Money For Old Rope

2007-07-18T12:27:00.000+01:00

Its been a very busy couple of weeks in Paul-land.

I spent a three week period at a secondary school in Manchester to learn what it is to be a teacher. It was a very enjoyable placement and I was amazed by how lovely the pupils were, not what I was expecting after reading a few Daily Mail headlines.

I then went to Greece for a week to enjoy the sun (it has done nothing but rain for a month in England). It got upto 38 degrees centigrade there - I got slightly pink.

But that's OK as I had decided to dye my hair blue just before I went on holiday. Blue and pink are hardly complimentary colours as I'm sure you'll understand. I'll try to get some pictures on here but in the meantime I'm sure you can use your imaginiation.

No news on the trading front - the press interest has started to die down now but I'll try to revive it over the next few weeks.

Wish me luck.

2007-06-30T12:49:00.001+01:00

A lot can happen in a week.

Last week the wonderful people at Salford University's marketing department crafted and distributed a press release for 'Money For Old Rope'. Within a couple of days I had been to Old Trafford to have my photo taken for the Manchester Evening News, and I had been invited to be a guest on Channel M's news at 9.

Channel M is a channel which serves Manchester (hence the M); however, what I did not realise until about an hour before I was due to be on the show was that anyone in the country can receive it through SKY digital and all programs are streamed live through their website.

Not only this but the piece was actually to be filmed live. Scary!

To their credit the people at Channel M were lovely and made me feel relaxed, as did two of the other guests who seemed so much more confident than me. My wife also helped me to calm down as she knows just how much I wind myself up before public speaking events. In the end - it went quite well.

I was on at 9.25 as one of the lighthearted news items after all of the serious news was out of the way and that suited me just fine. The interviewer was very friendly and asked lots of leading questions which helped me along greatly. The interview lasted about three minutes but it seemed to go on for eternity.

I recorded it to watch when I got back home and it was very strange watching yourself on TV. I will try to get it uploaded onto this site as soon as I can so you can see it in all its glory.

In the end I think it was very succesful, I got to tell the world (well, the few thousand that were tuning in) about what I was doing and what the charity does. Only time will tell whether it actually comes up with a trade.

2007-06-24T16:35:00.000+01:00

A quick rundown of what has happened so far:

I started off with a single piece of old rope and a blog called 'money for old rope'. From this blog I launched the quest and stated that I would trade the piece of old rope for something better; almost immediately Angela on the Wirral came back to me to say that she would like to trade with me. Angela - like me - was born with congenital heart disease and wanted to help those less fortunate than ourselves who were severely affected by congenital heart disease.

She offered me 18 pairs of craft scissors: an unusual trade, I'm sure you'll agree; however, there is a good reason for the trade. In olden times when the consequences for crimes were a little more harsh than today, hangmen used to do quite a roaring trade. At the end of their gruesome job each day they would sell the rope onto the audiences to supplement their meagre wages. Enterprising hangmen would cut the rope up into small pieces to increase the return on each rope. Apparently this is where the term 'money for old rope' comes from. Gruesome!

Having watched Dave Gorman's Googlewhack I decided that it would be a great idea to visit each trader. So off I went on a huge quest down the M62 from Manchester to Birkenhead (Not exactly Frodo's quest, more of a preamble). I made the trade with Angela (left) and was quite pleased with myself - one week in and one trade completed.

A week after this I received an email from a man named Tim in Australia. His son suffers from congenital heart disease and at that time was in quite a bad way with it. He loved the trading idea and wanted to be a part of it, he offered me a tee-shirt which he wore as a steward at the Sydney 2000 Olympic games for the 18 pairs of craft scissors. How could I say no - two trades in two weeks, I immediately wrote back to say yes - but how would I get there to make the trade. I looked at tickets to Australia and my holiday entitlement at work and decided that Dave would be very disappointed in me because I just would not be able to do this for each trade. Not to worry.

Tim was as good as his word and sent the shirt straight to me and he received the scissors some days later. I decided that I would cut the original piece of rope up and so Angela got duped in some way - it was actually her idea - so Tim also received a piece of the original rope. Here he is proudly displaying the rope that he received (right).

Since taking part in this trade Tim has decided to start his own trading game in Australia with all the proceeds going to Heartkids Australia. At the time of going to press he is up to a signed frame print of Dennis Lillee.

What do you do with a Sydney 2000 Olympic steward's shirt? I had no idea but I started at the memorabilia collectors - I know that it is not worth much but it is for charity, surely someone will want to trade. I found that someone as Soccerbid.co.uk; they were excellent and gave me a choice of a great many items, all of more value than the shirt itself. I chose a signed photo of Peter Beardsley: how could you turn that down; a signed photo of the most fantastic players (not to mention one of the most ugliest) ever to grace a football pitch.

I had a great many suggestions about where the trading could go next - perhaps parents would want the photo to put on the mantelpiece and scare their children. I chose to email the clubs that Mr Beardsley had played for - Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle. Everton wrote straight back to say that they would have a think about it - I guess they are still thinking about it as I have received no reply. I got nothing from Newcastle either but Liverpool wrote to me to say that they liked it and have put an item in the post.

I figured they must have misunderstood my email. I wasn't asking for free gifts - what if the item wasn't as good as the signed photo of Peter Beardsley. I got straight on the phone to them; I must say at this point just how amazed I was with how down to earth Liverpool FC's Public Relations Department are - they are very lovely people. They told me that they had liked the story so far and had decided to send me a shirt that had been made for Xabi Alonso - not only that but the shirt had been made in case Liverpool played in France where alcohol sponsorship is banned. This made the shirt one of a kind as it had no sponsor and Alonso's name on the back.

As you can tell - I did not argue. "so should I send you the signed photo of Peter Beardsley?" I enquired. They didn't want it - If you had won 18 league titles and 5 European cups would you want a signed photo of Peter Beardsley for your trophy room. So I have a dilemma - the trading hasn't really worked out - the only way I could see to continue was to have two simultaneous trades going. I still have the Peter Beardsley photo to this day if anyone is interested in trading with me.

At this point I hit somewhat of a dead-end. I tried for many months to keep the momentum going but sadly I seemed to be flogging a dead horse. I'm not really proud that I gave up but I couldn't see any other way - I spent months emailing golf clubs, garages, hotels, anyone who might be willing to trade with me. And then, out of the blue, one of the very first emails I sent months previously hit its mark.

David, from memorabiliainvestor.com, emailed me to ask if I would like to trade with him for a Wayne Rooney match shirt. He argued that while maybe not as unique as the Alonso shirt, it is a much more familiar name in this country and subsequently it is worth much more - one was recently auctioned with a guide price of £1000. I pretty much bit his hand off to get hold of it.

He suggested that I try to get it signed which would increase both the value and the press coverage of the quest. This started off very brightly - I managed to get all the way through to the Football Media Manager at Manchester United who then forwarded my email to Wayne Rooney's agent Paul Stretford. Fantastic, I will have the signature in no time I thought. It's been two months and I'm still waiting for a reply so that didn't work out so well. It looks like I may have to carry on without the signature.

So this is where I am up to: I have a Wayne Rooney match shirt and a signed photo of Peter Beardsley. Do you want either of them? Make me an offer. I will consider all offers, the final item(s) will be auctioned off early in November - you can see the countdown timer on the right. All monies will be given to GUCH a charity that help people (both young and old) with congenital heart disease.

I was born with congenital heart disease and had open heart surgery twice when I was a child. This corrected the problem and I now lead a healthy, happy life. Some children are not so lucky; medical science in this area is getting better and better and the chances of CHD being picked up in children is much better than it used to be, however, there is still so much room for improvement. GUCH supports children and adults who are affected in their day to day lives with congenital heart disease, it also supports their families and friends - they are a very worthy charity and that is why I have decided to undertake this uptrade challenge.

Please, please take part in some way.

Thank you.

2007-05-22T14:11:00.000+01:00

The quest for Wayne Rooney's signature is not going too well. If I had just won the Premiership and took part in a an FA Cup final then I would probably want to go on holiday so its understandable.

Time for plan B to kick into action...

2007-05-09T13:09:00.000+01:00

I hope you all had a good bank holiday, as you can tell from the lack of posts over the last few days mine was quite good.

The quest is reaching it's final quarter now and I need to trade the Wayne Rooney match shirt. Manchester United won the Premiership this weekend with Chelsea's draw at Arsenal. Wayne was a real inspiration this season and did not let the side down at any point.

Hopefully this can only serve to increase the interest in the trading, so if you know someone, or even if you yourself might want a Wayne Rooney match shirt then get in touch. I would be delighted to hear all offers that people might have for the shirt.

Continuing with the music mondays from last week (only two days late) here is my favourite summer tune of the moment by Jamie T - If you got the money.

2007-05-04T16:50:00.000+01:00

So, I tried to post to blogger using my mobile phone yesterday. As you can see from the lack of any post: that didn't work too well.

So much for new technology.

I'll be using the good old PC from now on. They can put a camera, a videocamera, a keyboard and even a windows operating system on the phone but what's the use if you can't even post from the middle of nowhere.

I still love my new phone by the way.

For those readers in England (and maybe other places in the world) it is the May Bank Holiday weekend starting in a few minutes when everybody leaves work. It should be a nice one looking at the weather reports so I've come up with a couple of ideas for those of you who are looking for something to do.

I say that I've come up with them but really I've ripped them straight off the bhf website but they will be enjoyable all the same.

The first is a bike ride in Wimborne (Dorset) to raise money for the British Heart Foundation. Entry is £15 and while it may be a little late to run around getting sponsorship, the £15 is still going to a worthy cause. It will also be a chance to get that rusty old bike out of the shed and give it what its been longing for - a bit of fresh air - it might even do you some good too.

The second event - also run by the British Heart Foundation - is a family walk around Bewl reservoir in Tunbridge Wells (Kent). It is only £3 to enter and you can walk either 3, 6, 9 or 13 miles which should be a thoroughly enjoyable stroll through a beautiful part of the world on what is looking like a glorious day (Sunday).

Whatever you plan to do, have a great bank holiday.

2007-05-02T14:06:00.000+01:00

I look like Gregory Peck...

I also look like Steven Gerrard and Hilary Duff, which is kind of strange. I was always told I looked like Jonathan Woodgate or Iian Lee from the 11 O'Clock show but maybe they're not celebrity enough to show up.

In other news, more than 7000 people have now viewed the Money For Old Rope blog, this is fantastic support, mainly through word of mouth. I'm aiming now to try to take this quest to the next level by getting into the news; there are only 190 days to go, not very long in the land of charity trading.

2007-04-30T12:56:00.000+01:00

I've been looking with interest lately at the other trading games that had been spawned since Kyle McDonald traded his red paperclip for a house. There seems to be only one other one that is still going strong.

Tim in Australia decided to do his bit for charity by trading a zipper for something bigger and so on in the same vein as Kyle's oneredpaperclip project. He called it The Special Zipper so called after the scar that many heart kids have on their chest after open heart surgery - yes, I have one too.

He has currently made 5 trades (much the same as this blog) and is now on a signed frame print of Dennis Lillee. It was Tim who gave me my second trade and I will always be grateful for that. We all wish him the very best of luck and hope he can reach his goal of raising $10,000 for Heartkids Australia.

At the time there were literally hundreds of trading games to come out of Kyle's overcoat but only two were for charity and those are the two that still going strong - Money For Old Rope and The Special Zipper.

Tim and other readers of his blog have been setting aside Mondays for music videos from YouTube. I would like to add my contribution by joining in on Music Monday™, bringing you Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip with my favourite song of the moment "Thou shalt always kill", which contains the excellent line "Thou shall not judge a book by it's cover, thou shall not judge Lethal Weapon four by Danny Glover"

Enjoy...

2007-04-29T14:41:00.000+01:00

We've come a long way,

a Money For Old Rope search on Google now lists this blog as the second most popular result, it wasn't even on the front page a few months back. This just shows the amount of interest that is growing at the moment around the Wayne Rooney match shirt.

I have now got the ball rolling with a request to Manchester United for Wayne Rooney's signature, as you well know from previous posts it would do the trading challenge the world of good if we could secure that. More exposure for the blog means a greater chance of trades and more exposure for the charity, which at the end of the day is what this is all about.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Bye for now.

2007-04-28T13:05:00.000+01:00

I have a few more deatils about the Wayne Rooney shirt now:

The shirt was purchased from a reputable dealer,
It has many differences from a standard replica shirt, including:
the Premier League specification size and material name, number and sleeve patches,
larger air vents and Nike motif,
no wash labels,
the shirt is basically superior in every way,
a similar shirt was auctioned at Christies recently with a guide price of £800-£1000.

I am currently trying to find a way to get Wayne Rooney to sign the shirt, this will substantially increase the status of the item and help the fundraiser a great deal.

If you have any ideas or know how the best way I might approach Wayne Rooney/Manchester United for a signature then please let me know.

2007-04-27T10:54:00.000+01:00

Well here is the first picture of the Wayne Rooney shirt coming to you courtesy of sunny Salford.

For those of you joining me for the first time, the Rooney match shirt was swapped with David of memorabiliainvestor.com for the Xabi Alonso Champion's League shirt with no sponsor.

It has been a long slog to get this far via a piece of old rope, 18 pairs of craft scissors, a Sydney 2000 stewards shirt and a signed photo of Peter Beardsley.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken part so far for their generosity and hope that others will join in and help me to make the next trade bigger and better than the last.

Thank you.

2007-04-26T22:07:00.000+01:00

Sorry, no photographs...

I got home tonight to find that the camera I use to take pictures for this blog had gone kapput. I have the Wayne Rooney shirt in my hands but no way to get a picture to you out there. My camera phone is primative at best and with no flash in artificial light the shirt barely registers.

I will however endeavour to get some photographs for the site tomorrow.

'til then, goodnight.

2007-04-25T10:16:00.000+01:00

It would be impossible to leave a blog today without mentioning Wayne Rooney's goal against AC Milan last night.

The score was 2-2 at Old Trafford and in the 90th minute Rooney scored to make it 3-2. I've embedded another YouTube video for all those who didn't see it last night. You will, quite correctly, hear the commentator call Rooney a prodigious talent; to have a match winner like Rooney in the team has made Manchester United this season.

You can have his shirt if you want, it should arrive today. All you need to do is think of something that you would like to trade, it could be anything, the more rare and unusual the better. I will think seriously about all offers and make a decision once I feel that an offer meets up to or exceeds the value of a Wayne Rooney match shirt.

Once again, enjoy:

2007-04-24T10:20:00.000+01:00

The next trade is to be announced...

The One-of-a-kind, generously donated Xavi Alonso Liverpool Shirt is to be traded with an equally generous man who emailed me the other day.

He owns the site www.memorabiliainvestor.com, an online trade and discussion venue for collectors and reputable dealers of various forms of memorabilia.

Anyway, onto the the trade.

The trade is for a Wayne Rooney match shirt. This may seem like a side-ways step to many readers outside of the UK; however, Wayne Rooney is quite possibly the best player of a generation, he is also much more well known than Xavi Alonso.

Alonso is a fantastic player but he keeps his head down and works hard, unfortunately that doesn't get you as well known as it probably should in a perfect world. Rooney on the other hand seems to court controversy, is in and out of the tabloids weekly and is absolutely magic to watch when he is on form.

There seems no better way to celebrate a player nowadays than with a youtube montage, enjoy.

2007-04-23T11:41:00.000+01:00

Volcanoes have been very much on my mind of late. There is much debate amongst vulcanologists about exactly when a volcano goes from being active to dormant and then to completely extinct.

Some volcanoes erupt everyday and are easy to classify, they are clearly active. Some haven't erupted in a hundred thousand years but there are still signs that they might do something sometime soon, they are clearly dormant. There are some however that refuse to listen to what they're told. Millions of years after they last erupted they suddenly burst back into life with a bang and become active.

Ok, so it's only been three months since my last post - not exactly millions of years, but in blogging terms it might as well be. But I am coming back with a bang.

Watch this space...

2007-01-22T09:00:00.000Z

The story that has spread like wildfire across the globe last week (aside from Jade Goody) is one originally published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The findings from a study in Quebec have shown that the number of adults with congenital heart disease has risen by 85% and the number of children living with congenital heart disease has risen by 22%. The data was from 1985 and 2000.

We can be pretty sure that the number of babies being born with congenital heart disease has not fluctuated so massively as to cause these numbers. It must be put down to better surgical techniques and diagnosis.

There are still children dying from undiagnosed heart conditions so those numbers still have room to move on the diagnosis front. Surgical techniques are also getting better so it can be realised that the number of adults living with congenital heart disease will continue to rise for a considerable amount of time to come.

