well, according to some sort of counter on the login page for this site, this would be post number 1000 for me! i am not going to sit and count them, i think i will rather just take their word for it.
thank you, then, to everyone who has visited this internetwebpage thingie of mine and has read so much as one post. it really is appreciated. to anyone insane or bored enough to have read every post i have made, i admire your resilience and willpower!
as one thousand is presumably some sort of landmark, allow me then to take another walk down memory lane with some pics i scanned today. kindly indulge a few tales here and there, and my apologies if any of them bore you!
i have taken the time to put these pics in chronological order this time, i think. let's start off, then, with a picture of me and my good friend Norman B*****d (or David Gutteridge, if you will) at the age of 13, sat at Headingley enjoying England teach, oddly, New Zealand a lesson whilst enjoying the sort of refreshments we probably shouldn't have been at age 13....
that was a grand day out, that was! a fine display by England, and for good measure someone had a blow up doll that was thrown around the ground. a number of our fellow schoolmates needed exactly what the blow up doll was, thanks to Norman's fine library of Scandinavian published educational pamphlets, we were well aware of what it was!
i do not honestly recall ever owning a pair of binoculars, i suspect i may have swiped them from someone at the ground. oh, and given his way, Norman would still, to this day, be wearing his Maverick Top Gun sunglasses.
skip forward three years and here's Norman and i heading to our last day at Nunthorpe School. it's at the threshold of summer 1989, and it must be on the way to school because by the end of the day our shirts were covered in all sorts of messages from each other.
this pic is unmistakably taken by "The Avvy shops" on The Avenue, Nunthorpe. i lived off somewhere down to the left of it. i don't recall Norman ever not wearing the jacket he has on in this pic, really.
Norman has been a dear friend for many a year, and if i am lucky, shall continue to be so for, well, as many years as we have on this planet, really. he probably won't be if i keep finding pictures like this and posting them here. and a special message for Norman to finish off if and when he reads this, "la....................."
still at the last day of us all being at Nunthorpe School, and here i am with what remains some of the most talented, gifted people i have ever been lucky enough to meet. if you can, for the moment, gaze away from the sixteen year old schoolgirls' legs (Norman yes, this is directly partially at you), from the left you have Justin Mills, Alex Adams (i think at least, sorry chap), Adrian McMahon, the irrepressible Steven Legget and of course your humble narrator.
i could go on about this bunch for a while, but will try to be controlled. Justin introduced me to some ace films (Evil Dead II being one) and class authors (Clive Barker, for instance). Alex had probably the first satellite dish in the whole of Middlesbrough (this was years before Sky), and introduced us all to the magic of MTV and shows like Sledge Hammer!. Adi McMahon is easily one of the funniest, wittiest people on the planet. as for Mr Legget, well, a gifted artist, a connoisseur of only the finest music and an all around interesting and outstanding individual. to know him is to love him, i guess. as for your humble narrator, no idea what my part in it all was or is - probably just to remember it all. which makes me a bit of a Bill Wyman character. moving on.....
....and indeed i lied about the chronological bit. here we are back in the glory year of 1987, up on a hill in the Lake District during one of the ace holidays we enjoyed at Bassenfell Manor, courtesy of our dear headmaster, Sir John Rowling. it should be straightforward enough to spot me, i am the only one in a Frankie Goes To Hollywood tour jumper.
i have nothing but great and fond memories of Bassenfell Manor. it was a great time with a great bunch of people. somewhere i have the tape of the gig of the band that Steven Legget, Adi McMahon and i formed (Bob, Bob & Vim in that order) and performed as there. with some luck one day it shall be "digitally remastered" and given as a gift of great music to the world.
jumping forward in time, and indeed to another continent, is a picture of me, Gillian and Richard on the day of my graduation ceremony for my first degree (yes, as in i have more than one, clever git, wasting life not using them, etc, etc). it will be, i think, in early 1997. or it might have been 1996. well, the degrees are in literature, not mathematics or calendar studies.....
Gran and Gramps were here for this graduation ceremony - somewhere i have a pic of Gramps dressed in my gown & mortar, giving my backside a right good caning! oh, and if i recall correctly, this is one of two occasions on which Richard has pinched a suit that my Dad intended to wear for a function involving me, the other being my wedding!
i do quite miss those chunky, NHS style glasses i have on in that picture. with them on and my head shaved i could usually do a very good impression of Adrian Edmondson in his Bottom days! for a closer look at those Morrissey-ish frames, here's a pic i found of me from my time in Cape Town!
this picture is probably from 1996, and is most likely one that should be before the graduation one, such is my grasp of these chronological matters. anyway, it shows me sat in my flat, sat at my beloved typewriter. i really, really miss sitting and writing at the typewriter. this writing on a computer business has always felt rather impersonal and cold, but i try my best. i would be pretty sure that my ace JVC stereo, currently being used at verk, is on here, with either The Stone Roses or Frankie Goes To Hollywood playing away.
ah, now, in terms of family suitability, maturity and good taste, i fear the tone of the pictures is about to drop considerably now, as i bring you some insights into the weekend of Rohan Smith's wedding in glamorous Felixstowe, 1998. here i am with the very wonderful one and only John "Boyley" O'Boyle
i haven't had much contact with either John O'Boyle or indeed the groom of the day, Mr Rohan Smith, since the wedding. quite a shame, really. well, the weekend did sort of turn from being Rohan's wedding and a get together into a 72 hour drinking binge (hence the hand gestures, always blame the alcohol) and wedding. Mr O'Boyle secured us access into Felixstowe's best and presumably only nightclub by introducing me as "the son of Brian Nash out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood". and my, was that worth it! the stories i could tell about the ladies in that club. that, erm, all the single chaps were interested in. i was single then too, but i was of course saving myself for my dear wife Michele. who will be reading this. and probably won't believe the last few bits.
the wedding itself was fascinating, too. not only did i manage to survive the ceremony thanks to a large quantity of water, showers and medication being pumped into me by a concerned chambermaid and my good friend Michael Llewellyn, but myself and Mr Llewellyn were rather impressed with the church that was selected for the ceremony, as the latest edition of their parish magazine featured an image of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator on the cover.
and finally, speaking of that weekend and the modestly great Mr Michael Llewellyn.....
now then, Mike's look in the picture above is partly "[at the time] 16 years on and you still want us all to flick the V's at the camera, Lee?", partly "we've been on a diet of ale, vodka, croissants, headache tablets and hymns for the last 24 hours, where's this camera you want me to look at?". i think this particular drinking binge was only outdone a few years later in a legendary session at The Blueberry Grill in Kylamai, where i ran up a bar bill on Mike's business expenses that i believe is framed and hanging in an office in downtown Melbourne right now.
much like Norman, the last star would have to fall from the skies before i lost contact with Mike. he too has been an exceptional friend over the years, long may it continue.
anyway, thank you very much indeed for reading this and the previous 999 posts. i will have a go at doing another thousand or so, just hope that i can keep them entertaining and interesting. that's if they have been up to now!
be very excellent to each other, at least 1000 times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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