This is my 100th post!!!!!

I have been writing now for 130 days so my average rate is not so bad but I do feel bad for not leaving a post since last Monday; my worst run of form yet. Maybe being beaten three-nil by Everton just left me speechless, this is the first moment I've actually been able to admit to that score-line.

Hello to the new visitors I'm receiving from Liverpool, it is good to have you here. Most of you will have come courtesy of the Liverpool Echo and I am very grateful to them for running the story of the quest so far. I'll point out for those of you with eagle eyes that the signed photograph is of Peter Beardsley and not Philip Beardsley. If you want to catch up with the story so far then you can do that here.

Since this is the first news story about the 'Money For Old Rope' campaign I have published the story below. I have only read the web version which does not have pictures on it and so I have not seen the large picture of me and Paul Willgoss from GUCH although I have been told by my Mum that it looks like I could lose a couple of stone. They say the camera adds 10 pounds, and I did have 3 photos taken so that could explain it.

I have never been very photogenic and the fact that I'm looking in the wrong direction probably doesn't help but if anyone has a scanner and wants to send me a copy then please feel free. I should receive mine around Tuesday in the post as I missed the papers last night.

I was hoping that the coverage on the Liverpool Echo might get me onto Google News but that doesn't seem to have happened.


Here is the Liverpool Echo story in full:

Swop shop for heart charity

Sep 15 2006

Liverpool Echo


A NUCLEAR consultant is hoping to get money for old rope - and send it to a heart charity.

Paul Youngson, 24, was born with congenital heart problems and had to have a series of operations when he was three months old.

Now the safety consultant is hoping to raise thousands of pounds by trading an old piece of rope for prizes.

Mr Youngson, from Hale Village, got the idea from a news story about a man who started with a paper clip and continuously swopped it until he ended up with a house.

He is just four months into his trading and Mr Youngson has got his hand on a Xabi Alonso shirt from Liverpool Football Club.

The former Alder Hey patient said: "I started with a piece of old rope and swopped it for some scissors.

"Then I got an email from an Australian man whose son had been born with congenital heart disease and he traded a shirt he had worn to the Olympics where he was a steward.

"I swopped this for as signed photo of Philip Beardsley and Liverpool FC traded this for Alonso's shirt."

Mr Youngson plans to continue trading for 18 months, and then auction whatever he is left with for heart charity Guch, which works with people who have congenital heart disease.

To follow his progress see money-for-old-rope.blogspot.com and to learn more about congenital heart disease see www.guch.org.uk