Numbers 500 and beyond
Since getting to number 500, some people have carried on giving me 50p's! Partly so that they can have a song on my iPod, partly because they want to give to charity (which is where all post-500 monies go to!), but also just for the hell of it!
I record everyone that does in my iBlog, but I thought I should also have a seperate page here with them listed chronogically, along with the extract from the the blog on the day that I wrote about them.
Friday 2nd July 2004
I
get another 50p today - oh yes! And it's a weird one as I wasn't expecting
it, and I got it ahead of another one that I was expecting. Confused?
Don't be. There's a work colleague - Steve Hughes, who wanted to be
person 501 to give me 50p. Pointless I know, but I think he just wanted
to tease me that he was willing to give me 50p - but just not towards
the iPod - he wanted to wait until I had it.
So when Hyacinth Laing (502) today at work approached me and said she liked to give me 50p, she looked really disappointed when I told her that technically she was too late! This didn't completely deter her though, and so we agreed that I could have 50p from her, she could have her photo taken - and even pick a song! which, er.. I forget what it is right now - and she can be number 502, even though I'm not officially collecting 50p's anymore ...
Saturday 6th November 2004 - afternoon
Here
are two 50p mentions to get in then. The first is actually from Thursday
evening when I meet up with Stephen Knight (503) who I've known for
a little while, but not since the 50p thing - and he's decided that
he'd like to get on board, and come to the iParty next week. You're
welcome mate.
That 50p is going straight into the charity collection that I'm having on the night (more details on the iParty minisite!)
Then,
in the post on Friday, I get a 50p from Selassie Lawson (504) who's
been emailing me for a while now - I think I even plugged his webpage
a while back.
Anyway,
he's been struggling trying to get hold of a digital camera or cameraphone
to take his picture to send, so in the end he drew this 'picture'
of himself to send to him. Oh, he even picked a song too - Three
of a kind's "Babycakes". Thanks
Sel!
He mails me back later to remind me that his website is here if you fancy popping in for a look.
Wednesday 15th December 2004
Also,
I got another 50p in the post! Actually, I didn't, but I should have
done, as when the envelope arrived there was a tear in the side where
the coin had fallen out! So I'm going to sub it for him, considering
that he did make the effort!
So many thanks to Stefan Baguette from Germany who officially becomes number 505 and joins the merry list of contributors with a song on my iPod - in his case The Goo Goo Dolls and "Iris". I thought I didn't know it until I heard it and then I'm like "Oh! I know this ..." and it's great.
He emailed me a few weeks back, and we've been chatting away about various things and he then decided that he would like to post-contribute. Thank-you Stefan! Oh, and his 50p actually goes into the pot for Matthews Fund, the charity of choice as detailed on the iParty page.
Monday 10th January 2005
Hello
and step forward Richard Mackey, who wanted one my Review
of the Year 2004 CD's that I've produced, and he kindly paypal'd
me a small amount to cover the cost of the blank CD & postage.
Additionally, he included an extra 50p as well so that he could pick the song her Onionhead / Dada Dali' by Todd Rundgren to go onto my iPod, which I've already done. So thank you Richard, and you officially become contributor number 506 !
Saturday 12th February 2005
I
got another 50p today! How about that?
His name is Thomas Cairns (now officially contributor number 507), he's 13 years old this week and I've been chatting to him for a bit on email for the past few weeks.
He picks the Boogie Pimps "Somebody to love", and he sent me what looks suspiciously like a camera-phone photo of himself ... is that a smart school uniform and tie on their I see Thomas? Good man. And thank-you!
And your 50p goes into the charity pot, and the song (which was already on my iPod) has now been marked in your name.
Monday 21st February 2005 (morning)
Some
more 50p reportage to catch up on here. Introducing Alan Perks who
(for his sins) has been inflicted with the nasty thing of being an
Arsenal fan, but there's hope for him yet as he he was generous enough
to donate 50p to me, and he sponsored me for the Tube
8 run this week (still going ahead despite the weather forecast
saying it's going to snow!), and picks the song "Sweaty
Betty" by the Macc Lads.
