Grizzly Adams?

A night out from back in 2000 with a couple of the girls from the Bravo Doll's House. This was during a period of unemployment (courtesy of the BBC's then head of children's web stuff - thanks for all the badmouthing you did, Mark) when I decided, perhaps foolishly, to grow my hair... and a beard.

I abhored looking scruffy and was very much at the time in favour of tucking in shirts, not leaving them untucked. As a consequence, I ended up going out looking like a man who had tried to tidy up his scruffy, unshaven, unstyled appearance with a lot of hair mousse and a neatly pressed shirt. Awful, simply awful. This photo was taken in Soho, for heaven's sake!

Bless Arwen (no idea what she is doing now) and Ellie (now one of the world's leading female porn film directors) for not running a mile. (Myleene and Beth not pictured - not present, in fact.) I think this is early in the night. Later, we would all go to a club (at which point I bailed out). I think Sarah Hedley and her cohorts were along for the ride too.

A couple of days later, my then flat-mate's Irish friend came over to stay and crashed on the sofa. He spotted my unkempt appearance in the morning (see - they call it the "just got out of bed look" now) and remarked that I was "looking a bit like Mr Adams, there, Steve".

"Ha ha!" I replied. "Grizzly Adams, eh?"

"No," he shot back. "Gerry Adams."

I shaved and got a hair cut later the same day.