Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Stockport Market revisited
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Here comes the Bride...
Friday, October 10, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Tarzan, Jane & The Bananana go to Toon - (05/10)
Friday, October 3, 2008
You are my Sunshine.... Studios !
With most of the venues we pretty much knew what we would have to be doing to 'earn' our donations, not so at Sunshine studios - as we raced upstairs with the clock ticking followed by hoards of fab teenage dance students we had no idea what fate lay ahead.
Pole dancing - never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed - we gave it our best shot and after 8 hours of running I think the result was brilliant - as were the pics of Tarzans cheeky pants !
Check out those cheeky pants
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Fancy that!
The Hilton Street shop is an Aladdin's cave of camp fashion and kitsch and after posing for a few shots we headed on to Oldham Street to hand out flyers for the store. After a couple of minutes we realised that the pitch that worked best was something on the lines of "Good afternoon sir, do you like fancy dress?"........."We do"
A lady who does amateur dramatics tries to find out where tarzan keeps his monkey nuts
What a genuine surprise it was to have this photo taken
We've saved the best till last, just like Vanessa Williams did in her sultry 1991 ballad with this picture of the trio with the fantastic support runners from Stockport Harriers. They took over a grand between them on the day and carried the buckets throughout the run which ended up being about thirty miles. Top job. For that reason I will not take the mickey out of them in the caption below the picture.
Photo request
Naomi Makeman sent us this lovely shot from Tiger Tiger, commenting on how nice it was that Sean's eyeshadow matched his shirt. The more party pics, the better.
Double D
We arrived at Dimitris on a real high having just won £1000 at Manch235ter and were invited by Nuno (back right on the photo) to go and chat to his customers. We met a group who were on a works do from Leeds and serenaded some friends celebrating a birthday before posing for photographs with a few Emmerdale fans. One chap in the bar donated £20 in exchange for me posing on his Harley Davidson, it was just like being Marlon Brando....er dressed as Tarzan..... with a banana drinking lucozade sport in the background.
With Tarzan and The Banana utilising the store's inner sanctum, Jane was given a full makeover and the opportunity to compare having make up applied by a professional artist whilst sat in a softly padded chair in a well lit room with her previous method of slapping it on whilst jiggling along in a moving car.
The former won hands down and for the stretch along Market Street to Chisholm Hunter, Jane was beating testosterone fuelled Mancs off with a gnarled stick.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Moneybags
Knocked Out!
I have been knocked out by the fantastic photos Dave and Darren Nelson have taken of the event, which I will put up over the next few days.
Totals from some of the venues are still to be totted up so rather than wait to show the photos, we will post that information as it comes up. Brian and Sue Holland filled in the gaps of Morrisons and Wickes for us, Tim from Sunshine Studios has contributed some beauties too and there was some cracking coverage in the local papers over the last couple of weeks.
Here are some more shots from Sweatshop .
Thursday, September 25, 2008
They think its all over... (25/09)
Friday, September 19, 2008
Pics and Totals (Friday September 19th)
It will take a while to get all the results up as there are rules and regs regarding collecting the money and physically counting all the buckets of coinage is a huge job in itself. It took me and my daughter over half an hour to count a portion of the half bananathon money so I can't imagine how long this is going to take.
Loads of pictures were taken on the way from various parts of the route by Dave and Darren Nelson, but we won't have them for a few days as Dave is off in Germany taking pictures of Metallica. To say these two gave up their Saturday free gratis is just amazing. Thanks gents.
Piccadilly Gardens Lucozade Stop
The Lucozade Sport support van was a vital part of the bananathon, carrying fuel to keep us going throughout the arduous event. I for one drank five or six bottles during the day and it really helped the team of support runners to keep hydrated. Tom the banana would have flaked out had he not kept drinking as temperatures soared into the seventies ripening his yellow skin.
The idea of a fitness class in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens had been a great one, but with complexities of gaining a licence, not being able to advertise in the immediate vicinity and unavoidably losing our fitness instructor with two days to go it didn't turn out quite as originally planned.
Sunshine studios came to the rescue in the shape of Fay, who hours earlier had taught us how to pole dance. She grabbed the megaphone and barked out orders to the crew whilst a crowd of over-excited Emos grabbed the only parts of me which were left covered as I attempted to work muscles that had been on the go for over seven hours. Fay did a brilliant job leading us through a routine comprising star jumps, lunges and, most evilly, situps.
Morrisons (£650)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Sweatshop (£298)
We pulled a raffle for three fantastic prizes (if you haven't heard then I am afraid you didn't win), there was much hilarity when East Cheshire Harriers legend Harry Kelly won second prize as he had coached 'Jane' when he/she was in his teens.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Fir Tree - £1050
One of the noisiest parts of our epic journey was through the busy street of Reddish - a combination of a bear on a motorbike, Tarzan, Jane and the Banana and a plethora of volunteers following brought the centre of Reddish to a standstill - this called for a dual strategy of collectors on both sides of the road getting the cars as they stopped at the traffic lights - it worked a treat - with people shouting, car horns beeping we saw our next stop The Fir Tree and were greeted by the amazing Bananathon Cheerleaders.
Inside the the pub the place was hotting up as preparations for the two big football matches of the day got underway, we even found time to share a quick pint of lager !
