Greeting the 500

Day 214 - Greeting Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Thanks to those who recently donated to my sponsorship website. I Really appreciate your generosity. Yep I saw your name up there sis, much obliged. Maybe I will get you a birthday present from last June after all.

Amongst today’s offerings in my email-crammed inbox, one from an individual of ambiguous gender who refers to themselves as Butterkist, a brand of popcorn that one could munch their way through at the cinema in the 1980's if I'm not mistaken.

He/she writes "Michael appears to be your foil..." and having given it some thought, I whole-heartedly agree, but a foil only in the sense that you'll often find him wrapped round a piece of roast chicken.

Joking aside, I must continue to thank the Bubble (he likes to be termed as such) for taking all of my flak with relatively good grace. I've known Micky-boy for about 18 years now and I have to be honest, he can sometimes be very entertaining in his own right. That is when he's not screaming.

I'm sure that he's sure that if he'd set up a website to run alongside mine, his would have been a far more enjoyable read and would have won the Yahoo Award, the Booker Prize and let's go the whole hog, the Nobel Prize for literature as well.

Shame he's not too adept at spelling, reading and stringing sentences together then.

I met the explore Sir Ranulph Fiennes at Legoland in Windsor this morning, where he was due to give a lecture.

Having been told by his agent that time would be of the essence and that I really ought to be at the Legoland Manor House at 7.55am, I was bricking it slightly (sorry, appalling pun), when the security guard at the main gate refused to let my car through the barrier.

"I'm sorry sir, I really can't let you pass. We weren’t informed that you’d be coming. More than my jobsworth etc etc", or words to that effect.

Well <phew>, after several hurried phonecalls, such creases were ironed out and I was informed that Sir Ranulph was on his way and would be happy to meet me by the barrier.

I didn't have to wait long, for my host soon arrived and apologised for the confusion and for the rushed nature of the meeting.

Now obviously I'd removed my coat, so that the old dogmuck-brown hooded top would appear in the photo and as we were outside at this early hour I soon found myself shivering away once more

At one point, I swear that I was close to saying "it's freezing today isn't it Sir Ranulph".

This, to the man who has single handedly traversed the Bentley Subglacial Trench in Antarctica and was the first human to reach both the North and the South Poles.

I'm glad I didn't.

For the auction I was given a signed copy of one of his books, Race to the Pole, which I'd really like to read actually, but best not as my fingers tend to be quite smudgy. I thank Sir Ranulph ever so much for his compliance and for the gift.

Finally I owe a massive debt of gratitude to the Evening Standard who have today run a piece on the challenge. I'm thankful not only because they've kindly swiped seven years off my age, but also because they've managed to rustle up an extra 18 or so handshakes from somewhere.

Yep, I've apparently greeted 68 people so far and not 51 and it must be true because I read it in the papers.

On the downside, what with all of this publicity I guess my speeddating days are over....

Back at Work

...... So happy about that.

Away from all of this lunancy. No more interviews or appearances on the News, just matching the names of 'UK Assett Finance contacts' into the company database.

By the way, I never said I'd update this website every day, and so if nothing happens I won't.

Just thought I'd include a picture that one of my hilarious workmates emailed to me during my absence over the last few days. Very good Steve.

And here's another picture that shows just what you can do with a bit of creative advertising, without even having to mention active liposomes and micro oils.

(click on the photos to make them bigger)

By the way, did you know that February 2nd is officialy Groundhog Day in America.

You didn't need me to tell you that though, did you? After all Newcastle United have just sacked their manager.

Day 215 - Greeting Lesley Garrett

I've been told that when I sing I have the voice of an angel.

Well, to be a bit more truthful, I've been told that when I sing I have the voice of angel that's got numerous pollyps on it's vocal chords and has been gargling crushed glass.

You get the idea. In other words, the karaoke bar I go to has been keeping the local glazing company in business for years.

