Sunday 12 July 2009

Happy Birthday

It's my Father-in-law's birthday today. We went for a lovely meal in Fabio's in Corstorphine last night. The service was a little slow but the food was excellent. The restaurant was really busy. It was the same last year when we went there for G's 40th birthday meal. We gave F-I-L a digital photo frame. He seemed rather taken with ours when he visited us earlier this year. My mum and I bought him the exact same birthday card. Pity they both said happy 65th, as it's his 70th! Quite a compliment as he doesn't look 65, never mind 70:-) I blame G. If if had signed the card instead of leaving me to buy the card, present and wrap it, an embarrassing situation could have been avoided. Will I be able to forget it? Not on your Nelly!

Saturday 4 July 2009

Gary Barlow

I managed to get Gary Barlow's autobiography from the library.

I'm really enjoying it.
Highlights so far:

  • The day their first album was released was the same day his bedroom furniture arrived from MFI
  • "Among the fan letters were a lot of naked pictures, but some were more off-beat. I had one fan, Ilona in Germany, who was a policewoman. She used to send me pictures of herself taking part in riots. She's be all dressed up in combat gear with truncheon hitting people - that freaked me out". I thought it hilarious (sorry Gary) - I think it was a job application for his personal security officer LOL.
  • When he signed his first publishing deal, his advance was £150,000. Nigel Martin -Smith made him put the entire advance in a NatWest Money Market account and wouldn't let him touch any of the money - in fact to draw out money Gary needed Nigel's signature. Gary would go to the cashpoint and put in his card just to stare at the balance.

I'm 40% of the way through, and it's really just the start of them hitting the big time, so I can't wait to read the rest of it