Shoeboxes
Wrapping up 165 shoeboxes in wrapping paper full of toys and them being sent to Mosambique. Not sad at all really.

Page 3 mind.
(dirty gypsy, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 21:37, Reply)

In the press again
Also...
Six years ago, Mrs Brett3005 won £20k in a redtop/tabloid competition and we were interviewed by their hack.

After taking some background stuff, he asked us a few questions and then took 2 photos and left.

2 days later, I was puzzled to read that I had "a desire to go to San Francisco" (which was total fiction; that's that camp thing again (see previous)) and that I was about to be made redundant at any moment (it was a vague possibility but didn't happen) and the Paper had came to the financial rescue. The picture that was used looked as if Photoshop had a "spacker button" as I looked a right twunt.

Money was good though.
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 21:22, Reply)

The Sheffield Star
Accidentally set fire to my stepdad's shed, Fire Brigade called out. They could see the exploding paint cans from a mile away apparently.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:46, Reply)

get me eh
the times, no less, for writing a clever essay about a book :-p

local paper when i was 6 for writing a story about a rabbit.

local paper and local radio, various times with various rather local bands, best forgotten :-D
(mouse, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:43, Reply)

Twice!!
I've been in the local paper (The News) for all you southerners twice.

First time i was about 8 or 9, and had to have my photo taken with a local councillor while i was holding a sunflower. think it was something to do with our school getting a playground makeover or something like that.

The next time i was about 14, and was made to stand on my school field with fellow classmates in an 'H' shape while a photo was taken of us from a balcony. it was in support of keeping a local military hospital open, but whether we supported it or not, we still had to stand there and freeze!
(Wibbly Pig, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:38, Reply)

let's see
If we're talking local papers, I was in one for a secondary school open day, one for GCSE-results, and random FunRun shit.
Though I have been in #50 of Official PS2 Magazine, where I got to play Killzone ahead of release.
Quote:
We were a bit worried by the vision of going clubbing and then spying a couple in flagrant delicto.
(Wonchop Where are your goggles, boy?, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:29, Reply)

Remembered my most recent...
I was in the "Best Schools" supplement thing in The Times last year. They took a picture of me allegedly playing my Euphonium, because my college was great at music.

The journalists obviously thought that an obscure instrument would draw in potential parents due to apparent variety, when, in actual fact, nearly everyone plays the guitar or piano or saxophone.
( mr_wicksy is.... old., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:26, Reply)

Oh the shame...
Much as I try to block this from my memory, my "friends" keep it alive.
Many moons ago in my misguided youth (about 15 I guess) I had a collection of Coca-Cola cans and memorabilia (work with me), and my sister's best friend's mum was head reporter on the local paper The Rhyl Journal. A combination to be wary of kids.

It must have been a slow news week when they decided to put me on the front cover with the headline (this is the killer...) "CANNY MATT IS COKE MAD!"

I'm sure my mum still has the cutting but I've burned all other remaining evidence.
(maffj, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 20:17, Reply)

Scout Boss Behind Sick Internet Game !
Local News ? Pffft !

I've been pilloried by The News OF The World. I was running a Dead Pool at the time (1999)and the NOTW contacted me wanting to run a humorous feature on their technology page. I should have smelled a rat, but lo and behold, the NOTW did a full hatchet job, branding the DDP as "The Sickest Site On The Internet". Yeah, sure.

Rumour has it that some Prostitute Cards appeared in phone boxes with the relevant journalist's mobile phone number soon after. But I can't confirm.

(Coincidentally, there's an article on the DDP on a BBC site today ! A bit less inflammatory...)
( Tepid_Halibut felt like a cold, empty shell of a human...until, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 19:47, Reply)

around 1990, my family were in the "daily record"
they did a story on arranged marriages and somehow found out my family is the product of arrangement.
the article was about how they are successful and do work.
little did they ACTAULLY know about us, it's all very well hidden, even to this day.
(VD maaaaaooooooaaaaaaaaammm, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 19:20, Reply)

Got in a spot of bother a few years back...
...all a big misunderstanding really, got a bit messy and I didn't do a very good job of clearing the mess up - it all got reported in the local rag, even my ex-girlfriend got caught up in it, pity really, liked her dress-sense. Just a simple slip in the bath and you end up spending all day posting crap from the prison library computer - ah well, never did like caretaking anyway...
(Chopper3, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 19:01, Reply)

Not Really the Paper...
...but ages ago I was on TV once (sort of).

Channel 4 (I think) decided to interview our pompous arse of a Headmaster in the Library about something or other, and I'm in the background apparently quietly reading a magazine.