Lesley Garrett HAS got an amazing voice. Not surprising then, that she's the premier opera singer in the country. Anyway she kindly phoned me yesterday afternoon while I was trying to fix my chair at work (it won't recline to the sleeping position) and mentioned that if I was to turn up at the Classic FM studios before her show this afternoon, she'd be happy to meet me.

So there I was in the foyer of the studios earlier today, Speaking to Frank who works at reception.

"D'you want to make your way up to their offices on the 6th floor and grab a cup of tea?" he said.

"Well I'm not sure whether I'm meant to wait for Lesley here or up there."

"Look do me a favour and go upstairs will you. I don't want to get in trouble for leaving Lesley's guest sitting down here in the cold," he said with a smile.

Up on the 6th floor I walked into an oasis of tranquility in the middle of the rat race that is Oxford Circus. Beautiful view, classical music being played (obviously), Lovely furnishings. I wouldn't mind living there actually.

They even had a piano and a modern open-plan kitchen by the waiting area, all chrome and pine if I remember, with bowls of fruit and pieces of cake on a plate for people to grab.

I grabbed.

After a brief wait, Lesley appeared and strode over beaming.

"Thank you so much for agreeing to this," I said, which has been my opening gambit ever since my very first 'greetings'.

First things first, the gifts were handed over for the RNIB auction and it was more amazing stuff. A unique signed t-shirt which Lesley wore when she ran part of the baton relay for the Commonwealth Games the other year. She was runner number 087 as you can see here. Really very sweet of her to give me this, I thought, because it must have a special meaning for her.

"How far did you have to run?" I enquired.

"Oh about half a mile," she replied nonchalantly.

"Goodness. I'd never have been able to do that. I have trouble running a bath."

Well if that wasn't enough, I was also given a signed copy of Classic FM magazine with Lesley's photo on the front and if THAT wasn't enough, the magazine has a free cd attached to it- The Best Recordings of 2005.

I'm looking at it now. The CD includes Bach's keyboard Concerto No.3, Allegri's Miserere, Schubert's Trout Quintet and Timmy Mallet's itsybitsyteenyweeny yellow polka-dot bikini (joke).

The photo at the top was taken by Suzi at reception and as you can see, I got another hug which is starting to become quite a perk of all of this.

Once taken, Suzi looked at it and said "you know, you're really photogenic" to Lesley, and "no offence to you," to me. Oh well, I've promised not to say anything more about my face looking like a spanked bum, so I won't.

Only other thing to add- 2 more greetings locked in. Journalist Gary Bushell and DJ Toby Anstis next tuesday, so what with Ainsley Harriott as well, it's going to be a busy day.

Typepad and Ben

I'm finally able to update the site again because Typepad dot com has finally corrected the "problems that some of you may have been experiencing" (when they say "some of you" I have a feeling that what they meant to say was "all of you".

Well what can you expect for $4 per month.

I personally want to thank the most recent trio who have sponsored me on my other site www.justgiving.com/greetingthe500 . I know that the RNIB is extremely thankful to everyone who has been sponsoring me, as am I.

One of the 'problems' that the people at typepad have been working on has been the 'comments' section.

I know that many of you have written comments to this site by clicking under my various postings. I've been able to publish one or two of them, but regrettably a vast majority of them are getting screwed up in the system and are therefore not able to be published.

For example the comment made by someone called Ovidius has simply appeared on my maintenance site as "Hey Jul", whilst Marie's comment has appeared as "what are y". I'm sure that both of you and the many others whose messages appear as such, went on to write far more than one and a half words, it's just that I can't see what they are, so I'm really sorry that I can't put them up.

In addition, the stats page is down. I know I was getting about 55,000 hits a day up until Thursday, but now I can't tell. It might be up to a million, which is just me being optimistic, or it might have gone full circle and once again be just me mam and John Lucarotti (an old work colleague, you don't know him) reading this, as it was for the first two weeks.

Whatever.