2007-01-16T14:03:00.000Z

Not much news on the fundraiser front I'm afraid. My latest great idea, actually it was my colleagues idea, was to contact all the golf clubs in Liverpool to see if any would be willing to swap the Liverpool shirt for something desirable such as a years membership. The shirt could make a nice addition to their 19th hole and create some welcome publicity but after contacting 30 golf clubs there have been no takers.

I'm asking for a little help from my readers now, can you think of any businesses that may be willing to trade the shirt for some publicity? I have come up with car dealers and supermarkets and will be contacting them in the next few days. If you have any ideas then please let me know.

2007-01-12T10:06:00.000Z

I know I've not been blogging much lately, but a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes to try to bring the next trade to fruition.

I now have some very good ideas of where I want this to go and I think that there may be a few surprises in the next couple of months.

Thank you all for keeping the momentum going while I've been away, I must admit it's been hard to keep going but the emails of support and the knowledge that this blog is doing something truly good has kept my spirits up.

Once again, thank you and I hope you all have a very happy new year.

2006-12-14T12:32:00.000Z

A story interested me very much in the Yonhap News recently - Don't ask me what I was doing reading a South Korean newspaper, the web really is a wonderful place. I thought that I might bring it to the attention of an audience outside of Asia.

Anyway, I tried to summarise the story but they seem to have done a good job of making a concise and interesting article themselves so I have just copied it below.

Enjoy.

SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) -- Two children from Inner Mongolia were recent recipients of free open-heart surgery in South Korea, a nonprofit organization based in Seoul said Monday.

The group Save the Children said doctors from Sejong General Hospital successfully completed surgical operations on the children, who had congenital heart disease.

One-year-old Du Jiale and 4-year-old Zhang Xinying, both from small villages in Wengniute County, Chifeng City, were born in impoverished families and were chosen for the free heart surgery.

"I cannot express how thankful I am. I will do my best bringing up the child," said Wang Chunxia, the mother of the year-old girl.

Zhang also gained a healthy color in her face and can now walk farther.

Their peasant families live in secluded villages in Inner Mongolia, which has a population of 400,000 and where more than half of the region is covered with sand dunes.

The families earn an average yearly income of US$500 and could not afford the surgery.

Children with congenital heart diseases can normally be cured by early surgery, but do not live long if not operated on at a proper time, the organization said.

After about a three-week stay in South Korea, Du and Zhang are expected to go back to their country on Tuesday.

Organizer Kim Young-il said, "They are perfectly cured. We will keep in touch with them and informed on how they are doing."
The Save the Child organization has provided free surgery for 42 children with congenital disease this year. It is also planning to assist five more children from Russia before the end of the year. The costs have been defrayed by fund raising and donations to the organization from local and overseas organizations.

The organization is registered as a nongovernmental organization with special consultative status with the United Nations' Economic and Social Council.

2006-12-13T11:19:00.000Z

An update on where I've been for the past couple of weeks.

I'm now settled in to my new life as a student.

I travelled to Jodrell Bank to see the giant dish. It is a radio telescope that looks at distant Quasars and other radio emitting objects in the universe. I have included a picture of it from when I visited but it is impossible to envisage the vastness of it unless you are actually there. The dish is 250 foot across and the entire structure that you can see on the picture rotates on wheels so that the dish can point to any part of the sky.

November quickly became December and the start of Advent - I'm not particularly religious but I do enjoy chocolate advent calenders. This year however I was not going to have an advent calendar as I went on holiday for the first 10 days of advent. My dog however - he did not go with us - has had a chocolate every morning since December 1st. I've not had the heart to tell him that it's not real chocolate yet but I will if he keeps up that smug look.

I went to Lanzarote on my holiday and the weather was really good. I came home with a slight tan which is great for Winter I also overindulged on Tapas and all of the other good food they have over there. It was hard to come back to England where the weather has been miserable and doesn't look set to get any better until next May.

So, onwards with the challenge to turn the Liverpool shirt into something better. I have obtained the Liverpool shirt from a piece of old rope in less than half a year and I still have almost a year left so I think that I will end up with something rather great for charity.

If you have any ideas of where to go next or you would like to trade with me then please email me through my profile on the right and side.

2006-11-29T11:13:00.000Z

Rest assured, I have not given up on this blog!

I think the problem I am having lies in routines. I used to work for a medium sized nuclear consultancy company where I would arrive at 8am and leave at 4.30pm every day. I would have lunch at 12 noon every day and I would have a break around 3pm.

This sort of routine meant that I wrote a blog every morning without fail except for the odd Saturday and Sunday or day I had at a nuclear site.

My life now has no routine whatsoever; I got in at 11am this morning and I have no idea what time I will get in tomorrow morning. When I arrive I don't know if I'll be on the computer or in the lab.

But this should change as I settle in to my new role. PhDs, I've heard, are always a bit 'in the air' at first but then they come back down to the ground with a bump.

I will try to write more often and to put the trades back up to where they should be and this time next month we should be seeing some real changes.

2006-11-15T16:40:00.000Z

There is no hiding from Christmas.

Since Halloween, every shop I have been in has had Christmas items on display, one shop I went in even had them in September. It is good to know however that in this world of consumerism and capitalising on the religious holidays some companies are at least remembering what Christmas is all about.

Take Clinton Cards for example (a very large chain of card stores in the UK), they sell charity Christmas cards. Not just shabby, poorly made tokens that you find in some stores but actual Christmas cards that you would consider buying. With each sale 25% goes to a range of charities, one of which is GUCH.

I obviously support GUCH and all of the work they do and I would like to spread the word that these cards exist and if you were to buy any charity cards then please buy them from Clinton Cards.

There are many other stores selling Christmas cards to the masses that give something back but another of note is WH Smith who give 20% to various charities one of which is the British Heart Foundation.

The Scrooge of charity cards has to be up-market Harrods which only gives an average of 6.6% of its line of charity cards directly to charity. That to me seems a bit greedy to put a charity label on something and then take the vast majority of the profits.

Boo to Harrods, may their management be visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

2006-11-14T12:14:00.000Z

I have a computer!!!

This one is mine to use all day every day. This means the blog is back in action.

I will start on my renewed, rejuvenated blog adventure by picking up on a point I touched on some months ago. I was browsing the BBC archives when I found an article on the effect of 'wrapping children up in cotton wool'.

It is one of the most important messages that I want to get across to parents of children with congenital heart disease. Here is a snippet I have taken from the BBC website, you can see the whole article here.

Teenagers who had congenital heart problems as children feel they are wrapped in cotton wool by well-meaning adults.

Researchers found that they felt excluded from social activities, such as sport, because of adults' fears for their health.

The restrictions placed upon them can lead to them feeling isolated and "different" from their friends, and unable to join in particular school activities.

Most of the teenagers questioned, aged 11 to 18, said exclusion from PE classes affected them.

Others said they resented overprotective parents and teachers.

This has sparked some discussion in the past about just what the balance is between over-fussing and not paying any attention at all to the heart condition.

It is entirely understandable why parents over-fuss; of the above two concerns only one is life-threatening. If a balance can be struck then it may arise from just keeping the message that I'm trying to get across in the back of your mind. Kids need to learn about the big wide world, they need to learn that falling out of trees hurts and that they can take the odd small risk now and then, it teaches them not to take the big risks

I hope this time I have got the message a bit more clear, life is certainly not black and white and others may tell you something different from what I have but the important thing is that you have at least heard me now and can make your own decision on the subject.

2006-10-21T20:10:00.000+01:00

By far the most popular words typed into Google to find this site over the last few days has been "why did Liverpool not have Carlsberg on their shirts" or some variation of that.

The reason for this is that Liverpool played in France in the Champions' League on Wednesday - beating Bordeaux in the process. You cannot advertise beer with sport in France as it encourages people to think that it may make you sporty; or something like that.

For those of you who have typed this into Google and have come to my site then first of all welcome; in fact a big welcome to anyone who has come here for the first time. The reason that you are here is that I have a Liverpool FC Shirt without the Carlsberg logo on to give away.

That's a little lie, I want to exchange it actually, for something of higher value. You can read about this quest to raise money for charity here.

Thanks for visiting.

2006-10-19T22:03:00.000+01:00

I'm back in business, so to speak.

I can only apologise for the last couple of weeks; it has been a bad time for this blog but the momentum has continued and carried the unique visitors past the 4000 mark so congratulations to everyone who helped with that.

I wanted to get back to business as usual today and I have a few topics that have been on my mind for the past couple of weeks. One of which I would like to share with you today. The topic in question is SADS.

SADS stands for Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome and describes any death due to the heart not performing its job which was preceded by no obvious symptoms. Eight people die a week in England from SADS which is an amazingly large number.

Many of these deaths are from congenital heart diseases in young people; three in particular are: Long QT Syndrome, Brugada Syndrome and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.

As usual with syndromes of which I have no knowledge I have had to do some research to find information to insert into this post. The science behind these syndromes is however very complex so I will try to sum them up in a short paragraph.

To be Arrhythmic means to be out of tune and this is the case with SADS; the heart is out of tune and beats irregularly. In all of the mentioned Syndromes adrenelin can cause the heart to beat faster and the electrical impulses that make the heart beat can become erratic. Many young people who die of SADS do so whilst exercising.

The main difference in each case are the abnormal genes that cause the erratic electrical impulses. This means that SADS is carried from birth.

The genes that cause SADS have been located and studied and are well known to medicine - even Brugada syndrome which was discovered only in 1992 is well known; 14 years is a long time in medicine.

What is the future for these genetic conditions? Each one of them can be treated to some degree. Implants can be added to the heart which can regulate the electronic impulses and also medicines are available which can dull the impact of these irregularities. What seems to be the problem is diagnosis.

I am hoping that with more support and encouragement, genetic disorders such as those that cause SADS will be noticed very early on in life and young children will not grow up to push themselves to be athletes if they are aware that they have the disease. Today very few people are aware that they have potential arrythmia.

There is not the money or the resources to diagnose every child at this present time, around 0.5% of the population have Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy - maybe in the future this will not be a problem. For now though how about testing all young athletes or aspiring footballers?

I am not an expert on SADS and some of the information above may be wrong, let me know if it is. If you want advice from somebody who does know a hell of a lot more than me then please visit SADS.org.uk.

2006-10-13T15:22:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid the blog has been on the back-burner for a couple of weeks now and things don't look like getting back to normal for another week or so.

I still don't have a computer that I can reliably use and finding a regular slot on others' computers is not as easy as it should be. I am desperate to start working towards the next trade and will get to it as soon as I can.

Thank you to everybody who is bearing with me at the moment. The quest has done so well so far and there is so much more to come.

I will report back in the next few days with an update.

2006-10-08T11:31:00.000+01:00

To be without a computer for over a week is an incredible experience.

I got my first computer in 1996. I didn't really know what to do with it; playing games is all I could really think of. So I bought Championship Manager 96/97 and started playing with it.

This wasn't the first time I'd used a computer, we had one in Primary School which had a guy named Pob on it. You could make him run, walk or even pop. I'd also got to use a computer in IT at school where I first met Windows 3.1. We thought "log on" was a hilarious phrase and got endless enjoyment every time the IT teacher said it.

We've certainly come some way since then. For the past week I have had no computer (albiet a few seconds on someone else's to check my email); your world stops with no computer.

It's fine if you are on holiday and you want a break from work, but to actually have to work without a computer is very difficult. Anyway, I have my home computer back and in a few weeks I should have a work computer.

So, I'm back now. Thanks for all your messages wondering where I was. A few weeks upheaval has put a dent in my 18 months timescale but hopefully it won't be too hard.

2006-09-27T16:31:00.000+01:00

It was my last day at work today!!!!!

No more travelling on a mad commute everyday and no more suits.

For those of you that don't know, I'm off to do a PhD at Salford University on Monday and I am really looking forward to it.

So, what do I do to celebrate? Drink one of the three bottles of wine that my colleagues got me...go to the pub and enjoy myself...maybe even relax for a bit. No, I get stuck into finishing off the back garden.

My little celebration has been to be able to do things that I couldn't do at work. One of them was to insert onto here the video of Alonso scoring his spectacular goal as I'm not allowed to go on YouTube at work. So here you are, I hope it works.

You can see why his shirt is worth so much just from that video alone, never mind how many other great things he has done for the club.

Welcome to all of you from AnfieldRed.co.uk it is always great to be listed on a new website and I hope that some of you will stay and give me your thoughts on what I can do with Xabi's shirt. I have put a link to AnfieldRed.co.uk done below my friends list; I hope to get many more large websites such as this in the future.

For now I am back to celebrating with a spade and a hoe (there's no other way!)

2006-09-26T09:16:00.000+01:00

For those of you expecting an embarrassing story about my tooth I will have to let you down. It has an abscess and the whole tooth will have to be removed on Thursday; as I said in my last post, I am not looking forward to this!

It is my last full day in work today, possibly forever (only kidding). On Monday I regain the life of a student which I sadly lost a year ago this very month. One year of hard labour has certainly taken it's toll on me.

Some time ago I received an email which made me laugh (and eulogise about my student times) so I thought I would post it here out of respect for my new profession: full-time PhD student.

THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU LEAVE UNIVERSITY

1. 6:00 am is when you get up, not when you go to sleep
2. Having sex in a single bed is absurd.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. Your fantasies of having sex with three women with lesbian tendencies are replaced by fantasies of having sex with anyone at all.
5. You don't volunteer for clinical trials at the local hospital.
6. You know all of the people sleeping in your house.
7. You hear your favourite song in the lift at work.
8. Informative TV does not include Richard and Judy.
9. The bank manager doesn't write threatening letters any more.
10. You carry an umbrella.
11. Seven-day benders are no longer realistic.
12. You don't go to Tesco's with all your friends.
13. You have standing orders and direct debits.
14. The heating works in your house.
15. Your friends marry and divorce instead of get together and breakup.
16. You pay the government thousands of pounds every year.
17. You go from 130 days of holidays to 20.
18. Jeans and a jumper no longer qualify as 'dressed up'.
19. You're the one calling the police because those damn kids next door won't turn down the stereo.
20. You get out of bed in the morning even if it's raining.
21. Washing up is not an annual ritual.
22. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
23. You don't know what time the kebab shop closes anymore.
24. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
25. You feed your dog Pal instead of McDonalds.
26. You don't get ideas for drinks from local tramps.
27. You don't put half-finished curries in the fridge to eat later.
28. You don't spend half your day strategically planning pub crawls.
29. You "hate scrounging students".
30. You no longer have a strange attraction to road signs when drunk.
31. Sleeping in the lounge is a no-no.
32. You can't persuade your flatmates to 'Drink till dawn'.
33. You don't spend Wednesday afternoons in the pub.
34. You always know where you are when you wake up.
35. You no longer take naps from noon to 6 p.m.
36. A fire in the kitchen is not a laugh.
37. You go to the chemist for Panadol and antacids, not condoms and pregnancy test kits.
38. A £3 bottle of wine is no longer 'pretty good stuff'.
39. You can remember the name of the person you wake up next to.
40. You actually eat breakfast foods at breakfast time.
41. You don't have mice living in your kitchen.
42. Grocery lists are longer than pot noodles & cans of lager.
43. You don't go to Liquor Save to buy Vodka.
44. You have vacuumed.
45. Breaking the law means doing 40 in a 30 zone.
46. 'I just can't drink the way I used to' replaces 'I'm never going to drink that much again'.
47. Over 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
48. You don't experiment with banned substances.
49. You don't get drunk at home, to save money, before going to a pub.
50. Lunchtime is not 'the morning'

Some may think that this is an exagerrated list but I assure you that it fits 90%. I never liked pot noodles and I never experimented with banned substances; otherwise it's pretty much true.

But I am determined to treat this PhD as a job, a challenge even. There is no way I will return to those heady days of being an undergraduate student where I achieved nothing in four years except receiving a piece of paper at the end and building the best theme park ever on rollercoaster tycoon.

------------------

I'm famous. Well not really but here is my picture in the Liverpool Echo. It was on page 27 or something like that but it was in a heart special that they were running. In the background is Paul Willgoss from GUCH who came along to support the cause and is an avid Arsenal fan, pictured with Xabi Alonso's shirt; this things people do for charity.

The Echo is owned by Trinity Mirror who also own a smaller local newspaper in the town where I grew up (just outside Liverpool). I am thinking of writing to them to see if they will repeat the story so I will be in more than one newspaper. Perhaps then I can get that Wikipedia article I so desperately want. ;-)

If you have anymore ideas for publicity then please leave a comment below or email me through my profile. Cheers.

2006-09-22T09:36:00.000+01:00

Another long spell without a post, this time I have a good excuse though.

