Just hangin around
Me and my family were in various papers and on TV after our holiday had a slight accident. We were in Llandudno, in Wales and were taking the cable car back down the Great Orme when it stopped suddenly. We were left hanging just over 150 feet in the air above the dry ski slope there. The fire brigade could do nothing as no ladders could reach, so the police had to track down the key holders who had shut up and went home for the night as they miss-counted the cars coming back in. Cue being on the local TV station and reporters ringing neighbours and family to see if we had called them and to get the scoop. We were in the Daily Record and had a picture in the Evening Times when we got back as they sent a photographer to the door. If my dad hadn't lost the papers years ago I would scan it to show what a gormless twunt I looked back in the late 80's.

Check out the girth on that one ladies!!!
(Billy Sastard, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:27, Reply)

Top of the Form
I appeared in my local rag (the Sutton Guardian, provincial journalism fans!) for being part of a school quiz team. For the FOURTH consecutive year. They even referred to me as a 'quiz veteran.' I was 10 years old, you wankdogs, I can't even spell veteran!

The accompanying photo formed my only entry in the scrapbook my parents kept, reserving most of the space for my older brother's heroic footballing exploits, the sporty twat.
( <somethingfunny> hasn't said anything funny since, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:26, Reply)

Tin Foil Mouse Boy
I've been in the Sandhurst and Camberley rag a few times as a kid. My strangest experiance was when I was an the type of earnest, animal-rights teenager that only sprouted up in the eighties. I, and the rest of the Camberley & District Animal Rights Group, went to do a protest outside the local branch of Boots the Chemist.

The protest was against some sun-tan lotion company who were shaving mice, pinning them down and sticking them under ultra-violet light to test how well their lotion worked on the poor little, burning buggers. Or something.

The local animal-rights group was made up of some sweet, human-hating old biddies and me so I had to be the one who was to demonstrate the fate of the poor mice.

They back-combed my hair, made me wear a rubber mouse-nose on my face, wrapped me in tin-foil, pinned me to a big board and made me stand in Camberley town center on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Shortly after about all my mates and every girl in Camberley (and surrounds) that I'd ever wanted to cop-off with had walked past, the local newspaper reporter and photographer turn up, eager for a scoop.

My mum's still got the clipping somewhere.
(skitster, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:25, Reply)

So many embarrassing moments
Holding a cricket bat signed by the England cricket team that was being auctioned for some local charity. Our next door neighbour was Ian Botham's godfather, so he pulled a few strings to get it. For some unfathomable reason, they chose me to model the bat, despite having all the coordination of a giraffe. My mum still has the photo somewhere in the drawer with all the other embarrasssing crap.
( winston_theramin, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:18, Reply)

My school's football team were in the Ashby-de-la-Zouch local paper
for playing a charity football match against the Vietnamese boat people.

We won 12-0
( MartinH, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:09, Reply)

Nearly in paper
When I was in the last year of school the council were threatening to close our 6th form and replace it with a "Centre for Lifelong Learning" somewhere else. A bunch of us formed a kind of protest group and the people came from the paper to interview us. They talked to us all for ages and spent an equally long time posing a photograph. When the paper came out they had run the article without the picture, and the text finished halfway through a quote from our headteacher. Although I should have expected as much, said newspaper is not fit to line the cat litter tray if you ask me.
(SillyWilly, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:09, Reply)

capt carl!
You didn't own a mini by any chance did you? ......

Just checked your website. I know you. Guess who I am. :-)

You're Carl Barton aren't you? Ok, couldn't remember your surname but I saw it off a site off yours. :-)

There actually used to be a picture of us on the O'Neills picture board. If you can remember it.
( Evil Bastardo, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:33, Reply)

not the paper but...
something better. my arm is in a photo in the programme for the British Grand Prix of either 1992 or 1993, not sure which. This is cos i had my picture taken with a load of BTCC drivers in 1992 presumably for promotion, but the British Grand Prix publishers cut it down a bit, so all that's in it is my left arm.
( mr_wicksy is.... old., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:25, Reply)

I once got into an arguement with my neighbor...
... He thought my trees bordering on his property were too tall and wanted me to cut them down. I refused. That's it.