I'd never heard of them, but he reliably informs me that "They're a group of Lads from Macc(lesfield) who like nothing more than singing about all things genital and worse. For example: 'Treat your women like toilets, they're happy when you're abusing them, but toilets don't follow you round, when you've finished using them.' - Nice!".
He got in touch because it seems that he's also doing ye old tubey epic journey too - as you can see here - either way, he's officially number 508 - thank you very much Alan!
Tuesday 3rd May 2005
Right,
two quick "50p" mentions to get in, as I have two - yes two
- new people to add in here.
Firstly is Chris Presswell (509) who I met up with to watch the Hitchhikers film with last week, and he pointed out to me that the tickets were £10.50, but I only gave him £10 - i.e. he 'gave me' back 50p, so could he put a song on my iPod for that? Yes you can Chris!
So noting that I have no 'Who' on my list of songs, he chooses the classic Who Are You? and I've put that 50p into the charity pot. Cheers mate.
Second,
is a chap called James Kelly (510) who again has been corresponding
with me for a bit, and decided that he too would like to post-contribute
to the fund, and so he gets in on the act too, after some deliberation,
choosing Dancing in the Dark by Bruce
Springsteen. Thank you, James!
Monday
23rd May 2005
I got another 50p over the weekend to report on (actually I've got three more, but only this one so far has chosen a tune which allows me to blog it officially) - as a nice chap called WIll Mitchell (511) emailed me out of the blue the other week.
He's from Bude in Cornwall, and found a picture on my gallery pages that is familiar to him as it's just down the road from him. We got chatting, and he's become a convert to post-iPod cause (his 50p goes in the charity pot), and he picks Everclear's 'Overwhelming' as his song of choice - thank you!
Oh, and his picture looks suspiciously like it was taken on a camera phone too, yes?
Sunday 29th May 2005
And so onto those 50p's which I've been promising for the last week.It
was in fact last Friday on Zone
1 challenge day that Anthony Smith (512) and Adham Fisher (513) saw
the light, and post-iPod donated 50p each into the charity pot, and ofcourse
got to choose tunes for me to endure - sorry listen to - at my leisure.
Anthony (who I still maintain was much less scary to meet in real life than I thought he might be) chose the Genesis classic "Supper's Ready", which is a multi-part 22 minute epic of a song.Did he choose it because he knew it would take up 22Mb of space? Or did he really like it? "I really like it!" he says. "It's the best song ever! It doesn't get boring either. It's not drawn-out. It is a magnificentmusical masterpiece". So I think he meant it.
Adham
was next, and it later transpired that we both share the joy of non-rock
based music.People often look at me as if I've just said something like
"I think Michael Jackson sleeping with underage boys is an excellent
idea", instead of what I've really said, which is "I
like electronic pop music".
Yes, it's completely unfashionable to admit to liking something without a guitar in it sometimes, isn't it? But Adham agrees with me, who says "I swear by electronic music. I've never liked guitar music. There are exceptions, but on the whole, I hate rock and artists like Oasis and the Beatles and bands that everyone else loves. I don't actually listen to anything pre-1979.".
Friday 3rd June 2005
I
got another 50p today too, can you believe it - yup, people are still
sending them into me! This one comes from Kirk Northrop (513)
whom I've been chatting to over email for the past few days, except
that he's a bit loathe to send me a picture of himself, because as he
says: "I'm far to ugly to have picture
of me out there, so if you want you can credit me as my alter ego of
Mr. Flibble from Red
Dwarf". So ... here is a picture of Mr Flibble from
Red Dwarf!
Kirk still wants his website here plugged though, and also chooses as his song "Bottle Rocket", by The Go! Team. Thanks Kirk!
This does actually remind me that at some point next week I am going to make a specific page for all post-500 contributors, rather than just have them dotted around on my blog here in odd places which makes them hard to find.