Tuesday evening was spent in Accident and Emergency (ER for my American readers) after I hurt my tooth and my hands swelled up.

As many of you know, if someone with congenital heart disease damages their teeth to the extent that they bleed there is a chance that bacteria can get into the blood stream. This can happen to anyone but when you have scarred tissue on your heart the bacteria can collect there and there are no white blood cells that can help you out. So, damaging teeth is bad.

I don't run to A&E every time that I damage my teeth, that would be silly; however, my hands swelling up was a sign to me that maybe I should be a little worried this time. I was also sick and I felt very ill.

We went to A&E and we waited, and we waited and we waited some more. In the end it turns out that they weren't worried at all because the swollen hands and the illness was a reaction to the co-codamol that I had been taking.

All fine, until I went to the dentist yesterday morning and found that I had to have the tooth extracted. I hate dentists at the best of times, I enjoy sitting in the waiting room waiting for a check-up because I know that as I have not taken antibiotics they can't do anything to me.

But when I know that I am going to have a procedure and I have taken antibiotics an hour before I get very scared. It is almost like the waiting is prolonged by the fact that I have to take antibiotics an hour before and then wait for my fate. You have to sit there for an hour with one thing on your mind, the dentist!

If I didn't have to take antibiotics then I would wake up an hour later, I would rush around getting ready and then rush to the dentist; getting there just in time for my appointment without a thought about what is going to happen. So, spare a thought for me next thursday when I have my tooth removed.

With the illness, rushing through my last week of work and getting ready for my first week of a PhD I have had no time to leave a blog. Not that this has dented the amount of people coming to visit; mainly due to Xabi's wonder goal on Wednesday night.

Liverpool FC played Newcastle FC on Wednesday night and we thrashed them 2-0 but the second goal was the goal of the season. Xabi Alonso hit the ball from his own half into the back of the Newcastle net - 60 yards away. He did this last year and someone had a bet that he would; they made thousands out of it.

Being that this site mentions Xabi's name quite a lot and also that most of the Xabi Alonso fan sites out there link to here plus a large number of Liverpool FC fan sites, I have been getting my fair share of traffic from Google. In fact if you look at my counter below you will see that most of my visits from Googlers have been through Xabi Alonso.

A big welcome to you all and I hope you stay here and get involved with the cause.

2006-09-18T14:08:00.000+01:00

Today is a very special day for my Wife and I as it is our second wedding anniversary. To celebrate this I thought I would write a little about Sharon and what makes her so special to me.

We met because we had a mutual group of friends, rather they were Sharon's friends that I just muscled in on because I could get an extra year in university halls out of them. There were many events that we saw each other at but I never could pluck up the courage to have a real conversation with her.

In the Summer of 2003 the university halls held a BBQ for all the residents and it was a perfect opportunity to get drunk and enjoy the final days of my third year at university. I had decided that I would give up on finding a girlfriend and just enjoy being single for a while; irony certainly has a sense of humour.

At the end of the day everybody cleaned up after the BBQ and went to a club. I found myself sitting on the lawn with Sharon; she wasn't a complete stranger, I had spoken to her a few times before but I knew nothing about her so we started talking. It started raining and we headed over to a statue of Archimedes having his eureka moment in his bath, we sat on this statue for hours just talking about stuff.

Sharon was very easy to talk to, I enjoyed every minute of her company and she was beautiful. I really had to see her again and was thrilled to find out that she was staying in Manchester for the Summer.

We spent every minute that we could together that Summer and I have some great memories of it. Less than a month after meeting Sharon we both realised on the same day that we were in love with each other. It was an incredible feeling and still is to this day.

The following February 29th I proposed to Sharon and we were married on September 18th 2004, not much more than a year since we first met. We had only just graduated from University and it felt like an incredible adventure that we were about to go on.

Two years on and we are stronger than ever and the adventure just keeps getting better and better. She makes me smile and she makes me laugh and I just feel great when she is around.

Sharon, I love you.

Thank you for the best two years of married life that anyone could ever wish for.

2006-09-16T15:59:00.000+01:00

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

2006-09-11T11:31:00.000+01:00

That day five years ago when the world changed is the only topic on the minds of the media and most of the general public today. Everyone remembers where they were that day; as much as we would like the terrorists to have failed, at the moment they are doing what they set out to. But look at the Nazi party, they had a massive impact on the world but ultimately they lost in the end.

I remember where I was, I was in Spain on a holiday with two friends. It was the middle of the afternoon on our second to last day and I decided to watch the news. I hadn't watched the news the whole two weeks I had been out there but at this particular moment I decided that I wanted to see the news. I switched CNN on and at that precise moment they went live to the rooftop where the reporters had just heard about an explosion at the world trade center.

Sure enough there were flames coming from one of the towers as they speculated on the ground about what could of happened. Minutes later, captivated by the scenes on the television screen I watched as a small dot went across the screen and into the second tower. The reporters were oblivious to it, I was sure it was a plane, I turned to the others and said so but the reporters kept talking about this explosion that had happened and speculated about what it could have been.

What seemed like a couple of minutes went by until the reporters got word of the sight that the viewers had seen directly behind them. It was unthinkable, yet still possible.

You know the rest of the story, I don't need to carry on beyond my viewpoint.

I carried on watching the news all day, I didn't really know what to think. After a while one name started to be banded around, Osama Bin Laden, even that day, before the causes were known and the papers had put their spin on the events, everyone knew who was to blame.

You even knew who he was, you were sure you had heard of him before, everyone was. Was it one of those tricks of the mind, like when a song is an instant classic and you swear you've been singing it for months before you first heard it. Events did start to dawn on me: a bomb at Malaga Airport, a plane bought down over the Mediteranean, the bombing of USS Cole.

Osama Bin Laden was the culprit. It doesn't matter about polictics, economics, history. You can argue until you are blue in the face about how many bombs have been dropped on who in the name of so-called democracy or freedom. There is one man who admitted to and reveled in the deaths of over 3000 people in the biggest single planned atrocity of recent times.

No-one should support him or say that it was the fault of foreign policy. There are many ways to deal with countries that you feel are pushing you around and there are great examples of people who have succeeded in doing this without resorting to violence.

The thing I wish for today is for Bin Laden to be caught and pay for his crimes. is this laughable? I'm not sure. But it is what I wish for nonetheless.

These are the things that I feel on September 11th, they may not be the things that you feel and I can understand that but at least the events are not forgotten.

2006-09-09T09:01:00.000+01:00

An update for those of you who are joining me for the first time today.

I was inspired by the one-red-paperclip trading game where a guy managed to trade a paperclip for a house via 14 intermediate trades in 12 months. His was a unique and original idea, but I thought "how about using this to raise money for charity". So I set up my own blog called 'Money For Old Rope' and I began blogging.

I have congenital heart disease and have been a member of a patients' association called The Grown Up Congenital Heart Patients' Association for about a year now. I joined this group as I had major open heart surgery twice when I was a child and although I don't have any major problems at the moment it is good to know what the future holds and to be able to help people who are going through what I went through. GUCH do marvelous work and I am glad that I can help them in this way.

So, on to the adventure. Within around one week of starting blogging I received an email from Angela; she has congenital heart disease and lives relatively close to me on the Wirral. She explained to me that the term 'Money For Old Rope' comes from the days when public hangings were a popular event for the local community. After the hanging the rope would be sold to the audience and would be cut up so as to get the best price for it. She proposed to trade my piece of old rope for some scissors with which I could cut the rope up and use it in future trades.

The actual trade involved me travelling to Prenton Park, the home of Tranmere Rovers Football Club and swapping a piece of the old rope to Angela for 18 pairs of craft scissors. This was a very generous start to my trading and really set me up for the next trade.

Around a week after the first trade a man named Tim emailed me to say he would like to trade with me. His son has congenital heart disease and reading my blog had helped him to see that there was hope that although his son was extremely ill right now there are many people out there who have survived and now lead very happy, healthy lives. He very generously offered to trade me a Sydney Olympic Official's Shirt that he had worn whilst officiating at the games. I jumped at this chance to take the trades to an international arena and accepted his offer.

Tim had been running his own blog for some time about his son so that his son may have a record of what he went through as a child; I think this is an excellent idea as my curiosity often leads me to wonder exactly what is was like for me when I was a child and Tim's blog helps with that. Tim has since incorporated a similar trading game into his blog and is now going great guns and I wish him all the best of luck.

I was stuck on the Olympics shirt for some time until I emailed a company called SoccerBid.co.uk. They agreed to trade with me and traded my shirt for a signed photo of Peter Beardsley. I am a life-long Liverpool fan and I jumped at the uniqueness and slight hilarity of this item. Who wouldn't want a signed photo of Peter Beardsley on their mantlepiece?

I received the photo of Peter Beardsley and had no idea what to do with it. I tried collectors sites and trading sites to no avail but then I had an idea about trying the football clubs that he played for during his career. Did you know that Peter Beardsley played one game for Manchester United? I found that out while researching.

Anyway, I emailed Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle. Everton came straight back with a no ('We have no facility to trade items'), Newcastle haven't replied to this day but Liverpool sent me an email saying 'can you send us your address so we can send the itam to you'. What item? What if they send me something that is of less value? I can't do a trade without knowing what the item is.

So I phoned their PR department who said they would put a Liverpool FC shirt in the post to me that was supposed to be worn by Xabi Alonso last year in France. The significance of this is that the French Government have strict alcohol advertising laws and Liverpool are sponsered by Carlsberg. This shirt has the Carlsberg logo removed from it and Xabi Alonso's name on the back along with the Champions' League badge on the arm.

This shirt is not a replica, it was made to be worn by Xabi Alonso and as far as I believe it is absolutely unique. So a big thank you to Liverpool Football Club for putting me into this great position. As far as I'm aware they do not want the signed photo of Peter Beardsley so that is still up for grabs too.

So this is the position I'm in as you join me now, you can trade with me to help me in my quest to raise money for charity - my plan is to stop trading in 14 months time and auction whatever item I have ended with and give all the money to charity - you can spread the word about this site and help me to get a bigger audience or you can just keep coming back regularly to support me and follow my adventure. There is a link at the bottom of the page where you can bookmark this site.

2006-09-08T10:33:00.000+01:00

Woohoo, I got over 3000 unique hits.

I haven't been able to keep up with the amount visitors I've been getting or even where they are from since this blog was posted on the French Canadian site Bar Chez MO; thank you to those involved in that website, you have really helped me on my way to getting 10,000 unique visitors by the end of October.

This website should be appearing in the Liverpool Echo tomorrow if all goes well. It feels like some 'against all odds' race to actually get the picture taken.

Just a short one today because I have a big update planned for tomorrow.

Bye for now.

2006-09-06T09:31:00.000+01:00

A news round-up today.

I made it onto the radio!!! This blog was mentioned on Radio City 96.7 in Liverpool this morning; it was because my Mum wrote into them, so thanks for that Mum. City Fm have a large catchment area throughout the North West of England and North Wales and I did see a larger than usual contingent from this area yesterday.

My second news involves Liverpool's local newspaper: the Liverpool Echo. I call it a local newspaper but it has a readership of 400,000 and is the second-most read evening newspaper in the country. I am doing an interview with them tomorrow evening which should appear in a heart special which they are working on. I am really looking forward to it and think it will be an excellent opportunity to promote this blog, GUCH and awareness of congenital heart disease.

I thought that I would be stuck at 40 countries for quite some time but with the recent addition of Latvia and Luxembourg I am really pushing the boundaries. I have thought about starting a game where I ask the readers to try to get someone to visit the blog from a certain country each day. For example today will be Brazil, if you can think of a good way to get someone from Brazil to visit this site then have a go. I thought about perhaps going on a Brazilian message-board somewhere to promote the site but I don't speak Portugese. Anyway this is the challenge: get someone from Brazil to visit this blog in the next 24 hours.

I have just thought of how the contest can be judged also. You can use my new chat box which is in the right-hand side-bar to record where you have left links to this site; if I get someone from Brazil coming from that link then you win. I don't know what you win, just eternal adulation I suppose. Have a go it is fun. I was also thinking of a similar game where you leave a link to this site somewhere on the internet and leave the details in the chatbox. The person with the most hits wins.

As you can see this helps both you and me. I get extra visitors to my site and you get a way to relieve the boredom of work. Well, you wouldn't want to have to work at work would you?

That's it for now, leave me lots of messages in my chat box so I know that you are actually out there and it's not just my computer playing tricks on me.

2006-09-05T11:33:00.000+01:00

What do you do about scars?

I have two large scars on my body as a result of open heart surgery. For those of you who read the blog regularly this will be no great surprise but I find that to people I meet on a day-to-day basis it can be very surprising.

My largest scar is runs diagonally from my left-hand side to my back. I say this is my largest scar but I don't know if it is the wider or longer of the two, it is just larger in my mind.

It is a result of my first operation when I was three months old and I have no feeling there. I find it hard to let people touch me there and don't even like to touch it myself. I am constantly aware of it if I am near anything that sticks out at that height, the most common of which is the top corner of a car door when I am getting into the left-hand side of a car.

I was always confused about why this one was the worst as I thought that the younger you were the better it would heal. Doing a little bit of research on the internet shows that this is not true at all, in fact the younger you are the more damage surgery is likely to inflict on your skin.

My second scar is down the middle of my chest and I really don't mind it at all. I have full feeling there, and although it looks like a very big scar I have no pyschological complex about it as with my other scar. This scar is from where I had open heart surgery at the age of 4.

I have plenty of small scars on my body from various procedures over the years and I even have a scarred aorta which necessitates me taking antibiotics prior to visiting the dentist and scarred ribs which can hurt from time to time.

As I am quite a curious person and scars are quite a big part of my life, I had to find out what I could do about my scars. There are many treatments available to people out there and I will try to show you through the motions of my thinking as I went on a quest of discovery to see if there was anything I could do about my scars.

The first and probably most advertised is Vitamin E. This can be in creams that you rub onto your scars, supplements or even just increasing it in your diet. Vitamin E is in eggs, green vegetables, nuts, vegetable oil and wheat germ so I think I probably get quite a bit in my diet anyway. According to Baumann (Dermatologic Surgery, 1999) applying Vitamin E to scars worsens their eventual appearance in one third of patients, so be careful with that. Do you take a 30-60 risk that your scars will actually get worse? Apparantly cocoa butter is much better than standard Vitamin E creams.

Surgery is fruitless in most situations as any surgery causes scarring. However if a scar is aligned in a way that it restricts movement or is very embarrasing then it can be altered with surgery. This is not an option for me but may be for other people.

Laser treatment has been proved successful in many scenarios but it is still mainly experimental, in some situations scars can grow back worse than they were. The best laser treatments are those that take a very long time and work by stripping of individual layers of skin rather than trying to demolish the entire scar.

Dermabrasion is becoming incresingly popular and is used to lower raised scars by slowly stripping off the top layers of the scar. My scar on my side is sunken so this is not an option to me.

One way to raise scars is to inject them with collagen but this is temporary and needs to be repeated often. I'm sure if you wanted to reduce the definition of a scar in a very obvious place then this would be good but mine is covered most of the time unless I am on holiday.

At the end of the day you have to understand the science behind the scar in order to do something about it. A scar isn't badly made skin that can just be fixed, it is completely different chemical. Skin is an increbibly complex array of cells that react to food and moisture whereas scars are collagen fibres. The best way I have found to reduce scars is with silicone pads which reduce the amount of collagen that is present in the scar. The only problem with this is that the pads are expensive and difficult to wear for long periods.

When I started writing this post I already knew what the outcome would be, I had decided many months ago that my scars where here to stay and that I am quite happy with them. If someone told me tomorrow that they had a machine that would remove scars completely to be replaced with perfectly formed skin would I take them up on the offer?

My scars are a big part of me, my personality and a reminder to me that life is precious and fragile but also tough and ready to fight back when necessary. Would it be all that good to live in Italy after spending your whole life in Holland, would you not miss Holland just a small bit if you couldn't even go back there for holidays? Click here if I just lost you.

I think that I have just convinced myself that I have made the right decision.

2006-09-04T10:35:00.000+01:00

Thieved the theme for today's post from Dan off of Oddness.... I was reading his site the other night when I came across a list of things to do before you're thirty. It was the best one of these that I have seen in a while and I had a go, the results of which I will (maybe stupidly) share with you.

Things to do before you're 30

1. Have a really stupid accident that necessitates a hospital visit
When I first read this I could not think why you would need to go to hospital because of a really stupid accent. Perhaps because you were fom Birmingham. Anyway once I remembered how to read I also remembered a time when I was around six and I tried to climb over a baby gate at the top of the stairs. The baby gate was not meant to allow kids to cross that way and both me and the baby gate fell down the stairs with the gate falling on top of me.