I love small towns. They are so dull, that this kind of thing then becomes the worthy of a mention in the local paper.
(nordicapollo, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:06, Reply)

Various
Photo in Croydon advertiser with a group of friends raising money for charidee by wearing our dressing gowns at a local station.

Appeared on various local news show over the years while in The Tall Club of Great Britain, (club is still going BTW, though I am no longer a member.) Best one was a film showing a group of men going into a clothing shop and finding a pair of trousers was too short. They were actually way too long so they had to be held very high against the body to look short.

Had lots of letters printed in a computer game magazine years ago.
(Glen Moranjie, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:05, Reply)

80's teenage twat in local paper shocker
As a teenager, I was never out of the local rag for one swotty school related reason or another. But the the zenith (or nadir) of this publicty came when I was the managing director of a Young Enterprise Company at school. We were mentored by Bells Whisky, who had a great PR department.

The Bells types announced that on Friday we (Me and 3 others) were to be whisked off to their headquaters for a big press launch. Cue blind panic when we realise all the local publicans will read this paper and realise that we are all under-age!! (I was drinking like a bastard, even then.) So the cunning plan was to dress in our most mature looking civies so it didnt look at first glance we were still at school.

To cut a long story short, I must have had some sort of psychotic episode and I ended up looking like I was " Mr. New Romatic does Business clothes"; Black and grey striped baggy morning suit trousers with flouncy white shirt with wing tip collar, all neatly set off with my patent leather Doc Martin shoes. There may have been a narrow black tie but I cant be sure. Oh, and I had a semi mullet too.

To say I looked like the campest member of Japan was an understatement. To this day, I am suprised that the less tolerant at my school didn't go in for a bit of "queer bashing".

My bastard friends chickened out and arrived in school uniform, and stood behind "the gimp" (me) as not to be spotted, successfuly too I may add.

Of cousre it didn't occur to me the reporter would ask my age either and put incriminating words like "school boy", "6th year pupil" & "Brett3005, age 17" in the piece.

Fucksocks.

Still got served though, probably through pity.
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:01, Reply)

Sunderland Echo
When I was nine, and my sister ten, my dad thought it would be a good idea to have us each take the Mensa test.

We both achieved rather high scores (I had an IQ of 175 and my sister, always out to beat me, scored 176), resulting in the Sunderland Echo sending round a photographer to take our pictures. I'm not going to scan the photo in as I still have nightmares over the taunting it provoked from my friends at the time. Suffice it to say that I looked like a complete gormless twat.

I'm no longer able to score highly on IQ tests as I've addled my brain with drink and mad cow disease.
( jonas is not my name, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 14:00, Reply)

The Kingsbridge Gazette
I work in Kingsbridge in Devon, which is a half hour drive from where I live; Plymouth. One morning, me and my BF who is also my workmate, were accosted having just parked in the car park by a nice lady with a notebook.

She wanted to know how we felt about the proposed building of a Tesco on our carpark, and where we would park if it happened.

Then she sneakily whipped out a camera and snapped us. Sure enough, that week there we were in the gazette, railing against Tesco stealing our carpark, with stupid 'It's 9am and I don't want to be photographed' looks on our faces.
( notshiny, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:59, Reply)

