thumbs: February 2008 Archives

I became Stockport's Strongest Man by ripping a telephone in half. It's a difficult thing to practice, because people generally like to keep their phones in one piece. But my brother works at BT and they have this place that is basically a graveyard of old phones. He'd let me in at night so I could train. It was pretty spooky - heaps and heaps of dusty old phones, all lit by flickering torches - and I was always thinking, what if one of them rings? Should I answer it? What if it's a ghost? You just have to be disciplined and get on with it, really. Thinking like that gets you nowhere.

I do feel I have a responsibility to be a good role model for the kids. I recently starred in an advertising campaign designed to stop children squashing spiders in the Granada area. It shows me shaking hands with a spider, proving that we can all get along if we just set aside our differences.

I wear these banana-coloured swimming trunks everywhere I go. Even when I met the Mayoress of Cheshire!  She didn't seem to mind, though she did put some newspaper down on my chair. People think I wear them to show off my physique, but actually it's because I lost the key to my locker at the Grand Central Pools.

I'm not actually sure if spiders have hands. I think it's only monkeys that have hands, isn't it? Apart from us, I mean. Monkeys and koala bears - I'm sure I've seen a koala bear sucking its thumb.

You can see that I'm not actually lifting up these two girls in the picture. But if I was taller, they would definitely be hanging above the ground by the power of my biceps alone. I wonder if one of them will lend me their socks?