2. Shoot something
With a gun??? I shot tin cans with an air rifle when I was a kid. I also made a target and shot at it; in the process realising how hard it is to shoot. I will give this one a yes because in an exam I would have answered the question even if I would have got a poor mark.

3. Take a weekend break more than 1000 miles from home
No, I think my furthest weekend break has been Blackpool or Derby - not sure which one is furthest, either way no where near 1000 miles. Must work harder on that one.

4. Boot Linux on your home PC
Why??? Have considered putting it on my work PC because I don't like the guys in IT. Some of them have about as much knowledge of computers as my Gran and it would be funny because they don't know what to do if it is not described in detail on an official change request form.

5. Get lost in a country where you don't speak the language
Everyone gets a bit lost when they go on holiday, that's happened to me in Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands. I even got lost in a service station in Luxembourg but it was quite easy to work out where you are when the country is the size of a service station.

6. Spend more than your monthly income on a pocket-sized gadget
What was my monthly income while I was a student - about 200 quid, so yes I have done this one many times over.

7. Post bail for a friend
Never had to. Would I if a friend needed it? I think that depends on how funny their crime was.

8. Break a really large plate glass window
I have kicked footballs through three plate glass windows so I am now an expert in this. They do not break the way they do in the movies!!! After the first one you think that that was an anomaly but really, they don't. Bus stops - that's a different matter, the ones aorund where we live are shattered into a million pieces every weekend.

9. Make a parachute jump on a hangover
On a post I left some time ago I spoke about not using your heart condition as an excuse when it probably doesn't affect what you are about to do (what you don't want to do). There is one exception to this - Parachute jumping. I have congential heart disease, therefore, I can't do that.

10. Use a whole role of gaffer tape in one day
You know that when they wrote this one they had visions of kidnap and exciting things in their minds. I will just say yes to this one but leave you guessing - it is better this way.

11. Make a pointless modification to your house
I have a confession, Me and my Wife (Sharon) knocked a wall down in my house because the wallpaper was hard to remove. There, I've said it. It was this weekend and I swear that it wasn't my idea. I just knocked the wall down and rebuilt it, I didn't have the idea in the first place.

12. Neck a pint of peppermint oil
I'm sure I can see someone do this on YouTube, I haven't looked, I just know that it will be there.

13. Pull a shemale by mistake (but realise in time...)
Thank god I can say no to this one....I didn't realise in time. No,no, only kidding.

14. Buy a samurai sword
If I hadn't met Sharon and got married then there may well be a samurai sword on my wall right now but I did and there isn't and I'm sure my Wife is very thankful about that.

15. Delay paying a bill until the summons arrives
Yes, haven't we all. Maybe the question should be "delay paying a bill until the utility in question gets shut off". Then the answer would be no, I think.

16. Destroy a speed camera
If I get caught by one then I may well go back and destroy it but up to now the answer is no.

17. Refill an inkjet cartridge
My MSc Research project involved me refilling experimental inkjet cartridges every day for two months. I still have nightmares about inkjet cartridges.

18. Say something obscene on national televsion
The only time I have been on national television was as a mascot for Liverpool FC and I was eight. If the microphone overheard me discussing Manchester United with Alan Hansen then that is not my fault. No, actually I have never swore on national television but if someone will give me the chance then I'll be sure to take it.

19. Do a J turn in order to beat somebody to a parking space
I tried to do a J turn once. For those of you who don't know, a J turn is when you turn your car around 180 degrees whilst driving it and carry on in the same direction. Needless to say I turned the car about 90 degrees and gave up.

20. Break a sledgehammer
Sorry Dad, but I have fixed it and you can have it back now that the last fireplace is out and all the wallpaper is off the walls.

21. Make a bomb
I was a science geek growing up in a small village, need I say more.

22. Smash a CRT
I've done this at the tip but I think the tip is to smash it whilst it's switched on. The cathode ray tube is supposed to implode according to my IT teacher at school. Again I think I will refer you to YouTube.

23. Require medical treatment as a consequence of kinky sex gone wrong (STDs don't count)
Aren't I glad that the answer to that is no.

24. Tip a waiter with something other than money
No, but now I have lots of ideas.

25. Light a fire with petrol
Is there any other way??? Serious part now, never light a fire with petrol, it is dangerous and is now far too expensive to be used as fuel.

26. Kidnap someone
In University halls in the first week the girls from a few floors below were playing a drinking game involving dares. One of the dares was to be tied to a swivel chair, gagged and put in the lift going up and down all day. They thought it was really funny when the lift doors opened on each floor and there was a girl tied up in the lift. What we thought was funny was when we wheeled her out of the lift onto our floor. So the answer to that question is yes.

27. Park inside a motorway service station
I don't quite understand this one, who parks inside a service station, don't they have bollards.

28. Own a convertible
Our car converts into a skip, does that count?

29. Live abroad
To live somewhere I think you have to be there more than 60 days, so no.

30. Drive at more than 140 mph
Even if I had do you think I would say yes on a blog. I heard the police have internet access now.

31. Get something for free through a masterpiece of compaining
I'm sure I have done this many times but none I can recall right now.

32. Give yourself a mains electric shock
I wanted to strip the insulation off a telephone cable so I bit the end of it and it bit me back with 50 volts. My friend then did the same thing after watching me do it. We both have master's degrees in engineering and are doing PhDs, so when the newspapers talk about the lack of good science graduates you can recall this little tale. I think that 50 volts is not mains though (that is 240 volts - 5 times the fun). I shocked myself on the bathroom light switch at my parents and that must have been mains.

33. Completely dismantle an object larger than yourself
Does the wall I took down this weekend count. I dismantled a shed not long ago, if dismantle and hitting with a sledgehammer are the same thing.

34. Write off a car
Fortunately I've always been lucky in that department.

35. Fall asleep and get really hilarious sunburn
I did this, it hurts. Wear suncream it is important and especially make your kids wear suncream.

36. Get drunk on absinthe
Never absinthe on its own. I wanted to stay away from pink elephants they sound scary, I watched fantasia when I was a kid and that made sure that I would never get drunk soley on absinthe.

37. Stay up all night listening to a girl have an emotional crisis
Yes.

38. Lick the terminals of a 9 volt battery
Everyone has done this, otherwise you have the part of your brain where curiosity resides missing.

39. Take part in motorsport
I went rallying with my Dad in Ford Escort Cosworths (I'm no expert in these things) at Oulton Park, he beat me by one second which is still hard to admit to this day.

40. Stay at the office for more than 24 hours
You won't catch me doing anything as stupid as that.

41. Set off a fire extinguisher
I'm convinced I've done this at some point but I can't remember where. Perhaps it was a dream.

42. Drive at least 600 miles in a day on two lane roads
I don't think I've ever done this but I'm not 100%.

43. Hotwire a car
I'm from Liverpool, so no, I've never hotwired a car. It's just not fashionable anymore.

44. Watch all the Monty Python films in one sitting
You know, I've never watched one all the way through. You never plan to watch a Monty Python film they just happen to be on the channel that you are watching.

45. Sleep with an ex-girlfriend by mistake
No, this has never happened to me.

46. Dial 999
How many stupid people have I phoned 999 for. There was the girl who got ran over and broke her leg and then tried to run away when she heard the sirens; there was the lad who tried to throw a glass bottle at someone but hit his girlfriend in the head by mistake. There are many more from when I lived in Manchester city centre and saw the result of everyone piling onto the streets at 2 am. Thankfully that doesn't happen any more: I moved to the suburbs.

47. Commit a faux pas which means that a friend will never speak to you again
There have been countless 'he's standing behind you' incidents over the years but are they really friends if you are saying bad things about them behind their backs? You all know that the answer to that is yes.

48. Make a bet you couldn't afford to lose
I was a bookmaker for four years - a great way to get yourself through university is through other peoples losses - so I saw a lot of people lose what they couldn't afford to but I have never made a bet I couldn't afford to lose.

49. Read a 500 page book in one sitting
How long was the fourth Harry Potter book. Do children's books count?

50. Escape a perfectly justified parking ticket
I had pneumonia and couldn't escape a parking ticket so there is no hope any other time.

Paul's score: 24 done, 22 not done, 4 maybes
Dan's score: 27 done, 19 not done, 4 maybes

I'm only 24 so I have a good six years to go. I have put Dan's score in as it is the only person that I can compare with so please put your own scores in the comments section so that I can see whether or not I am normal.

Thank you.

2006-09-02T07:52:00.000+01:00

Firstly let me say how thrilled I am about the fourth trade. It is an incredible leg-up into some serious trading and I would like to thank Angela, Tim, SoccerBid.co.uk and Liverpool FC for getting me to this point. I have supported Liverpool for as long as I can remember and they have made me very proud to call myself a Liverpool fan at every point in my life so far, from me being a mascot at the age of 8, winning the European Cup two years ago, beating Chelsea whenever it matters and now this trade.

I got a couple of points wrong in my blog yesterday. I had littraly just got off the phone with LFC's PR department when I announced that I had news of a trade and the later blog was performed quite drunkenly. I received the shirt yesterday morning less then 24 hours after I had spoken to them on the phone and it arrived with a letter addressed to me (I have removed my address from the picture) which stated the following:

Dear Sir/Madam

Xabi Alonso yellow away shirt

This letter serves as confirmation that the above shirt supplied to Mr P Youngson is one which has been allocated to Xabi Alonso during the Champions League Competition season 2005/2006.

You will notice the Club sponsor's name 'Carlsberg' has been omitted due to the French Governments ban on advertising alcoholic products.

This feature makes this shirt quite unique and as such a much sought after item.

Your faithfully,

Public Relations.

As you can see, I did get a couple of details wrong such as the country and the season but at the end of the day it is still a unique item and will be worth a lot to someone out there. On the phone the PR department as LFC told me that the shirt had been valued at £300.

Liverpool do not have football shirts made without their sponsor's logo unless they absolutely have to. I must also point out that this is not a replica shirt; this was made to be worn by a Liverpool player in a competitive European match, it even has the Champion's League badge on the arm. As far as I can tell this shirt is absolutely unique, and a great item to own. I am just happy that it has been in my possession for even a short time and I am willing to let it go in order to help the charity of my choice.

So for those of you who don't follow football in the English Premiership: "Who is Xabi Alonso?" I have taken the following from Wikipedia, my favourite place to steal content from.

Xabier Alonso Olano, commonly known as Xabi Alonso (born 25 November 1981), is a Spanish (Basque) footballer who currently plays his club football at Liverpool F.C. in England. He wears the number 14 shirt at Liverpool and is a midfielder.

He was signed by Rafael Benítez, the then newly appointed manager of Liverpool, from Real Sociedad for a fee of £10.5m. Alonso is considered by many to be one of the best midfielders in European football and has played for Spain at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup.

Alonso is renowned throughout Europe for his exceptional passing ability and technique.

Alonso came through the youth ranks at Real Sociedad and made his debut for the San Sebastian outfit in the 1999–00 season. His first match was against Logroñes on 1 December 1999 in a Copa del Rey game. He made 14 further appearances that season.

The following season, in 2000–01, Alonso spent the first part of the campaign on loan at SD Eibar before returning to Real Sociedad later that season to break into the first team.

He would come to prominence as a key performer in Real Sociedad's second-place La Liga finish (behind Real Madrid) in the 2002–03 footballing season. He scored 3 goals in 33 games.

Alonso was called up to the Spanish national team for the first time in 2003 and made his debut on April 30, 2003 at the age of 21 in a 4-0 friendly win over Ecuador.

Alonso arrived at Liverpool from Real Sociedad in August 2004. He made his Premiership debut for the Merseysiders against Bolton Wanderers at The Reebok Stadium on 29 August 2004, a game that Liverpool lost 1-0. His first goal for Liverpool came from a free kick against Fulham on 16 October 2004. Liverpool were losing 2-0 at half-time, but Alonso's arrival as a substitute inspired a revival and an eventual 4-2 win.

Although a newcomer to the English league, Alonso has impressed with his vision and an exceptional range of passing. After an initial settling-in period, he established himself as one of the mainstays of Liverpool's midfield. He has become a permanent fixture of Benitez's sides and has endeared many fans with his long-range passing ability and deft touches to open opposition teams up. These, coupled with his steady composure and the ability to shoot with confidence, qualify him as one of the best in Europe to play in the central midfield role.

After breaking his ankle following a tackle from Frank Lampard in Liverpool's 1-0 defeat to Chelsea on New Year's Day 2005, Alonso was ruled out of action for more than three months. He made his return earlier than expected in the second leg of the Champions League quarter final against Juventus. In the absence of skipper Steven Gerrard through injury, Alonso played for all 90 minutes as Liverpool gained an improbable 0-0 draw in Italy to defeat the eventual Italian Champions on aggregate. Gerrard would later repay the favour to Alonso in the very next round, when Alonso was suspended from the second leg of the semi-final against Chelsea. Gerrard steered Liverpool to a 1-0 win with the help of a Luis Garcia goal, putting Liverpool in the final against A.C. Milan.

In the Champions League final, Alonso played a crucial role as Liverpool completed an incredible comeback from 3-0 down at half-time to level the scores at 3-3. At 3-2, Liverpool were awarded a penalty, which Alonso stepped up to take. While Dida, Milan's Brazilian acclaimed goalkeeper, managed to save the penalty, Alonso fired the rebound into the roof of the net making it 3-3. Liverpool went on to win the European Cup on penalties, capping off a very successful first year for Xabi Alonso in England.

On 7 January 2006, in a thrilling F.A. Cup third round tie against Luton Town, Alonso assisted Liverpool to a 5-3 comeback victory after being down 3-1 early in the second half, by scoring two amazing goals: one from 40 yards, and the other from well inside his own half (65 yards from goal) as the opposition keeper had gone to the Liverpool penalty area to attack a corner kick. Astonishingly, it later transpired that a Liverpool fan had earlier placed a £200 bet on Alonso scoring from within his own half at some point in the 2005–06 season, and won £25,000 as a result.

During a 3-1 victory over Portsmouth on 7 May 2006, Alonso suffered an injury to his ankle in the 41st minute, which put his participation in the FA Cup Final in doubt. He recovered sufficiently to start the game however, and despite having to be taken off during the second half, he ended the day with a winners' medal.

Alonso was named in the Spanish squad for the 2006 World Cup. He scored Spain's first World Cup 2006 goal (his first international goal) against Ukraine on 14 June 2006.

Xabi comes from a famous footballing family. His father Miguel Angel 'Periko' Alonso was a star for FC Barcelona and won two league titles with Real Sociedad. Xabi's brother, fellow midfielder Mikel Alonso, continues the family tradition at the latter club. He also has another brother named Jon who is a referee.

He is close friends with Everton F.C. player Mikel Arteta. Incidentally, Xabi Alonso and Arteta are currently neighbours on the same street in San Sebastian

He is dating his childhood sweetheart Nagore.

I am 90% sure that Liverpool do not want the Peter Beardsley photo in which case I have decided to have two trades running simultaneously. One for the Liverpool FC Alonso shirt and one for the Peter Beardsley signed photo.

Good luck bidding.

2006-09-01T02:49:00.000+01:00

OK; I have been out on the town for the night so you'll have to bear with me.

We went out in Manchester City Centre as we had been working far too hard lately and we realised that things have changed in the year since we left the City for the suburbs. The main difference was how young everyone was; I am 24 and the average age of people at the club we went to was about 17 so you can imagine how old I felt. But we met a guy who was 23 in there so didn't feel too bad.

Strangely all the music was from about 5 years ago and I was stood there thinking "you were about 12 when this was out" for most of the night. Am I old? My Wife thinks so.

Anyway, back to the trade. I didn't give much away earlier so now it is time for a bigger reveal.

The trade is for a football shirt given to me by Liverpool FC. I know that I announced that Everton FC were interested but they turned me down in the end.

The football shirt is not just any football shirt. It was made in case Liverpool played an opposition whose country had strict alcohol advertising laws; you see Liverpool FC are sponsored by Carlsberg the Dutch Brewers, if we were to play a Norwegian club for example then the Carlsberg logo would have to be removed from the shirts. The shirts for Liverpool's European Campaign were made before the draw to see which opposition Liverpool played in the European Champion's League.

Liverpool have not been drawn against any opposition for which they have had to remove the sponsors logo and so these shirts are going spare. They have decided that this cause is worthy enough to attract one of these shirts and it is not just any player but Xabi Alonso; Liverpool's current Midfield star.

