pop out down to Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street in central London, where XFM Breakfast Show presenter Christian O'Connell and the the team are signing copies of the "XFM" single for Euro 2004 - "Born In England" by Twisted X, which is "much better" (according to the XFM website) than the 'official' FA approved song. So I bought the single, got it signed, and even got a free t-shirt. Gosh!

Go and out and buy your copy this week!

I leave Virgin Megastore, have a got and sweaty tube ride home with lots of disgruntled commuters, get in, fire up my emails - and see this :

It's brilliant! It's an email from new Tottenham boss (after he's finished with France in Euro 2004, that is) Jacques Santini, and the email reads:

"Bonjour Geoff, If you haven't received my 50p you will soon.

Thought i'd send the photo of me giving it to you. Merci,

Jacques."

Fantastic! And compared to some of the other spoof emails I've been getting recently, this one was brilliantly done, and I have NO idea who really sent it! And you know what, I don't really want to know either, 'cause I love it so much.

But not wanting to appear to be rude, I replied back:

"Thank you Jacques, that's very kind of you.

You couldn't have a whip-round the rest of the French squad could you? perhaps one afternoon after training. that would really help me in my last push to the big five-oh-oh.

Cheers, Geoff."

What else ... well big news! It looks as if Apple are about to announce the launch of the iTunes store in UK/Europe next week.

Check out the full story on the MacWorld website, but if that's the case, then it will change the way which thousands of iPod owners in the UK will buy music forever.

And no more 50p's today, but today's tally of 9 has brought up my FPPD (Fifty Pence Per Day) rating up a little at last!

More tomorrow ...

Well this is turning out to be busy week then, isn't it? And here's something I didn't see coming:

I do a favour for someone at work that I've never met before, and ok I admit that maybe the reason that I did the favour was so that I could get 50p in return, and when Lindsay Bullock (464) found out about "That 50p/iPod thing" that I do, she loved it and was more than happy to contribute, providing that I give a plug about an equally mad thing she's doing herself on the internet at the moment, and here it is:

That's right, a Snowman!

So if you fancy making one, out of say - mashed potato, cotton wool, polystyrene foam bits, and taking a picture of them, and sending it to Lindsay at loobytoo@hotmail.com I'm sure she would really appreciate it, and you could have some fun at the same time.

I've no idea why it's snowmen, or even quite why they're queuing up at a pharmacy in the above picture, but it all seems rather amusing ...!

Reza (#24) from yesterday continues to hassle everyone he knows in his phonebook, and pulls another lovely lady (or "Reza's Angels" as he wanted me to call them) out of the bag for me this morning when I get in who's willing to contribute.

So big thanks to Zara Miller (465) who says "My fave song is Purple Rain by Prince - Good luck with the iPod, I think I want to try to buy a house the same way!". No worries Zara, and thanks!

Non-contributor Michael at work sends this picture to me - it's of the Sun, and in case you didn't know, there's a news story today about the fact that the 'blob' is in fact the planet Venus moving across if front of it, which hasn't happened for over a 100 years ... quite cool.

Also on the BBC news website, they're now following up what MacWorld had to say yesterday in that the iTunes store is looked set to launch in the UK and the rest of Europe from next week - June 15th, with tracks probably costing just 99p each.

The post turns up at work bringing with it three more 50p's - yay! Firstly one from Anthony 'Tugs' Tugwell (466 & 467) whom I got chatting to over the weekend, and as he lives vaguely near me down in Guildford, Surrey, we consider meeting up for an 'in person' photo, but today a letter turns up from him saynig "I've realised I'm going to be really busy for most of this week anyway, and rather than spend more money than 50p itself I thought I'd just post it to you".

Well.. I think that's half the fun of it Tugs! Spending more than 50p just to get 50p sounds like fun to me .. I'd of done it! Ah well - you've posted it to me now.

So he sends me two 50p's - one from himself, and one from his kitten Barney (photo to follow) who picks the song "Cafe Del Mar" by Energy 52, and "On The Run" by Tillman Urmacher for himself.

He also gives me a nice copy of his glossy work brochure (a quick plug for his company Mayer Brown if you ask me!) who are specialist transport planners.

Actually he says that he encloses a copy of his company brochure "Because you showed interest in what I do in your last email, and not many people do that, so I'm making the most of this opportunity!".

Tugs - thank you, and Barney - thank you, your 50p's are most most welcome ...

And then in the internal mail at work, comes a 50p from ... Jacques Santini! (468) That's right, the person behind the spoof email & photo that I got last night has now gone and actually sent me a 50p! But here's an interesting thing ... it's come via an internal envelope at work, meaning that it's someone else inside the BBC.

So it could be someone I know, or someone that's already given me 50p and is doing it in a different name, or perhaps it's someone who I don't know at all! Either way they have to be a spurs fan, and they write in their note "Well done for having the balls to just ask people to buy you an iPod you cheeky monkey". Cheeky Monkey? Hmm... that's a bit of a hackneyed cockney phrase isn't it? Perhaps a clue to the persons identity - ah well, YOU know who are reading this, so cheers! and they pick the Audioslave tune "Like a stone" as their requested song...