Anyway I'm now able to update here so I've just dragged myself away from watching the Dubai Classic Golf Tournament- (it's currently a play off between Els and Woods). Just FYI, the tournament's being played on a course that boasts the biggest bunker in the world just off the 14th fairway.

(The bunker is otherwise known as the Arabian Desert)

So back to the only real reason for this particular posting, a reply to a very nice email from an American named Otis...

Who, you may ask, is Ben Roethlisburger? Ben Roethlisburger is a man who I slandered on here in my Day 131 posting (see 'November archive' category).

I wish I hadn't.

Ben Roethlisburger is 6ft 5 and weighs 20stone 1pound.

Basically I was whinging that typepad had been promoting his boring looking blog on their home page and had overlooked mine.

I've since learned that this man mountain is a famous American Football player and so I made an appropriate grovelling apology (see December archive- Day 155) lest he comes over to London and tries to remove an eyelash from my cheek with his fist.

Anyway Otis kindly sent me a long and rambling email about how great a player Ben was, how many 'pass receptions' (?) he's thrown and how he is going to win the Superbowl tonight for his team the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I replied to Otis, thanking him and asking him if his team was known as the 'Steelers' because if you were to park just outside the stadium, you'd return to your car to find your hub-caps nicked. We have stadiums like that over here in Liverpool.

Anyway I shall be supporting 'Big Ben' tonight, when his team will hopefully be defeating the Seattle Seahawks. I shall be swatting up on the rules of the sport all afternoon.

One other quick note. I'm sure that a number of people have been alerted to this site due to an article appearing in Saturday's Daily Mail, compiled by the lovely Sara who interviewed me last week.

Although I choked on my Weetabix a little when I was confronted with 23 pictures of myself staring back at me, Michael was completely non-plussed by the whole affair as the article didn't refer to him at all.

I therefore officially point out that:

1) This challenge wasn't one I set myself, it was my grumpy mate named above who made the bet with me and who forms an integral part of it and

2) His photo, that we were told by the newspaper may appear in the article, can instead be found on my posting entitled 'Michael' Day 191.

Unlike me, Micky Narcissus isn't quite so embarrassed by his photo. Quite the reverse actually.       

Day 219 - The Auction

Hey. STOP READING THIS AND GET ON WITH YOUR WORK!

I'm going to go and tell your boss.

No, I really am. Unless of course you are the boss, in which case carry on sir.

Apparently today is 'National Sickie' day, and if you don't believe me, squeeze the end of your mouse when the arrow's pointing here. I'm not in work at the moment myself actually but not because:

"sorry I don't feel to good so I won't be coming in today. We went out last night and I had this really dodgy kebabnd and I was up all night. I'm so sorry, hopefully I should be ok by tomorrow...."

but because Matt and his RNIB colleague are taking me out for lunch, where talk will centre around existentialism and whether Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' was an accurate reflection of the central ideoligies of Soren Kierkegarrd.

Well that's not entirely true. We will mainly be discussing the charity auction, although I might show off a little by regurgitating what I just read on Wikipedia about philosophy.

Whoever said "there's no such thing as a free lunch", was obviously never on remand in one of HM's prisons, nor did they try and have their photo taken whilst shaking an assortment of hands.

I'm grateful to the RNIB for what I am about to receive- liver and mash I think I'm going to go for.

The auction itself may well take place on EBAY or there has been suggestions mooted about a grand event being held ie one of those big gala dinners, which personally I'm not sure I'd be too comfortable with. Once this is all over I'd like to crawl back under the stone I came from, without having to give drunken speeches etc.

Anyway, I'll keep you updated.

Just over a week left and finally someone's told me how and why I got my tactics all wrong in trying to shake hands with the likes of Kate Winslett, Kate Beckinsale and Rachel Weisz.

You see, these lovely young sirens might have been more impressed if my standard letter that was sent to them had mentioned that I'd already met the likes of Richard Branson and dart's player Phil Taylor.

Or as my friend said "First you get the money, then you get 'The Power', then you get the women..."