The shirt comes with a letter from Liverpool FC explaining the shirts significance and has been valued at around £300 GBP (around 450 euros, 570 US dollars, 750 Australian dollars). I think that this is a great uptrade and I hope that you will find it an exciting item on which you would like to bid.

2006-08-31T21:55:00.000+01:00

The next trade is for a Liverpool FC football shirt which was to be worn by Alonso but has been redirected to me by their PR department.

More details to follow tomorrow.

2006-08-31T14:07:00.000+01:00

I have been working hard on the next trade and I am almost ready to announce it.

Stay tuned because I will make an announcement within the next 12 hours.

2006-08-28T09:25:00.000+01:00

Hi Guys,

I am now a member of YouTube. There was a time a few years ago where if I heard about something new then I was instantly onto it: Napster, GMail and even MSN messenger all those years ago. Now I seem to wait a while to see if it becomes worthwhile. I only joined MySpace about six months ago.

Maybe it is because there is so much new stuff out there or maybe it is because I'm not so bothered any more about being part of the latest craze anymore. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I discovered YouTube; it is wonderful.

You can watch the highlights of the football matches that you don't see on TV (slightly illegal but nowhere near as bad as Napster used to be), you can type in anything you want to see - any feat of human performance - such as adding 512 mentos to 100 2 litre bottles of diet coke or lighting 8500 bottle rockets at once.

I decided to add my Dog eating cheese slices as we found it so funny; the result is quite grainy as it was taken on my mobile phone; I'm going to have to use my camcorder in the future.

Quentin

Perhaps I can record future trades and upload them to YouTube for everyone to see.

2006-08-26T18:34:00.000+01:00

After receiving the Peter Beardsley photo midweek I have now started actively pursuing a fourth trade. I emailed a football club who Peter played for during his career and they have written back asking me to put my request for a fourth trade with them in writing. This is a good start and I hope it leads somewhere.

I thought other good places to go with this trade would be supporters' associations and unofficial websites of clubs he played for. If you have any other ideas of how I might drum up a fourth trade then give me a comment on this post. Cheers.

I have taken the next week off work so I can get a lot of the house that I have been renovating with my Wife decorated and finished off. I also want to start thinking about my new life as an academic; it is very exciting.

The rate at which I am adding new countries has slowed down significantly in the last few weeks, I am up to 40 now with the last entries being Bulgaria and Estonia. I expected it to slow down and I am very pleased that I have attracted the attentions of people from 40 different countries.

All in all, I am very happy with my progress so far and if I can keep this rate of increase in both the daily readers and the trades then I should have a great item to trade in 14 months time.

Thank you to everyone who comes back day after day you are really making this worthwhile.

2006-08-25T08:41:00.000+01:00

The Peter Beardsley Signed Photo provided by SoccerBid.co.uk has arrived!!!

Three days ago I got a note to say that an envelope was waiting for me in my local Post Office, but it could be collected until yesterday, so here it is.

It is 8 inches by 6 inches (20 cm x 15 cm) and has a biography on the back. See below:

It also comes with a certificate of authenticity to prove that it actually was signed by Peter Beardsley in the presence of officiators.

You can see my biography of Peter Beardsley from when I first announced the trade here.

This is a great item for trading potential as he is very fondly remembered throughout Liverpool and Newcastle and as an excellent England player.

If you or someone you know wants this item then please trade with me. All monies raised at the end of this trading game go directly to GUCH and I have their full support in doing this.

So, now I have got my fourth trade its time for you to get thinking of items you can trade with me.

2006-08-24T12:55:00.000+01:00

Since I started this blog I have greatly increased my knowledge of congenital heart disorders. I often see a phrase or an abreviation that I don't understand and look it up in my favourite web resource; Wikipedia.

I started to share these findings on this blog with the publication of my first discovery but went no further. I will continue this series now with my second lesson in Congenital Heart Defects.

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

This is a very rare heart defect but it is very serious. The left hand side of the heart does not form correctly and the right hand side has to do all of the work, pushing blood through a Patent Ductus Arteriosus; but as we know from our first lesson, the Patent Ductus Arteriosus closes just a few days after birth.

As the PDA closes the blood flow is severely restricted and the baby becomes very ill very quickly. Fortunately the PDA can be kept open for a short while using a hormone called Prostagladin. The heart can either be operated on or transplanted depending on the severity of the condition.

In western countries this condition is picked up rapidly enough for corrective procedures to be undertaken but often the sufferer will experience health problems throughout their life as a result; patients must also be seen by a cardiologist throughout their lives to check on their heart.

2006-08-23T14:16:00.000+01:00

I handed my notice in at work today!!!

My job, which I have never written about before, was Safety Case Consultant for a nuclear based company. It was my part of my job to write reports on how safe nuclear facilities are both in England and in the rest of the world.

I decided that I would like to move into academia as it would be a much bigger challenge mentally but it would also give me a much more flexible work-life. I have chosen a PhD in Chemical Vapour Depostion and I start in around a months time. I really can't wait.

I was very nervous today about actually handing my notice in today even though I had been dreaming about how great it would be for the past week. But I did it and it felt very liberating. I have been walking around with a big smile on my face all day.

In some ways I will miss having a structured work-life, you always knew were you were and what was expected of you but I will also enjoy having to make more of my own decisions about my work.

2006-08-22T08:26:00.000+01:00

Wow, I dugg myself.

Thank you Rose for adding my story to Digg. If you are not sure what Digg is I'll explain a little.

Digg is a up-and-coming news portal where the stories are voted for by the readers; it means that only the stories that are actually of interest to you and me and not some political editor are listed at the top.

Each article gets dugg by the members if they like it or buried if they don't. The overall score shows how high you appear in the news. The article about this blog has so far got 8 diggs, which I think is pretty good for little old me.

I think that we can get it much higher if all my readers were to go and digg it for me. Then people who wouldn't normally have discovered this blog will find it and hopefully keep coming back.

Use this link to digg the story about this blog, its free and easy to sign up and I guarantee that you will keep using it as it is one of the web's best resources.

Cheers.

2006-08-21T09:29:00.000+01:00

OK Guys, I'm back - still feeling a little ill but made all the happier by the news that the signed photo is on its way to me.

Yes, that's right the signed photo of Peter Beardsley provided by SoccerBid.co.uk is winging its way to me by snail mail and should be here in the next couple of days.

Normal service shall resume from today and I will be updating my list of other CHD support groups with all of the suggestions I have received over the last week (believe me, there's been a lot!).

2006-08-18T21:10:00.000+01:00

I have been ill. This is why i have not been able to blog as I have been tucked up in bed with man-flu. Not quite recoved yet so this will be a short one.

I haven't updated on Quentin (my puppy) for a while but since he has been annoying me all day every day for the last few days I thought I would share his progres with you.

He has doubled in weight and size since I posted a picture of him 2 months ago and seems to have more hair than body at the moment - he is quite small when he gets wet.

We have found that his favourite food is cheese slices - I will post a video of him inhaling a cheese slice in the near future. He also has a fondness for a particlular Pit-Bull Terrier from his puppy class and woos her with his smelly breath and penchant for jumping on her whenever she is near.

He has now got his grown-up teeth so has had to learn about biting all over again - this is both a problem for us and the Pit-Bull.

Well, that is it for now, I hope to bring you more when I am feeling a bit better.

2006-08-14T12:17:00.000+01:00

Apologies for my long absence but I have been away with business and, although I thought I would be able to update this blog I could not. The reason I couldn't was because in order to remote access your computer you have to have no big files on your desktop. Microsoft 1, Paul 0.

Microsoft then told my work that I was using Firefox (Use new button in blog tools section to get Firefox) to browse the internet and not Internet Explorer so that was that gone. Microsoft 2, Paul 0. But I have included a link here to Firefox so I have pulled one back on Microsoft.

It remains 2-1 to Microsoft at the moment but we'll see how that goes, maybe I'll buy a Mac but that would be cutting off my nose to spite my face and quite possibly an own goal giving Microsoft a 3-1 overall win.

Not heart related whatsoever but let me know your own frustrations with Microsoft so I know that its not just me. While you're in that anti-big-company place in your mind, visit my new favourite artist's website.

Cheers.

2006-08-09T11:35:00.000+01:00

OK guys, it's time for you to help me out again.

I have realised while browsing over the last few months that there is no definitive list of congenital heart support groups on the internet. There are some great partial ones but none that list them all. That's where I need your help.

I have created a new blog called "Congenital Heart Disease" and I would like you to go there and leave a comment mentioning congenital heart disease support groups that you know of. I will then add them to the list and hopfully we can get a good list going over the next few weeks.

So, please, please go there and leave a comment - as you will see - I haven't done much and I know of plenty that I will be adding over the next week.

Cheers.

2006-08-08T15:21:00.000+01:00

In my absence yesterday Emma posted comments about Lucy. Lucy underwent a heart transplant yesterday as her CHD is inoperable. All our thoughts are with Lucy as she recovers from this surgery and we hope that she can become a big strong GUCH.

It is great that heart transplants can be undertaken effectively to try to cure heart issues but it is very sad that these issues occur in the first place. When many people think of congenital heart disease they do not think that it could affect someone in such a devastating way. There is still a lot of knowledge to be spread about the effects that it has, not only on the children but also on their parents.

I know that when I tell people that I have congenital heart disease many instantly link it to cholestorol and wonder how I could have heart disease at such a young age. This is maybe the fault of all those adverts for anti-smoking and healthy living - which I am all for - we are told all of the time that if we don't look after ourselves then it will affect us later.

There is not much education about the issues that can't be controlled such as congenital heart disease and I can see why; if you have congenital heart disease then you learn about it, if you don't then you don't.

This makes campaigns such as GUCH's campaign to get free prescriptions for GUCHs much more difficult as the people without congenital heart disease don't have the knowledge about it that we have.

Once again I have finshed somewhere completely different from where I started. Please forgive me for that, I guess I am trying to get some issues off my chest, I am also trying to start some discussions in the comments section so please leave a comment about whether you agree or disagree with what I have said.

Back to the start. Good luck Lucy, I hope one day GUCH will be able to help you as much as they help others.

2006-08-06T00:34:00.000+01:00

Why is Paul doing this?

This is a question I often ponder when all I want to do is go to bed and he is sat in the study writing his blog for that day. There are a number of reasons why he began this. 1) he wanted a project. 2) He decided that raising money for charity would be a good project. 3) He also wanted to write a blog. And 4) He wanted to provide a different view of CHD.

Paul had never really been involved with anything relating to his heart until recently, he never felt that he needed to be, after all it wasn’t a big part of his life. His heart problems occupied about 30 minutes a year for a check up. Then when I started asking questions he discovered GUCH on the internet. Although Paul could see great benefits into the work of GUCH he still felt that it was not really for him as he no longer really has a heart problem. It then struck him that the reason he feels this is because he has never been treated as though he has a heart problem (except for the life insurance companies!!!). This is what he is hoping to change for point 4, there are many parents out there, and I know that a large amount of this blogs following are parents of children with CHD, not people with a CHD, who will feel that they need to wrap their children in cotton wool because of their diagnosis. Pauls message is don’t.

Yes you should make sure they have antibiotics for the dentist. Don’t however treat them like they will break, they won’t thank you for it, they will either rebel and get green hair, 200 piercings and join a drug taking hippy commune or worse, they will become one of those irritating people who claim that they are allergic to everything and that they need to live in a special bubble because they have never been exposed to life (you know what I mean!!!!!!). Basically what I’m saying is treat them like you would any other kid, their CHD does not define them unless you make it that way.

If you are an adult with CHD and what I have just described is you, then you probably hate me right now, in which case I still make no apology, its not too late…

2006-08-04T10:14:00.000+01:00

I found an absolutely brilliant website whilst browsing in my lunch-break yesterday. I suggest you check it out but make sure you read from the bottom of the page upwards - that puts it in chronological order.

I received lots of congratulatory emails yesterday on account of my third trade so thank you for that. It is up to you to keep the trading going by bidding on my next item. I will be putting it out to all of the groups that I think will be interested in it in the next couple of weeks, so you may not have too much time.

Tim at The Special Zipper has received "talk of a second trade with exciting possibities" and I wish him all the best on quickly catching this blog up on the trading front.

Finally, if you missed yesterday's news of my trade then you can see it here or you can just scroll down a little.

Have a great day.

2006-08-03T12:59:00.000+01:00

Now for the big reveal...

I have traded the Sydney Olympic 2000 games shirt for a signed photo of Peter Beardsley provided by SoccerBid.co.uk (Not the photo pictured below!!!).

"Who?" Some of you may ask. Peter Beardsley was a footballer (soccer if you are from a country other than mine), a great footballer who played for England and countless club teams and is regarded as one of the best players this country has ever had.

Who is the photo signed by? Peter Beardsley of cousre!

He doesn't sign many photos, some say that he is happy with the amount of money he has - unlike other footballers who are desparately trying to clear their gambling debts - others say it is on account of how ugly he is. I'll let you decide.

There are signed photos of Peter Beardsley on ebay but they are tatty and flea-bitten on the whole. What would you give for a signed photo of one of the greatest footballers to grace the pitch. Remember the eventual aim is to make as much money for charity as possible by getting to a great final item so please think of things that you would like to trade and email me or leave a comment to take part in the next trade.

Until then, enjoy my Peter Beardsley fascinating facts below.

Peter Andrew Beardsley was born January 18, 1961 in Newcastle, England.

He played during his teenage years for Wallsend Boys Club where the likes of Alan Shearer and Michael Carrick also started out

Peter Beardsley has played for the following clubs:

Carlisle
Vancouver White Caps
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Liverpool
Everton
Bolton Wanderers
Manchester City
Fulham
Hartlepool United

That's a lot of clubs. The move from Newcastle to Liverpool in 1987 was for a then record fee of £1,900,000 - seems like small change now.

Peter Beardsley played for England 59 times, his most prolific times coming whilst working in a partnership with Gary Lineker.

He has two goals in the top 50 England goals of all time.

He is one of only two players in history to have scored against Liverpool while playing for Everton and against Everton while playing for Liverpool.

He played in the 1986 and 1990 FIFA World Cups.

He was awarded an MBE in 1995.

I hope you have more of an idea about just how much this item is worth now, please bid generously.

Thank you.

2006-08-02T16:06:00.000+01:00

Hello from a stranger,

I know, I didn't leave a post yesterday and I'm sure that you were expecting me to say "hooray, my trade arrived today" but it didn't. Sorry to disappoint.

Maybe it arrived today while I was at work and I will let you know if it does. I have jazzed the site up a bit for when I get an influx of new people after I announce my next trade on every web forum that I know; that is why I did not post yesterday.

Three people have now signed my Guest Map out of the 100 who have visited since I put it up and one of those people was me! I know that there may be a problem with some viewers not seeing it properly but hopefully the providers will sort that out. I have put it into the top bar now so that it can be seen by all.

I have also moved my archives to the bottom of the screen so that the side-bar has much more relevant information and is much easier to browse.

Things are a bit quiet at the moment so that is why I am telling you about the blog and not exciting stuff like trades.

Check back tomorrow to see if the trade arrives.

2006-07-31T10:35:00.000+01:00

I got my first hard-copy news story a couple of weeks ago. After writing to my local newspaper and TV stations I got nothing but GUCH put me in their newsletter. I have copied the article below for the world to see.

"Paul Youngson has come up with a novel fundraising idea on the internet for GUCH PA. He is hoping to swap an old rope for something slightly better, in fact he already had had a response -- someone has offered him some craft scissors for the rope. He will then swap the scissors for ???? This will continue on for 18 months and the final article will then be auctioned off and the proceeds will go to GUCH PA.

At the time of this going to press, Paul has already 'swapped' his scissors so if you would like to check out his progress or join in and offer something, please visit Paul's Website"

Granted it is a little out of date but I am proud.

Next to my little article was an article about chest pain. I have been experiencing chest pain for some time; it is not very often but when you have had problems with your heart in the past it really freaks you out. I went to the cardiologist recently and was given the all clear but I still get chest pain now and then. I believed that it must be muscular but it was exactly where my heart is.

Anyway back to the article. It said that one big cause of chest pain was a legacy of open heart surgery. If your bones do not heal properly then you can have pain there. I think this explains it for me, and I am so happy about finding this out that I have to put it here in case it helps someone else.

There have been a lot of changes to the site recently including my piece of rope used as a border (look upwards) and a Guest Map in the right-hand sidebar. Please sign my Guest Map because I would love to know where you are from, it works off Google Maps and I think it is an excellent tool for any website so feel free to steal the idea.

Tim - my trader for the scissors to the tee shirt - has received his first offer of a trade; he is trading by starting with a zipper to signify the scar that many of us have on our chests as a result of open heart surgery. Please support him by going to his blog.