What the camera didn't pick up was the fact that I was angrily cursing the lot of them for pitching their cameras and stuff RIGHT ON TOP of my bag AND setting it up so that there was no way I could get out of there, which I had wanted to do about 20 minutes previous to the footage that they actually used.

God dammit, all I wanted to do was return a book.
(Frank Snow, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:54, Reply)

Me: Columnist
Local big paper (Vancouver Sun) years and years ago had a thing where you could write a column and if it was good, they would take a picture of you for the column head and run the column. Called "Voices" IIRC. Anyway -- Me and milady wife each wrote columns for that and got in. I wrote something about how kids fighting now is much more dangerous than it were in my day...
(chazz, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:45, Reply)

Fathers' Day compo
My oldest son won the local shopping mall's "Paint a tie for your father" fathers' day competition when he was four years old. Would have made it into the paper but he was camera shy and wouldn't get into the picture... but he did win a $100 gift certificate for me to an upscale clothing store.
(chazz, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:42, Reply)

It's a risky business, being in the paper
Thirty one years ago, I was pictured in the Kentish Gazette in my cub scout uniform (aged 7) having been snapped while helping on our charity cake stall at the county show. The accompanying article gave my full name and the town where I lived. I recall being slightly excited and considerably embarrassed, with some trepidation regarding the inevitable kicking I would get from my classmates.

The next morning - a saturday - the phone rang and my mum called me, saying it's "Akela", the scoutmaster. I thought he sounded odd, but believed it was really him - after all, mum had said it was. The chap on the phone then proceeded to ask me about the newspaper photo, and so on - then veered off into unfamiliar territory - had I ever been photographed naked, and would I like to be. I was baffled and very uncomfortable, but at seven, didn't know how to deal with an authority figure being weird. He then wanted to know if I'd ever sucked another boys penis, and whether I had any particularly strong views on anal sex. I had no idea what he was on about and stayed on the line in the vain hope that I was misunderstanding and it would all suddenly make sense.

Eventually, his breathing became rather loud, and, with a grunt or two, he rang off. Bemused, I recounted this to mum, who called the police. Eventually, it turned out that there was a repeated problem with this - the perv would see a kids pic in the paper (school sports and scouts being his favourites) and work his way through all the families with the same surname in the phone book, asking to speak to the relevant kid (pretending to be a teacher or some such)until, after several "Sorry, wrong number" calls, he hit the jackpot. They never caught him. And I have tried to stay out of the local rag ever since. Now, of course, we have the internet, and he wouldn't need to go to so much trouble - just pop into a chat room and let them come to you.

Sadly, although I was barely upset by this, I never felt comfortable with the poor scoutmaster who had been impersonated and soon hung up my woggle for ever.
( godstar, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:36, Reply)

Forgot, I know another!
Lol, one of our old managers was in the paper the other week, the News Of the World of all papers. I'll put the link to me blog, as I've described all in that (plus I got a copy of the article on there too).

News Of The World Article

Also, around about the same time in the Sunday magazine, there was a bloke who was in the same all-male secondary school as me for 5 years, who found out that he was actually a SHE. Big two page article on Lisa-Lee Dark, who was formerly known as Lee Dark all his/her life. We always thought he was odd.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:32, Reply)

Not me, but had me laughing
Have been searching all day for the clipping I kept, still unfound.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when on the front of my local newspaper there's a picture of a young girl taking part in an egg and spoon race. The look of concentration on her face perhaps inspired my paper to write the headline:

"Egg and Shhh-Poon"

Hmm, bit dodgy if you ask me.
(CustardCar is riding the back. with a hat., Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:15, Reply)

Gloucester Citizen
In 1994, I was accused of stealing a mattress from a bedsit in Gloucester, in the same street as Fred West lived. Cue much taunting from twunts who had failed to realise the age was a year out, and the person who stole the mattress was the person with the same name in the year below me at school. Apparently this same person was getting molested because the deputy head wanted to talk to me about it and had a shocked dawning face on him when I mentioned that I didn't live with my dad and that he should talk to the other 'me' instead.
( Irregular Shed is trying to remember what it is he does, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:11, Reply)

Was in Swansea Evening Post once
One friday night about 3 years ago, before I finally got out of the parents house, someone had a laugh with us and the neighbours. Late October time at 3am, someone thought it would be a laugh to let off a thirty-rocket-repeating firework behind my fecking house, just to see how many people they could wake up. So, at 9am saturday morning I stumble around the house after feck all sleep getting ready for work, when there's a knock on the door. It was one of the neighbours, calling everyone outside. So I stick me jacket on, and me and me dad (who'se getting ready to take the rotweiler for a walk) stumble outside, right into the middle of a group of people doing a photo-shoot. We get asked along with about 10 other people to have a photo taken of all of us, so we comply.

