My five, five minutes of fame

My memories of it are vague but my sister tells me that the Brotherhood of Man said: "Come on everyone!" and waved for the crowd to start singing or clapping or something. Being me, I got the wrong end of the stick and casually wandered on stage to roaring laughter from the crowd. Someone found me a plastic xylophone and stood me next to the keyboard player where I plink-plonked through one of their songs.

I didn't know what all the fuss was about and wondered why the blonde band members kept turning round and giving me cheesy smiles while they sang their song.

Buster comic
My next flirt with fame came when I had a joke published in Buster comic. I used to buy Buster every week and had a Buster annual as standard issue every Christmas. In it there was a jokes page where kids could write in and the best jokes would be published. What was the joke? Bear in mind that I made this joke up myself when I was 10: What kind of stereo do flies listen to? Hi-flies. Tee-hee!

The best thing about it was that a little cartoon was drawn to illustrate it. I had drawn my own one when I sent in the joke because I thought you had to, so I couldn't believe it when I saw that they had drawn a cartoon!

I was so excited when I went to get that copy of Buster! I got my Dad to reserve a copy and I ran down to the newsagent first thing on Saturday morning to collect it! It's still one of my most prized possesions.

Andromeda IV video
In '93 I went to an all-nighter at the Hummingbird called Andromeda IV. Andromeda III in Donnington was one of the best nights of my life and this one just couldn't live up to it.

As always me and my mates had been queing up for ages, so when we got in there we just went mad. Me and my friend Andy were bouncing around like space-hoppers and when I turned around there was a blinding light shining on me. It was someone videoing the night.

And sure enough when I saw the video a few weeks later I was practically the first person on there, jumping around! At my regular club, Quest in Wolverhampton, loads of people had been to Andromeda IV and had also bought the video so I had people coming up to me saying they recognised me all night!

Jellybean
When I was in Swansea I organised my own club night called Jellybean. I really went to town with it and put up teaser posters saying "Where have you BEAN?". On the actual night I put jellybeans on all the tables and made shakers out of tin cans. I didn't make a penny but it was a great success and 120 people came through the door.

It was nerve-racking when it got to 10pm and no-one had arrived but when the club was full up I felt like a rock-star! All these people were having a good time because of me. It was amazing!

Desktop Magazine
I get a lot of people contacting me about my business, Sussed Design, because it is an ethical graphic design company and there aren't many of them around. Someone got in touch from Australia and asked me a few questions for an article they were writing. I nonchalantly answered and thought nothing more of it.

A few weeks later I got a copy of Desktop Magazine, Australia's most popular design mag, through the post with my interview in and some of my design too! I had that Buster comic reaction all over again! Now I get students from Oz emailing me questions about my business. Oh, what it is to be big down under!

The Brotherhood of Man

Jellybean

My interview in Desktop Magazine, Australia.