Monday 6th June 2005
Which all leads me nicely rather nicely into another Geoff/Tube tale,
and also to yet another 50p
contributor.
In this post-iPod phase, let me remind you that all 50p's are going
into my 'charity pot' (the same pot which I initially collected 50p's
in), and I will donate to charity, probably www.matthewsfund.co.uk
HIs name is Allan Williams (515) and he originally got in touch with me after doing a tube-pub-crawl a few months ago and then went looking on the 'net for .
But he then told me about something which I'd never ever seen before, and I can't believe I hadn't picked up on it either, or the fact that no one else had ever told me about this before.
Thursday
9th June 2005
Another day, another 50p - and one that I actually got a week ago off of a young chap called Jonny (516) who forget to send me a photo and I refused to post it here until he sent me his picture!
Now the picture he has sent me now looks suspiciously like he just held up his camera phone and pointed it back at himself, doesn't it? It's a bit "in your face", Jonny - lol! Anyway, he likes all the tube bits of this site, and picks Anthony's 'Underground Masker' tune as his song choice. Thank you!
Thursday
9th June 2005
I also need to mention my latest ‘50p person’, a very nice chap - a Canadian, and a complete stranger by the name of Scott Blair, who’s over on his travels Calgary in Canada, and he sent me an email a few weeks ago asking me if I’d like to meet up with him when he was in London, as he’d like to give me 50p, and meet someone who (according to Audioscrobbler) had very similar tastes in music to him.
Scott spots me the moment I come through the barriers at the tube where we’ve agreed to meet. He approaches me, I realise it’s him, say “Hi”, and we’re off and running and chatting straight away as if we’ve know each other for ages. After you’ve done it a few times, meeting complete strangers off of the internet starts to becomes second nature.
Scott first contacted me out of the blue after he’s seen that my Audioscrobbler profile was quite similar to his, i.e. we both like a lot of cheesy eightes pop music (it suits my mood sometimes, ok!) so we have plenty in common.
We do the 50p thing and photo, and Scott offically becomes contributor (517), and he picks The Spoons “Nova heart” as his song, a classic eighties pop hit by a Canadian band.
We head for nearest Starbucks, where I note with some elation that they’ve now got pink coloured cardboard sleeves to hold your coffee in. The pink colour reminded me of the vivid shade that you might get in an iPod bus-shelter ad, and as my ‘pod was out on the table where we’d been comparing my ‘pod Photo with his Creative Zen it seemed rude not to take a photo. This according to Scott was “A very Geoff thing to do”. He has a point.
I also generally take a lot of stick for being a bit of a stick-man … well at least I used to be a ‘lanky git’ as I used to descibe myself, but Scott is now officially the thinnest person I know! It was quite nice to meet someone leaner than myself for once!
Wednesday 29th June 2005
Carina
Hendrikx (518) who is from the Netherlands but is here
in London at the moment, is a dancer by trade, and emailed over a week
ago saying “Been reading your blog
for a while and have been meaning to contribute for ages”,
and after sorting out how she was going to pay me and getting a photo
I then got a bit slack about posting her up, but am doing it now! (At
last).
She also asks “Has anyone else contributed from my home country?”, and after checking out the stats here (and double checking in my original spreadsheet), I can tell you Carina that you’re actually the third after contributors ReindeR Rustema (#140), and Ilja Nieuwland (#174).
She originally chooses ‘Gaia’ by Valensia - a little known (here) Dutch singer - as her song, but then confessed that that might be too hard for me to find, so has gone for “Uninvited'’ by Alanis Morrissette.
I’m downloading it from iTunes right now… thank-you most kindly Carina!
Others (Still to be written up)
519 - Barry Gater, 520 - Ian Davies, 521 - Tim Ferrett, 522 - Philip Ling, 523 - Jon Choo, 524 - Chris Searle
And at 524, I did stop collecting - permamently. Even though a few more people did try to give me money to at the very least add a song to my iPod, the novelty and fun of it all wore off, and from then on I did actively start turning people down, and '50 pence' officially came to an end ...
