John Taylor is a bloody nice bloke.

Back in March I had an idea.

Well, I should codify that statement, I probably had several ideas, but most of them involved what I should have for lunch.

One of those ideas was good though. I was watching the Duran Duran video for 'Rio'

Here it is:

Good isn't it?

I write about it here, if you are interested.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone had ever got John to sign a copy of that magazine he was reading in his solo bit.

This one:

Then a plan hatched in my brain. John Taylor tweeted that he was writing his autobiography, so he must be going to do a book tour, right? Ah...

Well, I was straight off to the Internet to find out about the comic.

"Fightin' Army was a bimonthly war comic published by Charlton Comics from 1956–1984 (though it was primarily a reprint title from 1978 to the end of its run). Telling fictional stories of the United States Army, it was a sister title of the other Charlton war comics Fightin' Air Force, Fightin' Marines, and Fightin' Navy."

Brilliant, right which one was it though? When did they film the 'Rio' video?

Hmm.. Off to the Duran Duran timeline.

May 1982

Excellent. Lets try looking for the April '82 edition on E-baythen, shall we?

Bingo.

Found it, bought it, got it.

Now all we have to do is wait.

Now here is where @jamievjb comes into the picture.

He, being the lovliest man in the world, buys me a ticket to see John do a reading in Manchester.

Here we are, waiting.

We make a cute couple, huh?

John Taylor's book, In the Pleasure Groove, is well worth a read. You should definielty get it if you like Duran Duran or '80s music in particular.

Well, it was made clear that John would not sign any memorabilia, which is fair enough, Waterstones needed to get 500 odd books signed, and if everyone got him to sign a tee-shirt too, it would take all bloody night. So that part of my plan didn't come off.

But what did happen was probably even better.

I showed him the comic and asked which page he was reading. He laughed, and asked where I'd got it from. He then said that he'd just had it pushed into his hands and he coudn't remember what was inside.

I put the comic down next to him whilst he signed my book, he looked at it, grinned and said 'I should look like this'.

They say never meet your heroes. Rubbish, just make sure you choose ones like John Taylor.

Bloody nice bloke.

Comments

[kelly w]

JT just tweeted your story! x