Oh the shame: Bonus woe

Oh, the shame

Today is my 39th birthday, which will be spent in the rather acceptable company of Australians. Send money and cake. By way of celebration, I present some lovely bonus birthday woe, as posted to a recent b3ta discussion thread on local newspaper appearances. Pretty woeful, I think you'll find.

I was photographed by the Henley Standard as a youth, promoting membership for our Air Cadet squadron. "Join the Spacers - you'll look dead hard and we even let you have GUNS!" It was this: aces.

They put me on the front page, wearing an RAF pilot's helmet, sitting in an old ejector seat out of a Canberra bomber and pretending to pull the release cord. It was the whole "Up up and away, tally ho chaps" full nine yards, and frankly, I looked as nails.

Open up the paper, however, and on page three they had a similar sized picture of some cerebral palsy kid denied a head-dobber by the NHS. He had been photographed in his electric wheelchair, belming away in EXACTLY the same pose as my front page masterpiece, right down to the protective headgear. The bastards.

Fuck me, there were some letters in the following week's edition. I believe I was labeled "an arrogant gun-toting crypto-fascist" by some of the more sensitive readers. Some people still think I might be related to Joey Deacon.

No photos, I'm afraid, as I have made it my life's work to track down and destroy every last copy.

Another dodgy link exchange request, this time from these people. Do you think I should?