I get an Instant Messenger conversation running with my friend and contributor Julian (#149), who tells me that "You're gettnig close" (I know!) and "I can ask Jools if you like for 50p" (I would), and indeed he goes of and asks his mate, also called Julian to see if he'll chip in.

Two minutes later comes back, and he's agreed - hurrah! And so Jools Maule (469) becomes a valued contributor, with his chosen tune being the 12" version of "America: What time is love?" by the KLF. Cheers Jools!

Julian (#14) then emails me back, and tells me that he's got another friend/colleague who I have met a couple of times - Tony Young (488) to 'reserve' contribute as well.

That's right - even at this late stage of the game, people are still reserving future numbers! And I'm happy to do that for you Tony! His song? Led Zeppelins "Stairway to heaven". Thanks!

A little while later, a lovely lady by the name of Vida Johnson (470) who works in Information & Archives down the corridor wanders through, as she's friends with contributor Reza (#16) [ not to be confused with contributor Reza (#24) ], and I'm not really sure if she'll go for it or not, as the last time I met her all I did was steal her Ribena drink that she had with her at the time, and I don't think she's ever trusted me since.

Still, 50p is worth asking for, and ask I do .. and at first I don't think she gets it at all , so I explain a little more, and she looks at me like I'm completely mad, before going for it. She then chooses a song - Billy Holliday's "I'll have to email the name of it to you in a moment". And that, of course isn't the name of the track, but it what she said because she couldn't remember the name of the track.

"I feel very emotional now about this" Vida adds, once the photo is taken and the transaction is complete, "I feel like I've achieved something today", and wanders off with a tear in her eye... it was a very touching moment.

Later, she does indeed mail me back, the Billie Holliday track is actually called "Stormy Weather" - "It's a good blue song", says Vida. "And what next have you got in mind after you do this?" she asks.

All this inspires possibly one of the last few colleaguesin my office to chip in - that being Has Malde (471) who after I caught him having a sneaky read of my webpages earlier has obviously been swept along in the dramatic late momentum of 50p contributing that is now occurring, and hands over the dosh!

At first he's reluctant to choose a song, but after a small amount of cajoling (I love that word), he picks a traditional Indian tune called "Kal ho na ho", which I think I'm going to have a hard time tracking down! I'm not sure if that's the artist or the name of the track until Has tells me "It's the title ... It is a film song from the film by the same name". Ok, I'll try and track it down .. thanks!

So that takes me to 471 (9 today so far!), which then instantly takes me to 472, as that's a slot that's previously been reserved by Ben Clokie (472) whos details I did write up back on the 2nd May, which is when he sent his PayPal contribution through, but I've now cut and paste them to bring them up to date here:

Ben Clokie (472) who forward reserves his 'slot' of number 472, as "My website and pseudo name is noah472. My site is at www.noah472.co.uk, and can I have the Rolling Stones 'Sympathy for the devil' but it must be the Neptunes remix".

No problem Ben! I'll source that mix of the Stones, and you are now down on the reserved list at number 472. His website is mainly a collection of photos that he's taken over the last few years and is definitely worth a look!

He also mentions that he has an iPod too, but it's currently broken! So I knock Ben up a quick, special icon - just for him...

Contributor Nicola (who sent me the tin of tuna at the top of this page) has been spreading the word amongst some of her online friends, as I get an email from Kylie Chrystal (473) which reads "You're a nutter!" (thanks Kylie..) and she goes on to say that she's down in Australia and spent a considerable amount of time reading through all my webpages when really she should have been doing revision for her forthcoming exams instead!

She wanted to send me some original Aussie food through the post, but we reckoned it might get stopped - so instead she is just sending me an Australian dollar instead as a 50p contribution. And - as it'll take a couple of weeks to arrive in the post, I'm adding up Kylie now as otherwise I might be at the 500 mark if I wait for when it actually turns up. She does send me a picture of herself though, and picks Matchbox 20 "Unwell" as her song. Thank you Kylie!

And finally (for 50p's) there's one more from Crystal Viagran (474) who sends me $0.90 via PayPal with a message that reads - "50 pence, uhh - or 90 cents for you! I saw you contributor's (#399's) website and had to give - and nominate a super terrible song - "Hangin' tough" by New Kids On The Block. Enjoy!"

Uuuhh.. yeah! Great song! (Not). I ask her where she's from exactly, and she rather amusingly tells me that "I'm from good ol' Austin, Texas, where we don't all adore George W ... !"

She also sends a picture of herself, along with her three dogs - Joules Lola, Jillian Rae and Jasmine Rose. Thanks Crystal!

Contributor (#399) is actually Karl-Thomas Musselman, and spookily enough I was going to plug his website again back in return as he sent me an email anyway as he liked the "Make a snowman" thing so much, that he's gone a posted it on his website too - excellent! Thanks Karl! Oh and go and have a look at his fine website too.

So there you have it. I'm up to 474, which means the next contributor will be 475, which means for the very last time (sob!) I draw a line and insert the "Next 25..." button!

Contributors:

Statistics: