Waking up one morning and sending myself down a rocky, fast-flowing river deep within the Swiss Alps in an inflatable dinghy, then throwing myself off a cliff top the next morning with a parachute laid out behind.

My daughter was taking part in a school production of 'We Will Rock You' so I suggested she watch the 'Queen Live at Wembley Stadium' DVD we have at home.

She's sitting there taking in Freddie being the showman that he was and singing along to some of the songs and there was a shot where it panned around the stadium showing the audience. I grabbed the remote and paused it and said "That's about where I was sat with Jon and Andi" (two best mates, still are).

She looked at me, slightly open mouthed, and asked "What, you were actually there ?!!", to which I nodded. "COOL !!!" was her reply, as she ran out of the room to tell SWMBO.


The other moment of extreme cool was when I was skiing with two of my cousin's boys - they were about 14 and 17 at the time. Now, bear in mind that none of us are great skiers, just reasonably competant, so I took them down a couple of blue runs to see how they would get on and they both kept up easily.

We then went to have a look at a run which was a blue / red, in that there was an easier route which ran around to one side of the main red piste. They decided they'd go for the easier option as it was a bit narrow and steep, but as I was feeling confident I took off down the red section. First couple of turns were fine, and I looked over to see what the boys were up to and utterly forgot what I was doing... Managed to hit some ruts or some ice and whoooosh, my skis went from under me and I proceeded to whistle down the slope and some speed, doing the odd graceful (OK, not at all graceful...) pirouette while clawing at the snow to try and slow down a bit. I eventually stopped at the bottom, to be greeted by the boys laughing their tits off while I was left to remove snow from inside my jacket, up my sleeves, down my neck, etc.

However, despite me thinking I'd lost all my cool points, when we met up with the rest of the group the younger one said "You should have seen Nick's brilliant crash !! It was AWESOME !! He didn't stop for AGES !!!" So I'm counting that as cool

If you're ever in Florida......?

http://www.warbirdadventures.com/

I bunny hopped over 5 friends on my Raleigh Burner, and landed without a shin whack.

Quite a feat at the age of 35.

Oh, and in keeping with some of the posts here I would like to add that Mike Tyson lent my bike and had a go himself, Mike and I are really close.

New Found Glory.

I was a session drummer for a few years and filled in for the odd band here and there when their drummer wasn't available. Got a call whilst I was actually at the festival from an agent saying they needed someone in Reading the following day, did I know their music and could I do 1/2 hour on the new music stage with them. They were my favourite 'up and coming' band at the time so I believe my response was something along the lines of 'I would be delighted, sir'.

I once threw a beermat at a friend as he was walking into the gents. I watched in awe as it flew across the room and stuck into the tiny gap between the wall and door architrave. It was right by his head and looked like a little cardboard ninja death star.

And talking of throwing things, I also threw a pencil at a mate and it got stuck sideways through his heavily gelled mohican.

Secretly I think skiing from Courchevel back to Val Thorens on a broken knee was cool - Oddly my wife thought it mind-numbingly stupid...

The doctor who x-rayed my knee seemed quite impressed though, so what do women know

Nonchalance counts for a lot on the cool factor in my view.

M.

My band played to a sell out crowd at Henry's Cellar Bar in Edinburgh. We also drank them dry of Red Stripe.

If you look deep enough into those eyes, you can see bloodshed!

I was on holiday in Orlando and I hired a Harley Davidson for the day. I was wearing on open faced helmet, mirror shades, cut down jeans and a Chelsea football shirt.

I pulled up at a pedestrian crossing on International Drive and this family of Man Utd fans started to cross. He looked like a beaten man, with 2 miserable kids in tow, in his sandals with socks and his pot belly straining against his Man U shirt. The wife was a mess, also wearing a Man U shirt, about 5'0 and 20 stone. The kids were moaning.

As he walked in front of me I revved the engine and he jumped out of his skin and looked at me. Just a pure look of envy and I knew he wished he was me. I roared off into the distance smiling.

That was 20 yrs ago. Now I've got a pot belly and I'm dragging 2 miserable kids around.