A line from the film Scarface by the way.

Day 220 (I think) - Greeting Ainsley Harriott

I have just returned home from a very arduous day. Much of it has had been spent in South London.

Those two statements have no corelation by the way. I shall fill you in over the next hour or so, as if you were some prize turkey and I was holding a handful of chestnuts and sausage meat.

For now I'm going to have a cuppa and watch Futarama.

In other words:

(story to follow as well)

107 MINUTES LATER

....So as I was saying, I've been on one mammoth triangular mission today, just like the one that allegedly put paid to JFK I suppose.

I've taken in almost every borough of London, heading from the Central North of the city, to the South West, across to the South East and then back up North again. I've basically cut a slew across a huge dairylea triangle shaped wedge of the Capital.

My day was supposed to have begun at 8.30am at Heart FM radio station near Shepherds Bush where I was to meet DJ Toby Anstis. However, Steph, my contact, texted me late last night to kindly enquire whether wires had been crossed since Toby had been patiently waiting for me YESTERDAY morning.

It seems as though dimwit here made a stupid error in jotting down details of the meeting. I'd got confused (with the emphasis on the fused, what with the crossed wires and everything). Hopefully that one can be re-arranged.

On the plus side, I had a lie-in.

I was then to meet Ainsley Harriott at a TV Studio in Wandsworth, where an episode of Ready Steady Cook was being filmed. The address of the studio was Wandsworth Plain, a name that conjured up images of thousands of bison roaming over Putney Bridge, but I can confirm that I passed no such shaggy animal on my way (although I saw the odd zebra crossing).

What?

I arrived slightly early and the delightful Amy escorted me past the canteen and offered me tea (accepted) and lunch (declined). I tend to lose my appetite just before these meetings you see.

Whilst waiting for Ainsley  to arrive, I wondered to myself whether the person responsible for preparing his lunch would be quaking with fear at having to conjure up a meal for one of the most notable chefs in the country. Not sure.

I was alerted to Ainsley's arrival by a huge peel of laughter (I know it should be spelled 'peal' but I thought it more appropriate to use a reference to food) coming from the corridor.

It wasn't long before I was whisked (there's another one <groan>) onto the set, by another delightful lady, show producer Emma, who took the photo(s). I even managed to swallow my pride and pass a message on to my host from my mother.

"Just to let you know Ainsley, my mum thinks you're lovely."

"Aah how sweet" he replied, before continuing "Wooooweeee hot mamma..."

"Well you haven't seen her yet" I mumbled. (Just a joke if your reading this ma).

After the snaps were taken, I apologised for not taking up the offer of appearing on the show with Michael - pepper kitchen v tomato kitchen - but to be 100% truthful, my kitchen skills are so poor that I actually burnt a fried egg last Saturday.

Everyone was so kind to me today and I thank them all greatly for the welcome and for sending me packing with an RSC (the TV show not Shakespeare) apron, carrier bag, table mat and photo of Ainsley, all signed by the good man himself.

Day 220 - Greeting Gary Bushell

One of my friends has taken to calling me 'Mr Spam' because I recently prepared a meal of corned beef in front of him. I, for one, don't believe that eating this kind of food should be the sole preserve of the over-80's or of people who still use tea cosies.

I'm a staunch advocate of tinned meat products. You can make a lovely meal with corned beef, just chop up a couple of onions, dice them with some beautiful spuds and the beef and then <bosh> you've got a lovely jubbly feast. Pukka !

Well you may think I'm again flying off an angle of 90degrees to the parabola but I only mention this because I just noticed the 'spam' folder of my email homepage.

I've been receiving a stack of emails every day, but I am still trying to reply to every one, although I now notice that I've inadvertently missed a few that have been delivered to the 'spam' section (possibly just in front of the wind section).

I realise this because I just deleted one whose subject title was "there's no-need to feel self-conscious about...." which I assumed was from a company offering genital enlargement but may easily have been from some kind soul concerned about my constant whining references to how unphotogenic I am. So if I've failed to reply to anyone, sorry.