That's it for now, have a great day.

2006-07-30T11:56:00.000+01:00

I traded a number of craft scissors for a piece of old rope. I was the first one to trade to get this project going. I hope it will be a huge success. Since then Paul has asked if I will write a short piece for his blog. I am happy to oblige, however, there was a delay as I thought for a theme. Then it struck me, stick with the rope theme. No need to reinvent the wheel.

1. You can throw someone a lifeline, a piece of rope.

2. You can send someone a present, a piece of soap on a rope.

My lifeline was thrown by my Grandfather in 1966.

My Grandfather was a very practical, clever, resourceful gentleman. He was chief engineer for a shipping line in the once great port of Liverpool. When he was told the sad news of my congenital heart defect in 1966 along with the news that there was nothing to be done, he literally threw me a lifeline. “Rubbish”, he said! The heart is only a pump. I can not give up on a pump if we are out in the middle of the ocean, miles from shore. It would have to be fixed. There was never any doubt in his mind that further action must be taken. So, on his next shore leave I was taken to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London. I was reviewed at Dr Bonham Carter’s Private Consulting Clinic. A diagnosis was confirmed and a plan of action was agreed. Here I am forty years later, still sailing the seas with my repaired pump. Thanks to my Grandfather (sadly now deceased), my Family and all the wonderful medical professionals.

My piece of soap on a rope is Port Sunlight village

I was born on The Wirral and lived in a beautiful village called Port Sunlight, famous for Lever Brothers, soap makers. Now called Unilever. Hence soap on a rope! If anyone lives in the UK and has not yet visited Port Sunlight, then they ought to visit on a sunny day. It is a model village built by the first Lord Leverhulme, a local lad made good. His parents owned a grocers store in Bolton and he along with his brother bought some marsh land on the Wirral side of the River Mersey and put their plans into action. The boggy land was reclaimed, a soap factory was built and a model village designed by architects was built alongside for his workers. The homes are no longer tied cottages, but many people who live there still has ties to the factory. It is well worth a visit.

2006-07-28T08:58:00.000+01:00

Of the two people who had a go at the quiz yesterday we have a tie for first place, surprisingly there is no second or third place. Tim and Angela each scored 7 out of 8 so well done to you although I'm not sure what having a tattoo of David Beckham says about me.

Maybe the test was too hard, maybe the weather was too warm or maybe you just didn't like the way I spelled inaugural but only a small percentage of the people who visited managed to complete the test. After all it was only a bit of fun.

In other news, I have added a sign-up box on the right hand side so that you can sign up for my newsletter. I'm not going to spam you eternally, and I'm not going to send you emails every time I post to this blog but I will tell you when I get a new trade and this is all important. So sign up by typing your email address into the box provided.

I have also added myself to the worldwide ranking of blogs, I managed to be top for a short while because I had 1 visit and 1 vote (100% record) but then it all went wrong as I finished the day with 50 odd visits and still one vote (2% is nowhere near as good). The weighting is not just on percentage throughput but it is a big factor so please vote for me if you like this site.

Still waiting for the next trade to arrive in the post and I will let you know the moment it goes through my letterbox (unless I'm in bed or at work or something). I will today reveal that the next trade is brought to me by Soccerbid.co.uk and they have been very generous.

2006-07-27T08:33:00.000+01:00

Pop Quiz Hotshot...

It is time for the inaugral Money For Old Rope quiz. Aren't you lucky people. It won't be like the old days of school where you had to learn the 16 times table rote fashion or the capitals of every East African nation. No, this one is open book; you have all the information in front of you.

What awaits the winner? A Car, a Speedboat, how about a set of steak knives; no, actually you will just get eternal adulation when your name is printed next to your winning answers on this blog. Just email me the answers or leave a comment on this blog. I will announce the winners tomorrow.

1. Okay, easy one first. What was my last completed trade for?
a) A Sydney 2000 Olympics official's shirt
b) A Sydney 2000 Olympics official's shoe
c) A Sydney 2000 Olympics official

2. I would like to say that they get harder from here but they probably don't. How many babies are born with congenital heart disease?
a) 8 in 1,000,000
b) 8 in 1,000
c) 80 in 1,000

3. What tattoo do I have?
a) A dragon
b) A rose
c) David Beckham

4. Where did I make my first trade?
a) Bulgaria
b) The Wirral
c) David Beckham

5. Which of these celebrities has congenital heart disease?
a) Dennis Rodman
b) Tiger Woods
c) Arnold Schwarzenegger

6. What is my dog's name? Ah, getting a bit more difficult now aren't we.
a) Tarantino
b) Spike
c) Quentin

7. Really difficult one now. How many big scars do I have as a result of my heart operations?
a) One
b) Two
c) Three

8. That last one wasn't really fair so I'll give you an easy one now. Which charity am I supporting with this blog?
a) GUCH
b) RSPCA
c) RSPB

I think I'll finish it there. If you want to submit an answer then just send me a string of the letters that you think are the correct answers. eg. abcabcab

Have fun.

2006-07-26T08:27:00.000+01:00

You know when you just can't think of an opening line that is worthy enough? That's what has happened to me today.

Yesterday I had the best day in this blogs history; I had over 100 unique hits, I surpassed the 1000 unique viewers mark and I received around 40 emails. I should be shouting from the rooftops but instead I am lost for words.

Some beautiful person submitted a link to this site on a site called BadMothersClub.co.uk and it seems their entire readership was sent over here; brilliant.

I was also posted at HeartLine and countless blogs around the world which I will link to in good time, but please, bear with me on that one.

I have thought that since I have had such a fantastic day I may give you a clue as to what the next trade is, but then I thought no, you must wait til it arrives. But fortunately I woke up on the correct side of my bed this morning and have decided on the following snippet.

I have made a trade with a sporting merchandise company (which you find the name of when the trade arrives) for a autographed action photo of a sports star who doesn't sign photos very often. The sports star in question is quite specific to England so you may not have heard of him or her if you are outside of the UK but trust me, I think I should get a good trade out of this one and I am sure that I have made the right decision.

Keep in touch by bookmarking this site - there is a link at the bottom of this page - I will also be adding a mail list in the very near future but if you would like to be added to the very first Money For Old Rope mail list to be informed of trades when they happen then please drop me an email with subscribe in the subject line.

Cheers til tomorrow.

2006-07-25T13:53:00.000+01:00

The best way to pay something a compliment is to copy it. That's what I did with the oneredpaperclip quest. I took the format but changed the rules slightly so that a charity could benefit from it.

Does Kyle MacDonald - the man behind the fantastically popular trading game - mind? He sent me an email from which I'll quote:

"cool man!"

There are countless trading games popping up all over the place. I'm still looking for a charity one but I guess mine is unique for the moment. I have put a list down the right hand side of other trading blogs that I think also have something unique to offer. Check them out.

The internet should not be about competition, it should be about collaboration; so I don't mind if you go to someone else's blog and stay there, if you find something worthwhile then I have done something worthwhile sending you there.

Have fun surfing.

2006-07-24T10:22:00.000+01:00

I have had an offer of a trade!!!

The Official's shirt from the Sydney Olympic games has found a new owner, well it will have in a few days. I am going to keep you in suspense for a short time while the trade is being completed but I hope to have the new item very soon.

The trade has come from a very generous commercial enterprise this time and I am very thankful to them. If I was to tell you who they were now then it would give the game away but you will hear their name soon enough.

Please keep checking back and very soon you can start bidding on the next trade.

2006-07-23T21:31:00.000+01:00

Hi it's Sharons blog again, only 8 days late (I never was very punctual).

I thought I would explore the meaning of the word Guch, this is what I have found:-

GUCH- a UK charity for adults who have congenital heart defects. But you already knew that!!!!!!

Guch- a slang term for perineum, this is even listed in the medical dictionary. Kids if you don't know what your guch is ask your dad, or teacher, or anyone who blushes easily.

Ian Guch- Chemisry teacher, I'm sure he is very interesting but I couldn't be bothered to read about him.

Guch- A Turkish boys name meaning 'strength'.

Graham Gooch- English cricketer, I wont say more as cricket makes me fall asleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................................

Sir William Gooch- born in Yarmouth, UK- served as governor of Virginia US 1727-1749.

Gooch Close Gang- Manchester underground gang at their strongest in the '90s when the 'Madchester' schene was plagued with gang warfare.

As you can see this list is relatively short, but as with everything in life, if it doesn't appear on the first two pages of google it may as well not exist????

2006-07-20T08:50:00.000+01:00

Congenital Heart Defects 101

The ultimate aim of this blog is to make as many people aware of congenital heart disease as possible. Up to now I have held back a little on the awareness side of things and tried to set the scene of my life with congenital heart disease; however, I think that people will be getting bored of me soon enough.

Here begins an increased effort to teach about the ins and outs of congenital heart disease - I am still actively looking for trades and will never give up on that but it may be put on the back burner for a short while.

Today I would like to look at Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA). The Ductus Arteriosus is what is known as a shunt - a hole that allows fluid to bypass a particular system. The particular system here is the lungs.

The lungs are filled with fluid when a baby is in the womb and there is no point to more than a trickle of blood being directed there as it is not where the body gets its oxygen supply from. When a baby is born and takes its first breath a peptide called Bradykinin is released; this reduces bloodflow through the shunt and directs the blood the lungs.

The shunt should then close up after around 15 days because it is no longer being used; much like if you don't use an ear piercing. If the shunt does not close then this is known as PDA. The main reason for the shunt not closing is that when an infant takes its first breaths not enough oxygen reaches the lungs to create enough Bradykinin; thus the heart defect can be a cause of external factors or it can be that the baby has trouble breathing - one example of this is that the lungs are not fully developed as in the case of premature babies.

The shunt can be closed surgically and this is the most popular method but for premature babies drugs can be given that help it develop without the need for risky surgery.

2006-07-19T09:23:00.000+01:00

When I was eight I didn't know very much about football. I liked Liverpool FC but I wasn't really that interested and I played it occasionally but it is difficult when you have been through two major heart operations and I had missed out on playing when I was younger so everyone else was better than me.

One day my Dad phoned me from work and asked to speak to me. He told me that I was going to be mascot for Liverpool FC in the semi-final of the FA Cup. I'm not sure if I got to be mascot because of my heart condition or because my Dad was one of the biggest retailers of Candy merchandise - the sponsors at the time; it could be both. I remember the phone call so vividly, I was excited but at the same time really scared.

These feelings only got worse up to the day. My brother and sister were packed off to a friends house and me and my parents traveled to Birmingham; Villa Park, the home of Aston Villa to be more specific. We stopped on the way and met up with some people from the club who gave me the football kit that I would be wearing on the day; I still have it now and it is tiny.

I had never been to a football match before that and the noise when I arrived at the ground was enormous. I don't remember much about arriving apart from the noise, the next thing I remember is meeting the opposing mascot. Liverpool were playing Crystal Palace that day and he was a proper Cockney, I didn't like him much but he probably thought the same about me.

As I left the changing room I overheard the ball-boys getting shouted at by someone and thanked god that I wasn't one of them. I met my Dad outside the changing room and we gave an interview to the reporter who wanted to know what my name was. He scrawled it on his match programme and then ran off to start filming. The TV camera was turned on in front of me and it was the most blinding light, I'm surprised anyone opens their eyes on television.

Somewhere around this point I was introduced to Alan Hansen, he was really nice with me and said that he would look after me. The next part of the story is kind of a blur in my memory as I walked out in front of 40,000 screaming fans; there were balloons everywhere, and the sights, sounds and smells were just too much for an 8 year-old boy, I was in a dreamworld.

I remember standing in the centre-circle whilst the coin-toss was taken and having my photo taken with the captains and the referees. I also remember having three shots against Bruce Grobelaar, one of the greatest Liverpool keepers of all time. He saved my first two shots easily, mainly because they were easy to save. He then told me to go for his left side because he wasn't as good on his left side so I did and he let it in. I scored against Bruce Grobelaar, woohoo.

I was then taken over to the dugout were I had my picture taken with Kenny Dalgleish and Ronnie Moran. This picture and the one from the centre-circle I still have at home. I then went inside for kickoff and got changed, I came back 15 minutes later to see that Ian Rush, our best player had been taken off injured.

We lost the match in extra time and every goal was scored on Bruce Grobelaar's left side which I blamed myself for for some time after the event. I was then invited to Liverpool's next home game were I had dinner with the players and got my picture taken with the newly won Charity Shield. This was some experience for an 8 year old and I have loved football ever since.

2006-07-18T08:30:00.000+01:00

Willkommen Germany,

Another country to add to the fast growing list. It is interesting that most of the world's richest countries are now listed as having visited my blog. However, the 25 countries only make up 13% of the all the countries that are out there so I still have a long way to go.

Those 25 countries may only be a small fraction of the number out there but they represent over 2.2 billion people or 34% of the world's population. Perhaps even more interesting they have 70% of the world's money ($31,045,216,000,000) and use 63% of the world's annual electricity supplies (8,991,664,700,000 kWh). That's a hell of an electricity bill.

I think that this shows that the internet is not yet a truly global tool, it will take a long time for that to happen. We've all seen these figures many times over (5% of people control 95% of the money - or something like that) but I had never proved them for myself before. My first argument was that I write in English but if you have a look at the countries in that list of 25 many of them are not English speaking nations.

The internet is already the only way to get a real feel for what is going on in the world in countries where they have government controlled media and it is a product of the countries that have all of the money so we shouldn't knock that too much. I hope that in a few years anybody, anywhere in the world will be able to browse the internet and figures like those in the country list in the side-bar of this page will be more representative of the world's population.

2006-07-17T08:36:00.000+01:00

I got my tattoo yesterday...

It was some experience. I had built it up in my mind to be something very big, with huge needles and lots of pain. I almost fainted because of the anxiousness coupled with the heat of yesterday. But in the end I sat there for 1 hour and 20 minutes as I let some guy I don't know scar me for life. Why the negativity you might ask, mainly because I am very happy about the tattoo and have no regrets, if that makes sense.

I chose the design many weeks ago and had decided that I was going to get a tattoo months ago, my birthday seemed the best time as it was far away, but these things always catch up with you. I had no worries about having a tattoo on my arm, I knew that it was what I wanted but what I didn't want was to have to sit there whilst somebody chiselled away at my arm.

In the end it only hurt for about 5 minutes and the following 1 hour and 15 minutes was like somebody tickling my skin. I have always though that I see pain differently to most people, maybe it is a result of trauma at a time when I was learning basic functions. This may sound weird but I can often see pain, sometimes it will be a red square, sometimes it will be a green circle, often it will be a pointy, yellow arrow. Does this sound strange or this sound normal to you? I have only ever asked one person so I don't know if I am in a minority or not.

Yesterday it was yellow cones, lots of them. It is very rare that pain is 3D, usually it is 2D, but yesterday it was very definitely 3D. I have thought that maybe it is because I was in a lot of pain when I first saw these things as a child; this is my best guess. There are no smells and no sounds just shapes and colours and similar pain has a similar picture in my mind.

Anyway, back to yesterday. I had visited the tattoo place to book my tattoo a couple of weeks before and I knew that I had to find somewhere very clean, what I was secretly hoping for was a room with stainless steel and white paint, but what tattoo artist would want to work in a room like that. What I got was a slightly cluttered and noisy little room above a shop, but this is how it is; the place was amazingly clean to the point of overprecaution. If you have health problems and you want a tattoo then Studio 81 in Picadilly Gradens in Manchester comes highly recommended from me, but speak to your GP/Cardiologist first.

I am very proud of my tattoo and I am off to show people I work with now, I have included a picture of it below but the camera is very poor quality when it takes a close up so the actual tattoo is much more bolder and colourful than the one shown below.

I rediscovered yesterday something that I had almost forgotten, if you are scared to do something then just do it because it is never as bad as you build it up to be.

2006-07-14T10:11:00.000+01:00

I have neglected mentioning GUCH for some time now and feel quite bad about it, they are after all the reason I am doing this. Somedays I don't leave a blog, sometimes I just don't have the time or energy but the people at GUCH are always there to help. This was my inspiration for starting this quest but what was their inspiration in the first place to actually start the charity off? I have taken this from the GUCH website as it will give you a little more insight to the truly selfless people who started this great charity.

"At September's BGM, Judy Shedden spoke to us about the origins of GUCH, and what caused the association to be formed 10 years ago. The details were new to many of us, and the story of how we got this far was fascinating. Here is an abridged version of Judy's story, edited to avoid her extreme modesty where necessary.

As with many things GUCH, it all started with Prof Jane Somerville - she has given her life to the welfare and understanding of firstly children, and then as her clinical cases grew up, to adults (young adults, and now some not-so-young adults) in a life of outstanding achievement.