What fecks me right off about this, is that in the paper there's a modest photo of all of us standing there, and captioned underneath is everyone's name except me where I am classed simply as "other resident". My fecking dog got his name in the paper, but I didn't. Local paper feckers.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:08, Reply)

Horrifically good
Just the other day (Monday) I found myself at the local theatre, all dressed up to go see sing-a-longa Rocky Horror. Now when I say dressed up, I'm talking about stockings, suspenders, corset and thong! One of my female friends gave me a feather boa to complete the look. At the beginning of the show they had a fancy dress competition. There were quite a few entrants, but I somehow managed to win. On my way back to my seat I was dragged to the side by a couple of journalists, who scrawled down a few brief notes and took a few photos. I later found out that the story would be in either the Journal or the Evening Chronicle. I went up to my seat, dreading what people would make of it when they saw it (I work in a school!). The next day I went down to London, leaving at stupid o'clock in the morning, for work, so didn't have the chance to grab a local paper to see if I was in it. I got a text saying I wasn't in the journal, so all was ok... until around 9ish, when I received several texts from people saying they'd seen me in the paper. Apparently the next day at work I was the talk of the staff room (which I stayed away from), but so far the pupils haven't found out... ...yet!

Anyhoo, link to the article be here. I'm the one in the photo at the bottom.
(boxit, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 18:01, Reply)

Pollution
My brother and I were in the Times or something when we were about 5 and 7. We were doing that thing where you brush your hand against all the railings on our way to school, and apparently it looked like we were wafting away noxious fumes from passing lorries.

It's tough at the top.
(Smoot, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:58, Reply)

Daily Mail (x2) Sheffield Star (x1)
I was in the Daily Mail as a "i met my old girlfriend on Friendsreunited and got together story. it was possibly the WORST photograph ever taken of me.

It was then republished the same story a year later. Then the sheffield star published the same story

I had since split up with said first girlfriend. FOOLS!

(i received NO money)
(DrTchock reporting live from the White Chocolate Farm, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:53, Reply)

Can you wait until March?
I get an article in the student paper then.
(underachiever, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:43, Reply)

i was ten


when i was in primary 7, we did a project about a fictitious town called cambusbeg on a hebridean island. everyone in the class was given an identity and (in most cases) a husband or wife.
i was penny farthing and i owned (and made things for) the local craft shop.
that's me holding a clay pot which i DIDN'T make...

edit: i might also add that i was very ill that day but i went into school because i didn't want to miss the "dress up as your character day"
~Brenna
(whatsinaname, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:33, Reply)

Even I can't remember...
I was in the Sunderland Echo when I was 17, for something to do with science at my 6th form. A nice photo of me wearing a white coat and great big bloody goggles on top of my already not inconsiderable specs.

The really strange thing is that I have absolutely no recollection of the reason for the picture. I'm sure my mum remembers though!
(richey, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:10, Reply)

Fire Breathing
I got into the travelling circus, because they wanted a local boy for publicity. God, tv cameramen are twats, they filmes it about 10 times.
Large Photo 1
Large Photo 2
Long Story that's too big to put here
( Nonny Mouse. -- Scared as a Shitting Scorpion, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 17:09, Reply)

those funny nutbars down at the sunday sport nicked my picture

we rang them up and they agreed to send me £20 which never arrived.
( Sunshine Elephant, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 16:59, Reply)

molestE EASTER EGG.
Aged 7, I won a HUUGEE easter egg in a "gu3ss t3h b4l00nz 1n t3h c4r" competion.



Here I am, looking a complete retard, with a watermark over my face, stood next to a peadophilic looking Hyundai salesman.
Took me until November to eat that bastard egg. It was about 2 inches thick.
(cottaging, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 16:09, Reply)

Royal Stamp
When I was a very young child, Prince Charles came to visit my nursery. His missus' regiment was based in the same town, so he often came down to sunny Canterbury for a visit.

I was making a truly spectacular Skittle Brick sculpture until it was cruelly destroyed by the foot of the King to be. I was so upset, I was 3, that I stamped on his foot and cried.

All caught under the watchful TV lens of TVS (now Meridian). Make things worse, my Mum gave me a slap when she saw the news for being rude to a stranger.

It was a bloody good sculpture... and I'd do it again to his foot if I saw him.
(In_there_like_swimwear, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:41, Reply)

I was i the local rag for shouting!!
Yes i went to a school fun day and they had a beat the town crier competition. which my dad, myself and my brother all did with me being the loudest and reaching 123db!!

Also been in for a few other things while i was in the ATC as well
( Plomien is Polish for flame, Thu 10 Feb 2005, 15:37, Reply)