Getting from Wandsworth to Sidcup is not easy.

You need to be both a navigator of World Rally Driving standard and also ambidextrous (to turn the pages of the A-to-Z). I went the Tooting-Streatheam-Norbury-Thornton Heath-Elmers End-Beckenham-Bromley-Chiselhurst route, but there's probably a quicker route.

The journey was relatively uneventful. I do, though, remember passing Bird in Hand Lane near Bickley, which I thought quite appropriate as I had two (meetings) in the bush yesterday.

I also happened to pass extremely close to the home of an ex of mine, Clare with fair hair, who hailed from Bromley. It wasn't a problem, there's no restraining order or anything but I decided not to pop in and say "Hi!" to her parents anyway.

Lovely girl Clare, although I guess I threw a minor spanner into the works when I told her on what I believe was our third date "...y'know this relationship is ultimately doomed. We may as well just carry on seeing each other till we find someone else."

She did before me.

As I approached Sidcup, I phoned Gary who suggested that I pop round to his home, so he joins Sir Patrick Moore, Sir Tim Rice and Lord Archer on a new list of 'famous people's homes I've been in', (not including Scarlett Johansson's, as she wasn't aware of it).

Gary's pretty companion took the photo, I'm not sure why I was directed to stand in that particular spot, possibly because the colour of the wallpaper masked my sickly pale complexion, possibly because Gary wanted his shield in the shot, but after the photo, I was kindly given a signed copy of his book, before I briefly discussed the whole mission with the two of them.

I then let my host get back to watching Eastenders, but not before he'd given me directions up to the Blackwall Tunnell. Having said that, I might as well have walked home, as there was a traffic jam of hugely impressive proportions on the A20 by the Longlands Flamingo Park.

Total time spent in a car yesterday - 3 hours 14 minutes. Distance travelled - about 30 miles.

Day 222 - Greeting Toby Anstis & Jamie Theakston

Only five more days to go, only 46 more meetings needed, only a miracle can save me now.

But so what if I lose. Fine, I'll have to buy Michael a pay-per-view Sky football season ticket. I'll have to sporadically clean his toilet, the bowl of which usually looks like The Somme after a particularly muddy battle. I may even have to stand at Oxford Circus for one entire day trying to get people to donate to the RNIB (lunch-break allowed by the way).

The question is, has it all been worth it? Well someone once said that "time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of it's students," and I suppose if I had my time again I could safely say that I definitely WOULDN'T have taken part in this crazy folly, but it certainly has had it's moments.

Anyway, back to today and it was off to Heart 106.2 FM to greet two DJ's, greetings numbers 53 and 54 respectively.

On driving to Latimer Road this morning, I was deciding whether or not to spill my thoughts out to Toby Anstis when I met him. You see I was considering asking my latest willing listee for advice on affairs of the heart (he does work for that radio station after all).

Basically, I had a dinner date last night that turned out to be.....well, just dinner. I wasn't upset by the non-responsive attitude of the lovely young lady in question, unfortunately she's a little 'confused' at the moment. In other words, confused about how to get out of the awkward situation of being confronted by someone she doesn't fancy.

Well I've known her for a while, and I just thought I'd test the water. I've always been one to rely on the numbers game to be honest. Tell 1,000 beautiful women that you like them and by the law of averages at least a handful will be willing to go out with you - and that's a mathematical FACT (God Bless John Nash - see 'A Beautiful Mind').

It's worked well for me in the past and there's only two requirements to playing the numbers game - That you have no shame (ie the nerve to approach the lady in question) and no pride (ie that you can live with the inevitable insults).

Well again, I'm deviating a little here but I decided not to burden Toby into giving me relationship advice because where would it all end? I might end up confessing that I was having a mini nervous breakdown due to a blocked bathroom toilet. I'm not sure how it got blocked, the only thing I've been flushing down it is toilet paper and an old manuscript of mine.

