After a lot of hard work (sitting about, going to the pub, watching the television and listening to the nutty sound of some group from Camden) I have decided to direct my energies towards the Madness webpage. My brother John goes to UEA which is where he puts the Madness site onto the internet. I made the site in about 1996 and it took me about five frantic days so alot of it is wrong and needs updating. John recieves all of your e-mails and then passes them onto me (when he remembers) so some are ver y late and I can only apoligise for that. Big apoligies goto 'Cairo East' who sent us their new address so that we could update our links page. Unfortunitly the time hasn't been there to do that so I will just apoligise and say that it is being fixed as y ou read. I went on the internet for the first time ever on Monday (I don't have access anywhere) thanks to Bromley College of Further and Higher education (They pipe the internet to every computer in every room (Don't go to their internet site. It's pants .).) and I had a chance to look at some of the brilliant Madness sites out there like the Madstock page (very polished) and Cairo East (worth every minute spent on it). Then I was driving home and I thought to myself: 'Oh, isn't it about time that I updat ed my Madness site. Ya'know, some more pictures, a few new pages etc.' When I got home I set about it immediatly and finished a 'New Stuff for Late '98' page on Tueday night (31/3/98). Unfortunitly whilst I was writting the comments page today I erased th e page by accident (doh!) and after about one hundred mentions of a word that starts with 'F' I set about writing it again. Here I am.

There will be a grand updating of the page during Summer '98 which should be ready by late '98. Thanks to the purchase of a CD ROM re-writer by my brother and the possible purchase of a scanner by me you can expect something big for the new pages with all the old samples changed so that they are almost CD quality (apart from the Honda one). Here are some of the ideas for the new pages:

The Lone Ranger: A page about Suggs' solo album and the singles of that album.

The D.I.Y. Music: Chords and tablature to some of the songs. I will use all of my musical no-how (nothing) to work out the bits and pieces to the songs. Read on to find out how you can vote for your favourite song to be transcribed.

The Live Music: Madness live. Their Mad Dogs tour and their Madstock concerts on the one page.

The Interviews: I will try and unearth some good interviews from the archieves here at Madness H.Q. I've got a good one with Suggs talking about his solo career.

The Movie: A page that was meant to be included many moons ago but thanks to lack of time was not. The page will be about the Madness film 'Take It or Leave It'. Here are some pictures just to give you a sample of what is to come:

POSSIBLE MADNESS CD ROM

The site started out being written by me in about five days and I gave the complete version to my brother to put on the internet. He went to university and the Madness site was born. After pursading him to put a counter on it I kept asking him how man y people had gone to it. Three months later 150 people had been on it. Lack of space meant the site had to go on geocities. I went up to Bromley College on Monday and used the internet. I went straight for the Madness site and shock of all shocks: the cou nter was reading well over 900,000 people. When I got home I spoke to my brother (he's off uni for four weeks) and he said that I had a load of e-mails to read that he had forgotten to tell me about. When I looked they stretched back right to early 1997 t o my horror.

Anyway I have posted them all up on the coments page and answered all of the questions, so if you have ever e-mailed us or you just want to see what other people have e-mailed us with then have a look at the new comments page. In amoungst the e-mails were quite a few asking about merchindising and what in the way of merchandising we sold. Well unfortunitly we don't have any permission to sell merchendising and we don't have any to sell anyway but we can see that their is a big demand. An idea that cam e up here at Madness H.Q. was a CD ROM but we need to know that there is a demand for such a product because if there is then we will have to contact the right people for the Copyrights etc. and we have to convince them that there is a demand for such a p roduct and that, due to the sucess of our website, we should make it. So what I need is for everyone who has been to the website to e-mail us at the usual e-mail address and say if they want such a product and what they would like to see in it. We'll comp ile all the e-mails and our ideas and try to contact the band with them. If we're sucsessful then we will update you on all of our progress and if not I think we'll just sit in a corner and cry.

We Need Your Ideas

The new pages will be done by me during the Summer and I will place them on the internet at the end of Summer (mid-september). I will probably try and scan some stuff in and I'll take a trip to Camden Market to see if the bootleggers are seling anythi ng interesting that is Madness related. I will also try and dig out my copy of Madness at the Euro'96 (it was called something like that) where they played second fiddle to Simply Red and M People (we was robbed) as well as my wealth of Suggs interviews a nd a few pictures of him presenting 'Night Fever' on channel 5.

If you like any of the ideas above, you have you own ideas or your want to tell us that the CD ROM is a product that you can't do without then e-mail us to the usual address. If you could also e-mail us and say what songs you would like transcribed th en those songs will be included in the D.I.Y. Music page. Also I would like your top ten Madness singles so that I can compile them into the big top ten list. Here are mine:

1...The Bed and Breakfast Man

2...Night Boat To Cairo

3...Baggy Trousers

4...Mrs Hutchinson

5...Yesterday's Men

6...Sweetest Girl

7...Cardiac Arrest

8...Grey Day

9...Inanity Over Christmas

10..Shut Up

I will try and answer all your e-mails on a regular bases.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of Madness performing 'Embarrassment' on Top Of The Pops (Circa 1980):

David Houston 1/4/98 Wednesday. 8:07 and 55 seconds.

Just a little note to say that I spent about three hours today search Madness H.Q. and I have finally found my Euro'96 tape with Madness performing Wonderful, My Girl and It Must Be Love on it (huzzah). Look out for the pictures on the Live page comin g Late '98.

Saturday 4/4/98.