These boots were made for walking......
When I was about 13 I went through the usual rebellious phase and decided that instead of the regulation school shoes that girls had to wear I'd wear boots like all the boys instead. Therefore I got sent home everyday as soon as I turned up for registration to change into something more 'suitable'. I was chuffed as fluck with this but after a week of it my arsehole of a dad thought it would be a good idea to ring the local paper and get some twisted sick little photographer & journalist to come round and spill his guts to the entire population of Lincolnshire. Hence me the following Monday on the entire front page of the local rag with a massive picture of me and said boots with the headline 'These boots were made for walking but not to the (Name of Shite Secondary School)'. Almost collapsed and died at the shame which could only have been beaten by the following week the same thing again - all over the front page but this time saying I was going back to school as I was 'worried about my studies'. Worried about my studies my arse - I had to go back to stop myself kicking my dad's teeth down his throat.
(Loving Vixen, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:52, Reply)

I had to attend a Kitchen Showroom
open day type thing for my (local) magazine and here I am! Only this is seconds before I tipped the contents of the glass (water cos they're cheap) down the plughole of an unplumbed in sink in front of the whole company, I just ran out the door... It's my last day tomorrow.

( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:47, Reply)

Isle of Wight Youth Orchestra
A supposedly gifted musician, I won alot of cups in competitions playing the piano, but as a spotty 4ft something teenager I used to clang the cymbals in the percussion section of said orchestra - with Mark King from Level 42, just to namedrop. I remember the piece of music - it only had one clang throughout the whole piece, and it was cruicial I got it right. Who writes about cymbalists ? Cue some wanker of a reporter who must have watched me - local rag wrote :

"Under such good guidance the orchestra produced both technique and enthusiasm: not least, the utter concentration shown by the miniscule and captivating cymbalist. If we all counted as carefully as she did, the world would be a better place"

I failed maths and a bunch of other exams at school, so just goes to show I can't count, and what's worse, is that I'm now an accountant.
( Tiggy the diver, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:28, Reply)

When i was younger
I used to write for our local rag. I was about 14 and did it through the school to keep the community abreast (titter) of all the things we werent doing in our shitty high school.

One of the choice moments was an interview with a teacher who had "amusingly" dressed himself as a clown/paedophile for chariddee and finished with the line "Im sure the first years are aching for your entry"

Also an interview with Edwin Morgan (at the time poet laureate af scotland) was inadvertantly cut short when i admitted i thought his stuff was pretentious shite. Think he also heard me call him Jobby Teeth as i being ushered out of the room. Ah well, you win some...

apologies for length and dullness.
(Rushy, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:26, Reply)

Am I A-list yet?
At about age six I was in the Bury Free Press (Bury St. Edmunds, not Bury in Lancashire) at a model train exhibition with about six other kids. My younger sister was at the front holding a train because she cried when I was picked and not her.

I was also in the Cleveland Clarion or something when I was part of our Sixth Form's victorious maths challenge team. Specifically I was the one who went when someone else couldn't make it and someone was missing when the photographer came round.
( Bagpuss, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:25, Reply)

WIGAN REVELLER!
Did you work in Wigan O'neills? I worked there for nearly 2 years..
(Capt_Carl, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:21, Reply)

Student strikes
In 1990, we french students were on strike, can't exactly remember the reason, actually. It went on and on and on, more than 2 weeks, because it's nice not to go to school. Protesting in the streets was fun for a few hours, but quickly most of us were spending our days in the cafés. Some journalist interviewed me and my friends an afternoon. We were rather pissed and talked a lot of shite, in fact, we were laughing at the strike. The next day on the frontpage of the local newspaper there was a nice picture of 3 half-drunk 17 year old blokes sitting in front of several beer glasses, peanut packets and playing dice games. The title said 'Students :not a hunger nor thirst strike'. Mum wasn't pleased.
(Bertie, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:13, Reply)

Band aid
not really amusing... i was in bolton evening news for a band aid pic, im the tall scarey on.
(Dark-Angel, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:12, Reply)

Not me but...
...my brother inlaws brother, had fallen off a railway embankment (20ft up) onto the tracks (pissed) and had broken most of his limbs and was unconcious blah blah.

Cue local rag (Bolton Fuckshaft or something) wanting the full story from his mum and dad, but they didn't want to comment.