So I got to the correct road but couldn't for the life of me find the Chrysalis Building and it was then that something really strange happened. Basically every single person I encountered decided to be unbelievably helpful and altruistic. I'm not sure why, possibly because the sun was shining. Or maybe they'd heard the old proverb "Be nice to other people - They outnumber you 5.5 billion to one".

Cabbies and van drivers let me turn in front of them at will, a toddler waved at me from a bus (surely she doesn't read the Metro), an eastern European man in a newsagents actually offered to walk me to the building and a young Irish lady at a bus stop literally showed me to the door.

All of this put me in a really good mood and made me love London even more. There's a thought, maybe I'll ask London out for Valentine's Day?

Well after the crossed wires of earlier in the week, there were no mistakes today. I arrived early and Jane behind reception kindly made the appropriate calls upstairs.

Toby appeared soon afterwards and really was as nice as 3.1415926...etc. (Don't blame me if you don't understand that. You should have paid attention during double maths instead of scratching your name into the desk with a compass).

Jane took the photo and I was then invited into the canteen to sip coffee but the bean doesn't agree with me early in the morning so I politely declined and bid Toby farewell and good luck with his show at 9.00am.

Fast forward 25 minutes and Jamie Theakston appeared, having finished his show at 9.00am. He too was as sound as a quid and was happy to have the photo taken. He also presented me with the auctionable gift, a Heart t-shirt signed by himself, Toby, as well as a couple of other DJ's Emma B and Greg Jones.

So that was it, two more down, one or possibly two more to go.

By the way, I've just re-read this post and realised that I forgot to mention one particularly heated argument that I had ages ago with that walking contradiction in terms, Michael (who by now you know is the guy I made this bet with).

I believe he ended the argument by screaming "I AM altruistic actually, I wish everyone would just p*** off and leave me alone."

D'you see where I'm coming from. 

The Data Day

For the 3rd and final time I've crunched a few numbers for you, like so many nuts and carrots.

I won't be doing this again until I'm asked to include a much more thorough investigation of statistics in the book that I'll soon be compiling.

If said book does miraculously become published, I hope that one day you'll enjoy reading it whilst sitting in the smallest room in the house and trying to squeeze out the previous night's cottage pie.

I love to keep books by my Boss Hogg. Just in case you're interested and frankly I don't care if you're not, the readable objects that are currently sitting next to my blocked toilet are:

1)Soggy and dog-eared copy of The Da Vinci Code

2)Sun Sport's 'Goals' section so the Premiership league table can be analysed in the bath

3) A free edition of some property magazine that I got through the post. I like looking at pictures of posh houses bathed in sunshine

4)Tiny little book about golf anecdotes that my secret santa bought me 3 years ago

5)A-to-Z of London

6)CD cover of the Soundtrack of the film Lost in Translation.

There you go, fascinating.

So here's my final crack at some stats: (Latest are in green, Day 124's are in white, Day 64's are in blue)

Time Elapsed - 7 months 10 days - 98.7% of my time, Day 124  - 58% of time elapsed, Day 64 - 25% of time elapsed

Letters sent: 478 out of 500 - 95.6%   297 out of 500 - 59.4%    118 out of 500 - 23.6%

Replies: 102 out of 478 - 21.34%    52 out of 297 - 17.5%     17 out of 118 - 14.4%

Non replies 374 out of 478 - 78.66%   245 out of 297 - 83.5%      101 out or 118 - 85.6%

Surname initial most likely to reply - Two still lead the way - 'B' (Cherie Blair, Tony Blair, David Baddiel, Iain Banks, Clare Balding, Geoff Boycott, Derren Brown, Richard Branson, Fiona Bruce, Edith Bowman, Tom Baker Gary Bushell) whilst also on 12 replies is 'M' (John Motson, John Major, Patrick Moore, Bernard Matthews, Davina McCall, Chris Morris, John McRirick, Ian McKellen, Andrew Marr, Chris Martin, Alistair McGowan, Dermot Murnaghan).