A fantastic amount of money was raised over Friday and Saturday night (£1050) as the pub donated the door takings for both nights.
Lots of photo opportunities with Tarzan sprawled across the bar, one lucky punter positioned herself stage left to have a good gawp at his chimp-pants (was it Stotty in disguise?) , 10 minutes later we were on our way again....
Lets hear it for the The Fir Tree Reddish !!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Manchester Casino - £1000
One of my favourite stops on Saturday has to be Manch235ter Casino - real James Bond stuff (not like any of us were dressed like or looked like James Bond).
In through the smoked glass door, with what looked like an excellent restaurant to our left, and then upstairs to find out what our task would be - remember by this time we had run approximately 30 miles so we were hoping for something not too hard and difficult.
We were led by Miss Moneypenny (I cant remember the ladies real name, but Miss Moneypenny fits...) - she led us to a roulette table and asked the croupier to hand each of the three of us £250 in chips (A big of fish and chips would have been welcome at this stage of the day also).
So with £750 in chips we were told we had one spin of the wheel and could bet on evens bets (red or black, odd or even numbers) - after much deliberation we opted for Tom putting his on black and me and Tony on red (Tom Holloway suggested Red because it was LRF's colour)... the wheel was spun, the ball expertly thrown in and with the magic clunking noise the roulette wheel makes as the ball jumps around it landed on........ red !!!
One thousand pounds in the bank !!! Ooohh yes !!! Result
It was counted out for us in crisp new fifty pound notes.
Thank you Manch235ter Casino.
Ebay auctions (15/09)
Verity Rushworth aka Emmerdale's Donna Windsor Dingle Modelling The Watch
Auction One is for a Versace Fabourg Watch donated by Chisholm Hunter. This retails at around £750 and is currently without a bid at a reserve of £400, an absolute bargain for such a beautiful timepiece. There are a number of pictures and a full description on the ebay page.
Auction Two is for a Farida Bass Guitar donated by Dawsons Music in Manchester. This item currently has one bid at £100 but bought from Dawsons would go for £160. Another bargain. Again, details on the ebay page.
If you are interested or know anyone who might be, please bid.
Tarzan x
Silence is golden... (16/09)
Well the first results are starting to roll in so lets start with the silent auction at Tiger Tiger, some excellent prizes donated by some wonderful people. Initial bidding was slow but as the evening wore on and the drink started to flow so did the bids.......
Laptop - £150 - John Hulse
Man U vs Bolton Wanderers - £70 - 'Jane'
Blackburn Rovers vs Man City - £300 - Mike Jackson
Gold Guitar - £120 - John Hulse
Emmerdale script - £151 - J Abbott (Blue Rainbow)
Fine Dining at the Midland - £105 - Tom Holloway
Lucky Voice Pod at Tiger Tiger - £30 - Andy Murphy
Coronation Street Tour - £151 - Will Hannah (Blue Rainbow)
Blue Rainbow - £60
Signed picture of Joe Jordan - £5 - Andy Murphy
Signed picture of Bryan Robson £20 - Chris (Badger) Craig
An amazing total of £1162 - outstanding !
Monday, September 15, 2008
Send us your pics and thoughts
Keep watching
Tarzan
x
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Bananatastic! Saturday September 13th 2008
During the week we will fill you in on all the stories and events from the day and let me tell you, there are many ( one of my favourite moments was talking to Dominic as he DJ'd, he suddenly shifted his gaze to outside the window and shouted "look at that guy" as a man dressed as a gorilla/monkey/creature off Doctor Who passed by on a motorbike, "Oh, that's Brian, he's with us" I replied).
We don't have a total yet, but will have by the end of the week, so keep reading.
So for now it's just a list of Thank You's. If I miss anyone off, I'm sorry, there are so many people to remember.
Thanks to everybody from the half bananathon and all the support we have had from the Media in the build up to the day.
Thanks to everybody from all the venues, we will name people individually in the reports during the week, you were all fantastic, thanks so much for embracing the event as you did (I know two venues who have raised £1,000 so far, amazing!).
Thanks to Suzy Dee and all at Tiger Tiger for a great party. To White Van Man, Lee, DJ Grimesy, Drase (the Manchester Beatbox Champion), FTAV Sound of Harrogate, Charlie & Dom.
Thanks to Puma for the sports wear, Lucozade sport for the support van and product, to Dave and Darren Nelson for photographing the whole event and Channel M for covering the early stages. Blue Rainbow for the beautiful apartments.
Thanks to Talib and Brian for the support vehicles and all the fantastic support runners from Stockport Harriers who carried buckets and collected on the day, some of them running the whole distance; Steve, Gerry, Simon, Andy, John, Sharon, Tony and Lee who also designed and printed the tickets and drank the most Cider at Tiger Tiger.
Massive thanks to the Leukaemia Research Team and all the volunteers who collected, especially Gill, Tom, Serena, Sally, Kate and Alex who took the brunt of the many jobs that needed doing in the build up and on the day.
Thanks to Sean and Tom who have worked so hard for this event over the last few months and to our partners and families who have had to put up with obsessed strangers for the bulk of it.
Thanks to everyone who donated to LRF. You did yourselves and Manchester proud and your money will be well spent.
Tarzan x
Blue Rainbow the morning after, In Steve Jones' pants.