Next day they print a full (completely made up) interview from both Ma and Pa.

Fucking shits!

And every reporter I've ever met is an absolute cheap Topman suited ignoramus fuckwitted cunt and I hope they all die.

*WANKERS*
(cherry B, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:08, Reply)

Back in Primary school...
all the cool girls wore trousers, but I had to wear one of those stupid pleated skirts. It wasn't all bad though; myself, 2 other girls who wore skirts that one single day on the off chance, and a few lads, were chosen to pose for a photo in the local paper. I had no idea what I was endorsing, but I felt so proud of myself... my mam didn't even buy the bloody paper :(
( Kittenpants, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:04, Reply)

Football, Cricket, multiskilled me!
Got onto the back page of the local paper in Swindon for getting a point for the first time in 2 seasons. Very superb rear-page spread. Have had my name in the Oxford Times every now and again for cricket. Also, Shrivenham CC 2nd XI got in the Daily Telegraph for bowling a team out for 8 runs. Took 4-5 runs in that one! Hurrah for sporting success.
(Jambon, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 13:04, Reply)

..xx..
Was in the local paper for about 3 days running when I was 5... the picture was of me kissing some boy under the mistletoe (he was also about 5). Bless...
(emma_fisi, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:54, Reply)

All by myself...
I was in one of our local papers for being the only child in hospital on Christmas day when I was 10... there had been loads of others in the ward but they all went home for the day before the photographer arrived. So it was just me (complete with nasal feeding tube), Father Christmas and some of the nurses. cue much sympathy and LOADS of presents :-)
Amazingly that was one of the better photos of me in the local paper...
(ps. very sorry Haz, you love me really!)
(bazmataz, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:51, Reply)

Catalogue of shame
Various appearances in various brass bands. Dull so we won't dwell.

About 25 years ago I won some crap essay competition sponsored by the Labour Party. They printed the whole thing in the county paper. Featured execution by lamp post but was utter shite.

Craigshill High School Junior Mastermind 1978. Cue picture of twat with crap trophy and awful side parting in pathetic attempt to hide very spotty forehead. Oh the shame.

Oh, yeah, and me and the missus are in a tourism brochure for Bitburg, playing baritones.
( High Lord Phanty, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:50, Reply)

not a local paper but a magazine
Mountain Biker International, probably 6 or 7 years ago... after a succesful race at the national championships at Malvern, me and three of my mates were absolutely wombled, so we went skinny-dipping at about 1am, in a lake, about 100 yards from the bar tent thing. This attracted some attention. Including MBI's photographer, who proceeded to take a picture of us as we clambered out, naked, with pants on our heads.

Did I mention it was about 1am? it wasn't warm...

Caption when published: "The heat was like a furnace during the day, but it seems to have cooled down a lot in the evening - doesn't it lads?"

Bastard.

I'd apologise for length, but if you'd seen the picture, you'd know I was lying..
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:41, Reply)

My dad
Got his photo into the Cardiff rag by putting on a red dress and going for a run with several hundred similarly minded people. Or mindless...

And a friend of his got awarded best Dr Who outfit at his local pub competition-thing. He only wandered down for a quiet pint.
( TechImp is trying to be nice (with great difficulty)., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:40, Reply)

Was doing some "charity work" for my da...

...This involved going to the pub with 3 mates for a charity pub quiz, my dad paired us up with a couple old local guys he knew that didnt have a team. Anyway, we then progressed to get nicely drunk (but nowhere near as drunk as my da's team who came near last) and win the quiz!! This was helped by the fact that the last round was a music round (double points) and as we were the youngest there we were the only people who knew the names of the artists/songs of last months chart hits.

Cue the photo for the paper, and we got a bottle of whiskey each :-D

(Trying to get a pizza afterwards in the local pizza shop while holding a bottle of whiskey was also fun)
( moomin-papa ; folkin class., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 12:31, Reply)