Her maxim 'Ask the patient - they're the ones who know" has resounded through many a hospital round, and hopefully sunk into generations of trainee doctors. It has certainly sunk into her patients, who are among the best-informed, knowledgeable patient group there is.

Alongside her worked another remarkable woman - Belinda Price, earth mother to the GUCH patients, always somehow finding lime to cross London to buy patients' shopping, fit up a sitting room to give them privacy, and sort out a million problems as the link between the patients and the rest of the world.

By 1992, these two were under considerable pressure. They could see how much all their patients needed from them, far beyond medical needs, and worried they could not possibly fulfill it all by themselves. They felt the patients needed an association to fight their corner, and Jane obtained a grant of Â£3000 from the British Heart Foundation, from her good friend Leslie Busk.

The next step was who was to run the association? Judy's speech said, "They cast around and in the absence of anyone else, chose me." But Prof Somerville's speech said what we all Feel, chat there could have been no better person to take on the challenge. She said to Judy, "Well dear, I'm far too busy, so just go away and get on with it."

So Judy did. Beginning from her home in Winchester, soon involving friends such as long-serving Treasurer David Vellacott, and hugely valuable Person Friday Jane Maxwell. A local solicitor, John Beveridge, volunteered to draft the application to theCharityy Commission, and soon the ball was rolling.

Though there was plenty or goodwill and hard work, there were very Few funds. Judy was still working four days a week as a teacher, and spending her "Free" day at Brompton outpatients, recruiting more members and help. Stuart Robertson, eminent Chair of the management committee for many years, was dragged on board at this stage. Other key supporters were: the late Baroness Young who worked hard politically for GUCH; Lord Rea, who brought the link to the Outward Bound holidays: Judy's two brothers-in-law who provided the First GUCH exhibition stand (rescued from the dump) and a much needed grant from Nat West bank; and Dr Jo di Giovanni who with Dr Martin brought support from the Association of British Insurers for the GUCH cause.

There have been many generous supporters of GUCH since, with their time and with their Financial contributions, but this was the very beginning. After a year ofhardf slog, there was a party to celebrate with Val Baxter cooking sausages at speed, the Tyrer family helping everywhere at once, and Robert Barham;s group singing to the assembled patients *until the ones inside the Brompton needed to get to sleep). After that, it was a matter of constantly trying to answer patient's needs. People were ringing with questions about benefits, insurance, jobs, loneliness, surgery, and the difficulty in facing an unknown future. Patients themselves came up with the idea of local contacts, and suggested ideas for seminars.

The newsletter, now so slick, began life as two sides of A4 reproduced on the church photocopier, which regularly broke down and cause tearing out of hair, John Hardman tookoverr the beginning of shaping it into its current form with Stuart Robertson, soon joined by Sarah Darby, and then by Jamie Boyes. It's come a long way from my attempts on a borrowed computer!

As I look at GUCH today, which has become so international in the attending and hosting of conferences, and so widely accessible through the newsletter and the wonderful website, product of Antony Horner's hard work, it is a tribute to the patients who shaped it to fit their needs. The sterling work of Mavis Moore in organising every aspect of the Association to run smoothly and serve patients efficiently brought GUCH on to another level, and now it is in the capable hands of John Richardson, who I'm sure will bring new dimensions again. But when it all comes down to it, it's the patients who make GUCH, and who always must. "

By Sarah Darby and Judy Shedden

2006-07-12T12:57:00.000+01:00

It's my birthday tomorrow,

I'm not going to tell you how old I am but you should be able to work it out given a few clues.

It's the number of teeth in a child's mouth.
It's the number of letters in the ancient (and modern) Greek Alphabet.
It's the number of points on Backgammon board.
It's the number of cycles in the Chinese Solar Year.
It's the number of frames per second in a motion picture film.

You must be able to get it from that. Interestingly, it is also a number that is considered unlucky in Cantonese culture because it sounds similar to "easy to die". Gruesome.

I am having a day off work and am going to travel to York to become a tourist for the day. I get so giddy on my birthday that I drive my Wife mad; last year she took me to the Cadbury's Chocolate Factory and I am surprised that I am allowed to go anywhere this year.

It is a bit wrong that you have to book a day's holiday on your birthday, it's not like you can abuse the system; although on second thoughts the Queen gets two birthdays so she's probably ruined it for all of us.

When I was young I always used to meet people who shared the same birthday as me, a girl in my class, my teacher; even now the cleaner in my office has the same birthday as me. What is the chance of that - one in 365 I would guess. The strangest thing is the chance of knowing two people with the same birthday; if you are in a room with 23 other people then there is a greater than 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday. That sounds low to me but it is true.

In the 50's and 60's there was a list of things that you would buy for girls on their birthdays, just to show you how times have changed I have reproduced it below.

10th birthday - lollipops
11th birthday - gum drops
12th birthday - tootsie rolls
13th birthday - bubble gum
14th birthday - dog biscuits
15th birthday - life savers
16th birthday - sugar cubes
17th birthday - lemon drops
18th birthday - cigarettes

Cigarettes! Dog biscuits! Which is weirder now - probably still the dog biscuits.

Another thing I found today whilst searching was that people celebrate a golden birthday or champagne birthday when they turn the age that corresponds to the date of their birth. I had mine at the age of 13 without even knowing it, I feel a bit gutted about that.

I will leave you with one last thing that I found on the Wikipedia site. Wikis are not normally known for their humour so this is a rare find.

"The person whose birthday it is makes a silent wish and then blows out the candles; if done in one breath, the wish is supposed to come true, especially if the wish is for cake"

2006-07-10T08:22:00.000+01:00

I've had a couple of days off, I hope you didn't mind too much.

Although I've not left a blog, I have spent time putting it out there to the general public so hopefully the numbers will increase over the next few weeks and I can get that all important third trade. I figure that it will come from someone new so I have to try and get as many new people as possible.

A quick recap on where we stand today. I began with a piece of rope and a blog I named 'money-for-old-rope', I very quickly picked up my first trade through a gruesome discovery of the meaning of the term 'Money For Old Rope'. The trade was for 18 pairs of craft scissors, kindly given to me by Angela from the Wirral. I had a fun evening racing around the North-West of England eventually ending up at the ground of Tranmere Rovers, Prenton Park where I made the trade.

My second trade occurred when a kind man named Andrew from Australia decided he wanted to be a part of the adventure by trading an Olympic Official's tee-shirt that he wore whilst officiating at the Sydney Olympic Games. The scissors were then put to good use by local school children and his own child who has Congenital Heart Disease, which is what this quest is all about.

The aim from the start has been to not only raise money but also to raise awareness of people living their everyday lives with Congenital Heart Disease and whilst my CHD under control, there are many people out there who are not as fortunate. If you like this blog then keep coming back, leave your opinions or even take part in a trade.

Have a great day.

2006-07-07T11:36:00.000+01:00

I received an email from Ste Burnett yesterday who is a friend from where I grew up. I was always jealous of how well he could draw when we were in school, I could barely draw a stickman (although so could lowry) but he produced amazingly complex pieces that looked really professional.

Needless to say, I took the science route at school and became an engineer and Ste took art and design technology. He has produced a tee shirt that is a really good, original design, and, in a complete abuse of the power that blogs have I have put a link to it in this post so that you can all view it and hopefully buy it and support up and coming designers. Who knows maybe someday it will be worth a lot of money, but in the meantime it is a damn good tee shirt.

You can view it here at MicroZine.co.uk

2006-07-05T11:46:00.000+01:00

In the words of a popular band; "Here's my bright idea"

I have been thinking that a blog can only take you so far down the publicity line. What people actually need is interactivity and although comments go someway towards Web 2.0 I think that I can do better.

What I am planning over the next few months is to take this quest to a website where there will be more modern functionalities and services. I feel that if I offer services on my site that other websites charge for then people will come here even if they are not interested in what I have to say and hopefully will be drawn into the adventure.

I have big plans people so stick with me as we go through what I believe will be exciting times. I want people to visit the site and go in all directions, not just scrolling downwards, on today's Web people have short attention spans. I will still keep this blog going but will provide links to the website.

I will keep you posted on all developments that occur and give you to VIP invites to my brand-spanking new website when it premieres.

Do I sound giddy? I certainly feel it!

2006-07-04T12:52:00.000+01:00

There is something I am very confused about. How do you retire as captain of a football team?

Now you don't have to understand football or even like it to take part in this discussion you just need a little bit of common sense. David Beckham has retired as captain of England's football team.

Is that not like saying, "I tried for the last six years but I have realised that I am no good at it". It is not like he has finished playing football or he needs to rest. It is more like he can't be bothered.

Why has he had this realisation now? It is the wrong time. Two years ago, six months ago would have been fine. We could have had Stephen Gerrard, John Terry or some other passionate player, instead we had a man with OCD.

OCD can be a debilitating illness but surely if he does have to do all those match preparations such as making sure his clothes are folded in exactly the right way then he has less time for motivational speeches and other captain duties. Gerrard and Terry and even Lampard have been influential for their clubs and would have made much better captains.

This is just another example of how poor the management was and how our chances were wasted by stubborn people who refused to admit they were wrong.

I don't have many rants so I hope you enjoyed this one - I did, if you didn't I promise that I won't rant often.

Have a good day and if something is frustrating you then put it down on paper, it'll make it better.

2006-07-03T12:43:00.000+01:00

Congenital Heart Disease affects almost 1 in 100 children. 1 in 100 is actually not a small chance; how many people do you know, if you count up all of your family, all of your colleagues, friends etc., I bet it comes to more than 100.

Consequently, there are lots of people out there who have or know someone who has CHD. There are many celebrities who have CHD, two who spring to mind are Kanu (Nigerian Footballer) and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also there are celebrities who get involved with heart charities either because a member of their family has CHD or because they feel that it is a worthy cause.

I have had a little look on the internet and come up with the following celebrities who have been good enough to give some of their time to CHD charities.

Vinnie Jones (Footballer and Actor)
Gabby Logan (TV Sports Presenter)
Michele Heaton (PopStar)
Graham Norton (TV Presenter)
Ulrika Johnson (Ex-Weather Girl)
Chris Tarrant (TV Presenter)
Brian Connolly (Comedian)
Preston (Ordinary Boys Front Man)
Saskia (Big Brother Contestant)
Brian Littrell (Backstreet Boys)
Carole Smillie (TV Presenter)
Shaun White (Olympic Gold medal Snowboarder)
Roger Black (World Champion 4x400m relay)

I know that I may be scraping the barrel as regards celebrity status with some of these but that does not matter, the point is that they are trying to raise awareness of the issues and for that they should be congratulated.

If you know of any more then leave a comment on this post and I will add them to the list. Thank you.

2006-07-02T23:30:00.000+01:00

Good evening,

What a weekend; spent half of yesterday getting psyched up for the football and the other half on a come-down from it. There was a guy on the local radio saying that he was glad that we got beat by Portugal; I was quite angry at the time, how dare he say that, but then I thought about it for a while.

We were crap under Eriksson, there is no nicer way to put it, quite simply crap. His assistant is now in charge. If we had been unlucky and played well then we would continue to be a mediocre team but now after what has happened there has to be change, the fans will not put up with McLaren if the first few games look anything like the last ones. So in a way I am glad that we were shown up, now maybe things can change.

The other half of my weekend was spent today (surprisingly). After spending a couple of hours painting the kitchen we could bear the heat and the house no longer and got in the car and drove to my parents. We took or puppy (Quentin) with us as we wanted him to meet my parents dog (Bailey).

Bailey is a 6-year-old Cocker Spaniel and he is looking his age. In human years he would be middle-aged and although he does not have a red sports car and a problem with modern music he is starting to show it in other ways. It is a shame as I remember him when I used to live at home and he was an energetic puppy but now he has slowed down a lot and meeting little Quentin today was a bit much for him. Quentin is full of energy and could show the England team (Owen Hargreaves aside) a thing or two about running after a football for 90 minutes straight.

Quentin has worn me out also so I am off to bed now. I have a big week of publicising and trying to obtain my third trade so wish me luck.

2006-07-01T23:25:00.000+01:00

Hi

Thgis is Sharon's blog. A few days ago all of the newspapers reported that heart atacks wouild increase if England went to penalties. Well I can confirm that all hearts were racing today at our unfortunate defiet. We desereved to win. not because of the unfair red card, or because of the hand ball which wasn't a penalty, but because the hopes of a naton were in ruins. And this meant more heart attacks! Some may say it is only a game, but they are fron nations who didn't qualfy (or maybe fron the USA).

Although it is unfortunate that a sporting event can lead to such catastrofic events it proves to show how much the world cup can mean. I don't have much to say, i have drowned my sorrows in a few glasses of wine and I'm now trying to forget that the tournament exists.

Anyway in recent news, Paul has confirmed his appointment for his tattoo, and pictures will be displayed after he has had it done.

Quite a short one but i have had two bottles of wine and i'm finding it hard to type. All the best, Sharon.

2006-06-30T13:22:00.000+01:00

At the start of December I came down with what I thought was a nasty case of the Flu.

I went into work on the Monday morning feeling a little bit down in the dumps and had to be sent home by lunchtime. It got steadily worse and I ended up shaking uncontrollably for most of the time. By the Tuesday night - after lots of appeals from my Wife - I decided to let her take me to A&E (ER to non-British).

I arrived at A&E and did the usual thing, "I've got congenital heart disease", waiting for the look on the receptionist's face that said 'Oh god, get him in quick' but it didn't appear. At this point I must say that I am not usually one of those people that use my heart problems to get things that I want but when I'm ill it is a different matter; there is no way I am waiting to be seen after the guy who fell out of a tree and the girl who put her shoe on the wrong foot and now can't get it off. I have flu and that makes me more important than any other case that comes through those doors.

After about 15 minutes waiting Sharon went and had a word with a nurse and we were straight in. At this point I decided that I would be all macho and claim that it was only a cold and that my Wife had dragged me there but I don't think the nurses believed me. They put me on a bed and rushed me off for an X-ray.

I lay there for about an hour, I told myself that I must be coming out of the worst as I had had the flu for 2 days and I made plans for the following day off work. I would really enjoy myself as the previous weeks had been extremely stressful; I had started a new job after leaving University and was house hunting in most of my spare time.

A doctor approached the bed with my chest X-ray in her hand and explained to me that I had pneumonia and that my lungs were filled with fluid. Suddenly, I felt more ill.

They stuck an antibiotic IV in my arm and left me for a few hours. Later that day they transferred me to a private ward in the hospital which I was very impressed about until I got there. The private ward was the most basic ward I have ever seen with a gap where a TV should have been and no facilities at all, but it was still better than being in a normal ward.

I remember that I didn't eat very much, I couldn't. On the second evening Sharon took me out into the corridor so that I could get breath of freedom and she could get a bite to eat. She bought a McDonalds and I was soon wolfing it down followed by an apple crumble. Strange how a McDonalds got my appetite back, can you see a theme with these blogs.

I recovered in about three days which the nurses thought was incredible and was released, I then had three weeks of bed rest followed by a holiday in Africa and the Christmas holidays so all in all a good recuperation period.

It was a horrible experience but I have learnt a lot more about the NHS and my heart condition because of it and got a well-deserved rest.

2006-06-29T13:54:00.000+01:00

I have found the greatest website today.

It was on the BBC news website earlier today and its name is DIGG. The general principle behind it is that stories are placed up there and the readers decide what is good and what is bad. The good ones go to the top and the rubbish ones dissappear. This works well for news and the result is something similar to Google news, popular stories appearing towards the top.

Anyway, the unique thing about DIGG is that videos are also voted for and the result is great. There are some great videos up there and they change regularly as people get bored of the previous ones.

Visit it here: http://digg.com/view/videos/popular/thisyear. You may have to sign up but it is one of those really simple ones where you put in a username and password and they email you a confirmation.

If you know of any other great sites that I can fill my lunchbreaks with then drop me a line.

Cheers.

2006-06-28T13:27:00.000+01:00

I'm into my seventh week of trading now.

If things carry on at this speed then I will have an amazing item to auction at the end. I envisioned that getting started would be the hardest thing but my first trade came within a week of starting. There will be slow patches down the line but I am hopeful that the quest will keep on rolling for the next 16 months.

What will I do with the final item, where will I auction it? The first place that comes to my mind is EBay. They have sold the following humourous items purely on the basis that they have generated publicity:

Old Rope
Voodoo Toy
A Cheese Sandwich

If I can generate enough publicity then the final item will be a piece of history rather than just an item and it may go for more than it's worth. Alternatively, with enough publicity a large auction house would be happy to sell it. Also with it being for charity many places would waive the fee for selling it.

