What is your claim to fame ?

[richardfm]

My claim to fame will be that I followed the unraveling of the @classic33 story before it became a best selling book and film.

But did you understand it?

 

[richardfm]

Jonathan Forster, the engine wright who was one of three people who built the world's oldest surviving steam locomotive, Puffing Billy, is an ancestor of mine.
The other side if my family is descended from the Clarks, as in shoes.

 

[Badger_Boom]

It's what he set out to prove, but to admit digging a fort up would have had him in trouble.

It's long been my understanding that if you mess with fairy forts the authorities are the least of your worries.

 

[classic33]

It's long been my understanding that if you mess with fairy forts the authorities are the least of your worries.

As a descendent of Biddy Early, he may have thought he'd some protection not afforded to others, when he set out to prove them wrong.

Oddly enough, he wasn't around long afterwards.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've traced my family tree all the way back to my grandad.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Was involved live on stage in the 2007 TdeF opening ceremony in Trafalgar Square

Is that you? 🤔

I think you're in the lead of the most tenuous claim competition

You want tenuous, I'll give you tenuous.

I've slept with Elizabeth Taylor.

But not that one.

Just as tenuous, my sister's married name is the same as Posh Spice's maiden name.

I've spent an hour trying to come up with a clean reply to this, I'll keep on trying. 😂

It didn't involve diarrhoea, did it?

My claim to fame will be that I followed the unraveling of the @classic33 story before it became a best selling book and film.

My claim to fame is that I still haven't actually read it. 😊

 

[Hilldodger]

Is that you? 🤔

Yes, it is.

 

[Poacher]

February 1972. One of my acquaintances in Manchester University was a medical student called Nick Jacobs. Nick was a rarity among students of those times in owning a car. One fine day, while proceeding through Moss Side at an inadvisable speed, Nick collided with a car which emerged without pause from a side street. A rueful Nick described the incident to me as "Vroom vroom splat!".
This was shortly before Nick's birthday. As a penniless student oaf, I couldn't afford a suitable present. After some thought, I decided to create a reminder of the collision, in the form of a printed banner on continuous stationery, using my newly acquired programming skill.
Since this was decidedly non-curricular and could have resulted in disciplinary action, I had to get it right first time, so the coding was rigorously desk-checked before submitting it to run. Success!
When I presented it to Nick, I half expected an explosion of anger, but he was delighted, so much so that it took pride of place at his party, blue-tacked high around a corner of the wall was "VROOM VROOM SPLAT!".
While I was standing near the opposite wall, having sadly but almost certainly correctly decided that none of the girls would have the slightest interest in even talking to me, a huge nose appeared in my field of view surmounted with an unruly mop of curly black hair. I was/am 6' tall and had a brother who was 6'3". This guy was taller than my brother and had to lean down to talk to me. "Did you do that?" he asked, pointing at the banner. He obviously knew already, so I had to admit that I did. He wanted to know how I'd done it, and wasn't satisfied with "I did it with a computer and printer", so I had to explain in some detail that I'd programmed in Algol 60, that Algol 60 didn't have a specified output command but a postgrad had written a subroutine which would output a single character at a time, something like
print(char "V");
so I'd used a loop to print a given number of space characters followed by a suitable width of "V"s and I can't now remember if I needed more spaces to get to 144 print positions or whether there was a carriage return / new line command, with the number of initial spaces reducing each time until number of initial spaces reached zero to form the downward part of "V", followed by another similar loop for the upward part, and so on. Lines of some letters had to be individually coded, but I'd written a subroutine to print the upright lines where possible, so for example the upright of the "R" would be
fondle("R");
Next question, inevitably, was "Why "fondle"?"
"Well, I wrote the subroutine, nobody else knows about it so I could call it whatever I liked, I like the word, I like the "mouth-feel" of it when I say it, I quite like the meaning of it, and as I said, it was my decision and no-one else's, so only you and me know it."
He finally seemed satisfied and wandered off.
There, dear reader is the true inspiration for the name of Vroomfondel in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
There is a less certain, but plausible, possibility that I also inspired the name of Vroomfondel's colleague Majikthise, but that's for another post.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

February 1972. One of my acquaintances in Manchester University was a medical student called Nick Jacobs. Nick was a rarity among students of those times in owning a car. One fine day, while proceeding through Moss Side at an inadvisable speed, Nick collided with a car which emerged without pause from a side street. A rueful Nick described the incident to me as "Vroom vroom splat!".
This was shortly before Nick's birthday. As a penniless student oaf, I couldn't afford a suitable present. After some thought, I decided to create a reminder of the collision, in the form of a printed banner on continuous stationery, using my newly acquired programming skill.
Since this was decidedly non-curricular and could have resulted in disciplinary action, I had to get it right first time, so the coding was rigorously desk-checked before submitting it to run. Success!
When I presented it to Nick, I half expected an explosion of anger, but he was delighted, so much so that it took pride of place at his party, blue-tacked high around a corner of the wall was "VROOM VROOM SPLAT!".
While I was standing near the opposite wall, having sadly but almost certainly correctly decided that none of the girls would have the slightest interest in even talking to me, a huge nose appeared in my field of view surmounted with an unruly mop of curly black hair. I was/am 6' tall and had a brother who was 6'3". This guy was taller than my brother and had to lean down to talk to me. "Did you do that?" he asked, pointing at the banner. He obviously knew already, so I had to admit that I did. He wanted to know how I'd done it, and wasn't satisfied with "I did it with a computer and printer", so I had to explain in some detail that I'd programmed in Algol 60, that Algol 60 didn't have a specified output command but a postgrad had written a subroutine which would output a single character at a time, something like
print(char "V");
so I'd used a loop to print a given number of space characters followed by a suitable width of "V"s and I can't now remember if I needed more spaces to get to 144 print positions or whether there was a carriage return / new line command, with the number of initial spaces reducing each time until number of initial spaces reached zero to form the downward part of "V", followed by another similar loop for the upward part, and so on. Lines of some letters had to be individually coded, but I'd written a subroutine to print the upright lines where possible, so for example the upright of the "R" would be
fondle("R");
Next question, inevitably, was "Why "fondle"?"
"Well, I wrote the subroutine, nobody else knows about it so I could call it whatever I liked, I like the word, I like the "mouth-feel" of it when I say it, I quite like the meaning of it, and as I said, it was my decision and no-one else's, so only you and me know it."
He finally seemed satisfied and wandered off.
There, dear reader is the true inspiration for the name of Vroomfondel in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
There is a less certain, but plausible, possibility that I also inspired the name of Vroomfondel's colleague Majikthise, but that's for another post.

