INFORMATION CONTACT US LINKS The night before missing Manic Street Preacher vibes Richey Edwards disappeared, joker guitarist Nicky Wire had set everyone's clocks forward by seven hours as a prank. However, Richey didn't like the symbolising of time passing and so due to not actually owning a timepeace himself, he was the only one with any idea of what time it actually was - and subsequently was the only one on board the flight to America for their tour the next day. Arriving in New York on his own was the final straw. Richey was already fed up with the rest of the band - especially since all his ideas for t-shirt slogans quoting Nietzsche and Orwell had been rejected in favour of Nicky's "Your Body Is Like A Factory" and "Plant a tree in 93" which the others thought were genius and much better than his which made no sense. At the airport, a tramp (bum) who now runs a burger van which sells burgers made out of things he finds on the street at 100% profit, told Richey of the American Dream and how anyone could be a success there. Inspired, Richey got a new face, new friends and changed his name to Johnny Knoxville. With his new cocky persona, he strided into the head of MTV's office and pitched the idea of 'Jackass'. Each week, he would do crazy stunts, such as walking round a safari park on foot dressed as a wilderbeast. Whereas before his self harm had been out of desperation and pain - it was now considered funny, "Just as long as there isn't blood" being the only rule laid down as to what he can broadcast. The Manic Street Preachers are currently involved in a lawsuit with Atari Teenage Riot's Alec Empire, who they accuse of directly lifting the keywords from their website and using as song lyrics for his latest single 'Nazi Elvis'. ("Government. Globalisation. Fascist. Abort. Corporation. Suicide. Socialist. James Dean Bradfield. Nicky Wire. MP3s. Music. Website." Nazi Elvis, by Alec Empire) When they appeared on Top Of The Pops in balaclavas, joker Nicky had put tanning lotion on the inside of Richie's balaclava - so that when he took it off, he looked like Tom Jones for 5 months. Still to this day, Nicky believes that this was the final straw that made him vanish. Singer James first got into himself when he was 13. He's seen everything he's ever done - and his room is full of posters of himself. He is completely unaware that he actually is himself as he thinks his eyes are just televisions - and as a result, gets very annoyed meeting fans who only know about him from the first album onwards as he says he was best when he was 16. To prove a point, drummer Sean once replaced himself with comedian Paul Merton and not one fan noticed. James is in the record books for having the longest neck beard. The title was previously held by Shaun Ryder, whose neck beard is so long that there is no join between it and his chest hair - but who was disqualified following a drugs test which he failed on all accounts. PRETEND PAPARAZZI