Let me know what you think.

2006-06-27T15:13:00.000+01:00

World cup update today,

I know that I said I wouldn't mention the world cup much and I think I have done well so far.

Three of the six teams I said I would support are still in it. It is goodbye to Japan, United states and Australia (Australia are unlucky not to still be in it). England, France and Portugal are still there, but I think that France will be on the next plane home. Also Portugal are playing England so only one team can go through there.

England are my number one team though and although they haven't looked like the team they have been built up to be so far, I am confident that they will go all the way and win it this time.

If they beat Portugal then it will be only the third time that they have reached the Semi-final stage, we have won one (1966) and lost one (1990).

Come on England!

2006-06-26T13:54:00.000+01:00

I have decided that I am getting a tattoo.

It is going to be a dragon on the top of my left arm. It is a bit scary thinking that I am going to do this but I'm not going to back out of this one. I will get it for a birthday present next month and then there is no way I can back out.

The question arises in my mind; do I have to tell the tattoo artist about my heart condition? I would take an educated guess and say no, but then most people are surprised when they hear that it is an issue at the dentist.

I thought I had better check before I get it done, if I don't get an answer here then I will put it to the message boards at GUCH.

Has anyone reading had a tattoo? The thing that I am most worried about is whether or not it will hurt. I can take a pin prick from a needle but I'm not sure whether I could take thousands of pin pricks for a sustained time.

Let me know your stories about tattoos and any advice you have.

2006-06-25T22:08:00.000+01:00

Hello, it's been a while.

I thought that I would leave that last post at the top for a couple of days because I have had an influx of new readers. Also I think that now I can officially begin looking for my third trade.

I am hoping to drum up quite a bit of publicity over the next week or so. It was difficult at first having just a piece of rope but now I have something that is extremely interesting and I hope it will really capture people's imagination.

In other news there are just 500 days to go. Actually I think that is quite a lot of days. Still a milestone nonetheless.

Do you have anything you would like to trade for an Sydney 2000 Olympic Official's Shirt? I am looking, in the first instance, for anything unusual or interesting.

It may be of little value to you but could be worth a lot to somebody else.

Have a look around, you never know what you might find.

2006-06-22T14:39:00.000+01:00

Greetings all .. Andrew from Australia here.

As reported by Paul I received the 18 pairs of craft scissors earlier in the week along with a piece of history in a small cut of the old rope which commenced the awareness/fundraiser.

To keep things moving on I have taken photos of the scissors and myself (don’t be scared now) holding the piece of old rope. Whilst I would have liked to get some local background in the picture ie Adelaide General Post Office or one of our local beaches, it is winter in Australia and it is dark by the time my wife and I are all home from work so I had to orchestrate the automatic timer on the camera set ontop of a Tuperware biscuit container (don’t know whether you have Tupperware but it is expensive storage containers and other kitchen type utensils but of good quality) to come up with the photo.

Perhaps down the track I can send in some photos of some local scenes which I was going to suggest may be interesting but you folk determine that.

Whilst I had no role in the conception of the idea “Money for Old Rope”, I would like to encourage others to take part or even tell other to “take a squiz (look) at the blog” to increase the awareness for Congenital Heart Disease (CHD).

Whilst Paul will probably not say anything, this trade cost Paul and I with postage for the airmail trade. Whilst minimal it still shows that Paul is committed to achieving the best possible result.

Paul will obviously have more to say about looking for the next trade but I would just like to say, cmon .. make me feel like the Sydney 2000 Olympics Official’s shirt worn by myself, such an athlete as you can see, is worth a trade to the next level.

Ciao now

Andrew

www.beatinghearts4kids.blogspot.com

(friend of www.money-for-old-rope.blogspot.com)

2006-06-21T22:39:00.000+01:00

I am 23; that means I am a child of the 80's.

The 1980s were such a great time to grow up. We get to look back at all of the fashion disasters and say "I was only four". I have just rediscovered my very favourite TV show of all time - PUGWALL.

If you haven't watched it or can't remember, it was an Australian show about a geeky kid who had a band that played in his garage. I found the theme tune here and I realised that dispite not watching the show for 15 years I knew all of the lyrics, how weird is that.

As I listened to the theme tune, all of the 1980s came flooding back to me -

The Power of Grey Skull
Fraggle Rock
Wax on, wax off
Ice ice baby
Challenge Anneka
Zippy
Pat Sharp
Timmy Mallet
Micro machines
Kylie Minogue
Gummy bears
Transformers (Robots in disguise)

Well, Pugwall got cancelled and they all did bit-parts in Neighbours and that was the end of the 1980s. I hope that you appreciate it as much as I did.

2006-06-20T23:08:00.000+01:00

We did it!!!

Into the second round to face Ecuador. They looked good in the first few games but were hammered today by Germany so I am very happy about our chances.

I received news that the scissors arrived safe and sound today in Australia so I hope to have some pictures of this very soon to show you all.

This means that I will soon start to actively look for my third trade. What will I get, I really don't know but it will all be recorded here for you to view. You may even want to take part.

As you can see, I have had hundreds of people visit this site and I know that very soon it will become thousands. Many of you are happy to read the daily blog but I am sure that there are some of you that are itching to take part but just don't know whether you should or not.

Let me say that the trade can be for anything provided you believe that it is better than a Sydney Olympic Official's shirt. You must have something lying around that you no longer want that may be of value to someone else, plus you get to take part in a groundbreaking charity fundraiser.

2006-06-19T22:16:00.000+01:00

Hi, I have been very ill over the weekend and have not been able to leave a blog so my apologies for that.

When I was growing up I loved meat. I used to have a roast on a sunday, and I don't think I ever had a meal that didn't have meat somewhere in it. That was just the way it was. I never thought about how vegetarians could survive; I was always told that their growth was stunted because they didn't get the nutrients they needed from food.

When I met Sharon, she told me she was vegetarian, I had never pictured myself having a vegetarian girlfriend but things like that do not matter when you meet the right person. I started to eat things like Quorn and even started liking some vegetables that I had never eaten before. I realised that you did not have to have meat in a meal for it to be a good one.

I still eat meat but I have cut down a great deal, this is mainly due to the fact that my Wife wants me to look after myself more than the fact that she is a vegetarian. But if I didn't know how to cook meals without meat then I would still probably be eating meat with every meal.

Thinking back now I remember that whilst I was being told that you couldn't get the nutrients you needed from a vegetarian diet the top sprinter in my school was a vegetarian. Still it took me twenty years to realise the effect a good diet can have.

2006-06-17T23:36:00.000+01:00

Hi, it's Sharon again,

When I first started dating Paul I had a few questions about his heart. They weren't all at once, but every so often I would think about something that I didn't understand, or sometimes it was just idle curiosity. What was the most shocking thing to me however was how little information Paul could give me.

Pauls lack of information was not due to forgetfulness but merely because he had never bothered to ask the questions himself. That was the way things were, he new how to look after himself and he knew that he had had two major operations but apart from that he new very few details and most of these were a blur.

Together we have through speaking to his parents and his cardeologist pieced together what actually happened, although I feel that for Paul this information has little more meaning that when a distant relative who hasn't seen you in years expects you to remember the time you were sick on their sofa at the age of 4 (or similar, you know what I mean, and it was probably your cousin anyway!).

So although Paul has gained an interest and curiosity about his heart, it is still a bit of a mystery to him. I often think that sometimes I can recall more of the details than he can. I don't really have much of a point to this story, I guess if Paul had of continued to have invasive treatment throughout his teens and into adult hood things may have been different, I guess my point is that ignorance can be bliss.

2006-06-15T23:30:00.000+01:00

We got our dog today, his name is Quentin and as you can see from the picture below, he is very beautiful, well we think so anyway.

He is a Pug crossed with a Pekingese. I know that we were supposed to be getting a Labradoodle but we thought that Quentin was far cuter.

So far we have tried to teach him to do things such as sit and stay but he interprets them as lick my feet and poo on the rug. It's early days though and I'll let you know how we get on.

2006-06-14T23:38:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my guest post on Money-For-Old-Rope. My name is Andrew and I am posting from Adelaide, South Australia. I can’t say that I am an adult with a congenital heart disorder and the closest I get is having a functional heart murmur (along with just about every one else probably).

When I first came across Money-For-Old-Rope and Paul’s awareness/charity mission, I thought it was interesting as it was heart related however I didn’t exactly “jump in boots and all” because it was about adults. I followed along for a while and then it struck me, Paul and all the others from GUCH have a congenital heart condition, that is from birth and therefore they were not too different from where our 3 year old toddler is now (yeah I know .. we’re a bit relaxed in Aussie and takes a while to click).

One thing I am really motivated about is creating awareness for congenital heart disease as most people have little or no idea in relation to the infamous 1 in 100 babies are born with a heart condition statistic and these babies hopefully become adults. Before getting onboard though, my “Spidy” sense tingled (any Spiderman fans?). Was this yet another internet scam? I checked the links on the site and one went to a website called GUCH. Seemed to be a professional site with plenty of material, contacts, and links to other genuine organizations. My last check was the Google PR rating which showed a Page Ranking 5 or better from memory. Now Google page ranks of 5 don’t happen overnight or even usually after 3-6 months unless you’ve got a blog site called “The guy that sold the laptop on eBay and ripped me off” or something similar but that’s another story.

So at that stage being happy all was ok, I then decided why not get a piece of history in the making and in reverse help make history and tossed around some thoughts for a trade. I couldn’t link to the 18 pairs of craft scissors so I went for the Australian theme and came up with the Olympic Official Uniform I wore when I worked at the Sydney 2000 Olympics (before you ask .. yes it was washed)! I think this is a great concept with genuine motive and have decided to help where possible if that means success for the cardiac cause. In 17 months time I will be able to hold my piece of rope and say I have a piece of the rope that turned into what I hope will be a well publicized end result.

I hope you too can continue on the journey, spread the word for others to follow and consider also whether you may be able to trade and get a bit of old rope.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned to see whether Paul decides to give me another guest appearance or says thanks but adios to the Aussie.

Andrew

PS For a continuing story that follows the path of our 3 year old toddler who has undergone open heart surgery twice, stomach surgery twice and numerous other little issues, you can visit www.beatinghearts4kids.blogspot.com on one condition, you bookmark this site before you go and come on back.

2006-06-13T23:49:00.000+01:00

My favourite book:

I read the gunslinger by Stephen King one summer when I was in Spain; the characters and the landscapes it described were absolutely incredible. I was disapointed at the end as it didn't really seem to conclude very well and it was more like a short story than a novel although the length of it was somewhere inbetween the two.

I found out later that the book was part of a series of four, but it was the third book that really captured my imagination; The Waste Lands. The book is intense in its adventure and the characters have really grown, but the best part of the book is again the landscapes that King creates. They are phenomenal in their richness and the pictures they can conjure in your own imagination. I really have to recommend this series of books to anyone who likes to read.

The book is actually part of a series of seven that has only recently been completed. The whole series is excellent as the main characters search for the Dark Tower but for me the third book is the peak of the series.

I know that my favourite books on my profile do not list this book but I think it soon will. If you have read an excellent book then let me know as I usually only read books on recommendation as they seem to be better that way.

2006-06-12T23:43:00.000+01:00

I have been wondering lately why it is that only two people are leaving comments, there are at least twenty people that visit the site daily, are you shy?

There is no reason to be shy, you can even be anonymous. The more comments that are left the more people can get to know about what sort of person reads this blog and what they think of the progress so far. It can also be used as a forum for discussing that day's blog.

The comments can also be your chance to ask me to comment on things which I have not as yet covered. What do you want to know?

So come on! What are you waiting for?

2006-06-11T22:50:00.000+01:00

My wife and I have decided that we are going to get a dog. I had a dog in my late teens called Bailey, he is a black Cocker Spaniel who lives with my parents, I miss him a lot since I moved out of my parents so it will be good to have a dog around the house again.

The dog my wife wants is a Labradoodle, I am starting to warm to the idea now, they do look quite cute. We will have to dog proof the house though so it may still be a while before I can have my slippers brought to me in the mornings.

We currently have two goldfish called Tango and Nemo and they are our little babies. They get fed so well, sometimes they even get baby food, although they do tend to just swim round and round the bowl at top speed after because of the sugar rush.

I once wanted to breed snakes when I was in school, my friend and I put all our money together and bought a home for them but then the whole thing collapsed when my friend's mum realised what we were planning to do in her house and surprisingly my Mum wouldn't let us do it in her house either.

2006-06-10T19:59:00.000+01:00

The posts are getting later. This is due to my circumstances at the moment and should go back to normal in about a week or so.

I wouldn't really get away without saying something about the match today so 1:0, there we go, plus Sweden drew so I am ecstatic.

It is hot here, it is actually hotter here than it was on holiday which is strange. Sat outside to eat lunch which makes a change from the usual weather. I then went and bought an England flag for the car, because I realised after writing yesterday's blog that I was going on about patriotism and hadn't even bought a flag myself. Now I can join the masses.

A short one today, because I am off to celebrate.

Have fun.

2006-06-09T23:28:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I must apologise for the lack of a post on Wednesday. I could not log into blogger and so left the post on Thursday, but when I came to write a new post on Thursday my computer crashed and I have just got it back working.

I'm not going to spend the whole summer banging on about the World Cup but it is England's first game tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. This year I really think we'll win it. Hopefully there won't be too many penalty shoot-outs.

If somebody was to visit England at the moment they would think that we were the most crazily patriotic nation on earth. Flags on every other car, flags on the front of newspapers, shops, houses, t-shirts, even dyed into peoples hair. I'd love to know what the American tourists are thinking right now.

I always feel the urge to go outside and play football when the world cup is on, I don't bother for the rest of the time; I think that I want to emulate the players that are on TV. It was always the same with Wimbledon; every year I would be out playing tennis. It took me a while to realise that to actually become good at the game you would have to play all year round, not just when it was on TV.

Wish us luck wherever you are from.

2006-06-08T08:18:00.000+01:00

This is yesterday’s message which did not get posted because blogger went down.

Good evening,

The World Cup is very close now. I will of course be supporting England all the way but this year I’ll also be supporting all of the teams down the right hand side of the page (when they’re not playing England of course) five of which are taking part in the World Cup; these are Australia, France, Japan, Portugal and USA – Good luck to you all.

The World Cup is a great time for people to forget their differences and join together to just love football. I know greater people have said this in much more profound ways than I can so I won’t labour on it; I just wish it wasn’t once every four years that people feel like this.

I hope that if you are reading this in a country that does not have a team in the finals you will still appreciate the fantastic players and spirit in which they play.

Footnote: not sure what I’ll do when Australia play Japan on their first game, oh well, may the best team win.

2006-06-06T20:05:00.000+01:00

Hello there,

I'm back in England now, which is the reason for such a late post. When I arrived back at my house there was a certain package awaiting me. The Sydney 2000 Olympic Official's Shirt has arrived safely. I have added a picture of it below.

For you eagle eyed viewers it is the same picture I uploaded before as my camera battery has run out but I can assure you that it has arrived.

So, I am now officialy looking for my third trade. What do you have that you consider unusual, interesting, valuable to someone else; if you are prepared to trade it for the t-shirt then let me know.

Speak to you tomorrow.

2006-06-05T16:19:00.000+01:00

As a result of my operations I have two main scars on my body and a few littles ones too. I have a scar that runs down the middle of my chest and one that runs from my left armpit to the middle of my back.

The one on my back is from the first operation I had when I was three months old; I still have very little feeling in that scar but sometimes it itches and sometimes it even hurts. It never did this when I was younger and I'm hoping that it is a sign that I am slowly regaining feeling there.

The scar on the front of me has complete feeling but it is the one that everybody can see especially as right now it has turned pink in the sun. I don't mind that people can see them, I'm not ashamed at all. You could even say I'm proud of them.

It would be easy to get depressed about my scars but if I didn't have them I wouldn't be here.

2006-06-04T14:36:00.000+01:00

I don't remember most of what happened to me when I was having my operations as a child. I don't remember the stress, the nights spent praying for my safety or the days spent at my bedside. That was reserved for my parents.

My parents are great people; they went through so much when I was a child and the only way I feel I can repay them is to live my life to the full and take every opportunity that I am given. They allowed me to live as full a life as possible and I think this helped a lot for both them and me.

So many parents out there must worry about the effects CHD is having on their child when actually the more bad stuff they can get out of the way as a child the less it affects the child later in life.

It may seem like it is never going to end but in many cases children are incredibly brave and deal amazingly well with emotional stress.

Time tends to heal children with CHD better than it heals their parents and that is why I believe there should be a better support network for parents of children, not that what we have is not good, just that it could be better.