I think you'll find Rhys-Meyers is MINE, and I'll take Cillian Murphy while I'm at it, thank you very much. It's a twofer deal. Ewan can keep them in line.

hazarding wild guess> iirc, lots of soft drinks were initially marketed as 'health' drinks? Like Tonic water? Coke and the various other colas definitely were, and Dr Pepper still has the 'Dr' bit to its name, so it probably wasn't as much of a random crazy thing at the time.

Wow. Fay's wild guess isn't all that wild. I believe this was the actual reason. Check out the big, sexy brain on Fay.

I think the people who made up Coke were looking for a cough remedy initially. They should have known they missed when it didn't taste bad, but maybe that's just me.

Considering the original formula was made with cocaine, rather than caffeine, I don't know that it tasted bad per se, but I'm betting it made your sore throat go numb in a quick hurry.

I'd kill for a time machine, if only to try cocaine Coke, just one time.

California, at the moment.

Snerk. Y'know, on one level, my brain understands that this is a joke, but it's 3.30am here and my geography is such that I keep getting these paranoid flashes of a town that'll transplant itself across the oceans just to confuse me...

It's possible that I should go to bed now. G'night all. :)

No, I'm sure it didn't, but mostly they do. And yes, no matter what you'd feel good.

Oh silly silly Jars. Nice try. I've been hoarding Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in the corner for quite a while now.

Ah, but do you have a friend of a friend who knows him? And your friend promised to steal you his his phone number, just so you can have it in your phone, but not call him, because that's just creepy?

He's just so pointy, and effeminate, and lithe, and ....yum. I hope they repeat Gormenghast soon. Cos, y'know - hot.

Leigh ... Elizabeth is in South Australia. It was created in the mid 1950s and UK migrants were the primary "settlers". Jimmy Barnes and his half-brother John "Swannee" Swan grew up here, as did Graham Goble and Beeb Birtles from the Little River Band and Alan Tarney of the Tarney-Spencer Band.

The only reason I know this is b/c it's etched in my brain due to a radio show I did way back in 1980. It was part of the "rock n roll highschool" hour on the original Triple M (now known as 3D Radio). Most of the students who got a turn on the show, just played any old music but since we were from Elizabeth High School, we decided to do a show around artists who came from Elizabeth.

BTW ... Michael "Tunny" Tunn -- formerly of Triple J and ABC TV -- got his start doing the Rock N Roll High School show. By the time he was on it, they'd stopped using different schools each week and just had the same students come in every week.

Okay, Jars, you win on the obsessiveness. Though the phone number thing is SCARY. But I'm still not giving him up.

I forgot Liam Neeson.

So did I! (Flog me, too!)

Micheal Palin

Oh, yes. Also, if I may be permitted to include non-living Brits, Graham Chapman.

I hope they repeat Gormenghast soon. Cos, y'know - hot.

Yeah. And had Spike Milligan in. (Okay! So I have a thing for dead funny guys! With blue eyes! It's the blue eyes, I tell you.)

I have to admit that because I knew the books, I was more than a little disturbed by how attractive I found Steerpike. Rhys-Meyers did a wonderful job, but-- disturbing, kinda.

thinks

That's praise. Disturbing is how Gormenghast *should* be.

As long as we're not time-restricted and Deb's claiming prime Richard Burton, I'd like to lay claim to Richard Harris and Robert Shaw. And Julian Sand.

Wouldn't you like have closed a pub 30 years ago with Burton, Harris and O'Toole?