That is by far the greatest claim to fame on this thread, thanks for sharing!

😎😎 <- Beeblebrox wearing Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses

 

[mickle]

Princess Di in her Audi nearly took me out whilst I was riding through London. She totally blanked me like I wasn't there.
Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) in her 3 Series BMW nearly took me out whilst I was riding through Hollywood. She totally blanked me like I wasn't there.
Martin Shaw off of The Professionals in his white MK2 Capri 3.0 nearly took me out whilst I was riding through London. He slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran towards me. I thought he was going to batter me, instead he apologies profusely.
Billy Conolly was rude to me. Twice. In the London Bicycle Company shop in Covent Garden (now Paul Smith) and a couple of years later in I Martin Imports bike shop in LA
I said "Hello" to several slebs passing them on the street including Ian Dury, Rolf Harris, Frank Carsen.
I've met Martina Navratilova and Baroness VonTyssen
I sold bikes to Jimmy Somerville, Damien Hurst.
I was once mistaken on the phone for Mick Jagger by Carla Bruni
I once spoke to Keanu Reeves on the phone when he called our house to speak to his then girlfriend who was staying with us at the time. I said; "No, I'm sorry she's not here at the moment" and he said "Ok thanks"
I used to hang out with Simon O'brien (off of Brookside) when he lived in LA. He rides a bike innit.
I approached John Cleese at some London fashion wine and cheese do in London and thanked him for all the joy he's given me. He was very gracious.
Um.
I stood next to Eddy Merxcxcx at a bicycle industry trade show for several seconds.
The chain rings on my mountain bike were once attached to a Peer Gynt recumbent which had been specially built up for Mohammad Al-Fayed off of Harrods.
My Grandad Sam Allan drove the very last tram in Glasgow
My Grandad John Stephen was Chairman of the Scottish Polis Federation and his father was Chief Cuntstable of Perthshire
I was on telly holding up a HPV on an Open University program about aerodynamics
I was on some random ITV program talking about human powered vehicles
I raced HPVs with Richard Ballantine and Mike Burrows
I equipped bikes for Bettina Selby, Tom 'Fat Man on a Bicycle' Vernon and Josie Dew
I once dated Clive Sinclair's niece
When I was a kid we emigrated from Scotland to Malawi. On the flight we were sat next to a nice old man who, in his retirement had taken to travelling the world. He took a shine to me. When we stopped at the old Nairobi airport for refuelling he asked my mum if he could take me away for half an hour to show me something very interesting. We walked through the corridors pushing through 'Staff Only' doors until we came to a locked door. He pulled out a key, and we walked through into a small enclosure open to the sky about 6m square. It had a bench and a pool with goldfish and was planted with lush vegetation around the edge. He told me that he spent so much time at the airport that he got permission from the management to install the pool - and obviously paid for it all - to give himself somewhere to hang out. He was Mr Barr of Barr's Irn Bru.
I was Christened in the chapel of the SAS camp in Hereford (when it was an RAF base)
Many years later my mum was in the SAS (she answered the phones)

Also I've shooken hands with the King of Bahrain.
And stood next to Harry Dean Stanton in a bar.
And sat next to Jeremy Beadle in a bar.
And Gary Fisher walked into my bike shop and was a rude twat.
And i sold a bike to one of the McCann acting brothers.

AND! I nearly mowed down Germaine Greer when she stepped off the kerb in front of my car in central London!

i decorated Patsy Kensit and Jim Kerr's apartment
Rufus Lord Albermarle was on the same course the year behind me at Central

Edited to add:

I sold a bike to Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double

When i was selling specialist bikes for people with special needs i pedalled Richard Wilson around in a wheelchair tandem and met Jonny Marr. 20 years apart tho.

Best 'til last:

'Daddy G' off of Massive Attack threatened to kick my head in because he thought i was taking the piss when i told him the price of the immaculate pink 5 speed Raleigh Chopper he was interested in. (£350) A week earlier Tricky's manager had purchased a customised Raleigh Tomahawk as a moving in present for Tricky's New York apartment. (£250)

Linda Bellos, Spare Rib legend and former head of Lambeth Council, stayed at our house once. We put her up after a wimmin's meeting she attended in York.

I once owned (half of) this very 5.0l V12 1986 Ferrari 412i which was formerly owned by Peter de Savery. Bought it for £9,000. gave it a polish, drove it around until I couldn't afford to put any more petrol in it, and sold it for £14,000 The geezer I bought it with didn't drive because he very much liked to drink, and so I got to drive it and he got to polish it.