Breakdown of letters sent by gender: Male 283/297 - 95.28%  Female 113/118 - 95.76%   Male 223/297 - 75.1%  Female 74/297 - 24.9%   Male 95/118 - 80.5%  Female 23/118 - 19.5%

Breakdown of replies by gender: Male 88/283 - 31.09%   Female 14/113 - 12.39%  Male 44/223 - 15%   Female 8/74 - 10.8%    Male 17/95 - 17.9%   Female 0/23 - 0%  

Meetings had or arranged: 54 out of 478 - 11.3%   23 out of 297 - 7.7%   7 out of 118 - 6%

Good to see that all the stats are up but obviously the final one remains the all important one. Remember, I told Michael with drunken bravado in the Crown all those months ago that I'd attain 20% of my meetings.

I won't, but such is life.

Finally, whilst mentioning numbers I'd just like to touch upon yesterday's mention of the Number's Game, as I've had a couple of emails about it.

Firstly, you're quite right Tina, in theory going up to 1,000 women and telling them that you find them beautiful could be regarded as 'sleazy or seedy' or the other thing you said, but I suppose such slurs are a natural by-product of this modus operandi.

However I'd counter your argument by suggesting that sleaziness or seediness very much depends upon how you pay someone a compliment. I personally tend not to use lines like "Aw'right gorgeous, you can call off the search, you're Prince has arrived". In addition, I don't think giving someone a compliment about their beauty really hurts anyone.

Now on to poor sweet Gemma, you're email made me smile.

When I was discussing Nash's Equilibrium and wrote 'see A Beautiful Mind', I should have clarified that 'A Beautiful Mind' isn't the title of one of my posts on this website, so you won't find it, however hard you look.

It's the name of a Ron Howard film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and is about the troubled life of the brilliant mathematician. 

Day 191 - Michael

Good old Michael wants a photo of himself on here as there hasn't been any of him posted since my very first message, so sometime this afternoon I shall be adding one of his rugged IceCube-like (the rapper not a frozen nugget of water) face.

Oooh how exciting for you...

I've pencilled in my meeting with Bruce Oldfield for this Wednesday, the same day that I have my David Suchet meeting, so I don't mind missing work too much as I'm completing 2% of my challenge in 3 hours.

I'm also thinking of  quitting the profession of data entry to take up a job with London Underground. I would love to get paid loads for going on strike all the time.

(1 HOUR 59 MINUTES LATER)

So here's Michael then. I urge you to lock away any small children and for those of you who dont want to know the score......look away now. I also include a picture of the rapper IceCube, a man whom Michael always proudly announces that he resembles.

As you can see, Michael's picture was taken as he was being escorted by his delightful girlfriend to a glamorous film premier, whilst IceCube was posing in a cowboy hat in his bedroom in Childs Hill, North London.

Anyway, when he sent me this photo for inclusion, my old muckker mentioned that he'd also like to include a message for his fans. In other words that lady from Sheffield I mentioned the other day.

I quote him verbatim. Bear with it if you can't make head or tail of it. He's dylexcis.

"Ladies and Gentlemen: here speaks the voice of a soon to be winner (no offence to my scrawny friend) but it’s always nice to win. I know this might sound just a tad arrogant but I see it more as confidence, I am aware Jules has another couple of week to complete his task (more than he deserve with his palled excuses of Christmas, bombs and British deserters) but judging by the stats (for statistics please refer to Jules), I think I did good.

But to be nice for a second about the effort Jules has to put in to this has been quite amazing and feel the RNIB and all his piers should be proud. it is a selfless task, I say selfless his wrist is not as limp any more form all the hand shaking and I’m sure that someone might benefit form the amount of licking he has had to do! That’s envelopes not the ar*s. I wish him the best of luck is the smuggest way possible but “You never can tell sir, you never can tell” ………"

Well did you enjoy, or even understand that?