Gray Collins Interview

When Chris Moyles climbed a mountain for charity, he didn’t bother shutting up about it for the best part of the rest of his life. Others walk to the moon, cycle up the side of a building or fart in every football stadium in the world. Not Graham Collins though. He decided to prove the point that people will sponsor anything, by sitting in front of his computer and talking to the world via Twitter every ten minutes for two days. Let’s find out why.

Morning! Who are you raising money for?

I was raising money for BASIC’s Hampshire who are a group of medical professionals who provide advanced medical assistance outside of a hospital. They saved a colleagues life after getting to the scene of a road traffic accident last summer.

When did the first signs of “oh god, I’m going to die” or hallucinations arrive?

Really early on! I was shattered at about 3pm on the first day. I didn’t hallucinate, but there was some oddness. By the end it looked like people’s faces were moving about on tweetdeck. Kinda made it more fun!

Haven’t you got a job or something better to do?

I have a job yes. But I was on a weeks holiday, wasn’t going away any where, so thought, what the hell, lets do this.

How good was the support from other people? Did it really spur you on to sit still for two days?

Celeb support was good mainly in the RT stakes. But hats off to Jonathan Ross and India Knight who both donated at that crucial time between 6.00 and 8.00 yesterday when it went mental. The @wossy tweet was a massive bonus and got loads of people interested. But honestly it was the support from my friends on twitter that left me feeling so humbled. They were unbelievable.

What training did you do?

I’m on twitter a lot anyway! Just not quite as much as that.

How much coffee did you get through?

A ridiculous amount!

What’s the money raised situation, and how does it compare to what you expected?

I’ve raised £1230 at time of writing which is above and beyond what I expected. I guess I knew that it had some potential or I wouldn’t have done it but when we were stuck on around £600 at around 5.30pm I didn’t think we’d get close to a grand.

Were there cheers when you hit £1,000 – did you think you’d make it?

Yes there were. I had a friend round and there were hi-fives and hugs.

What is there to do at 3, 4am when everyone is asleep? Were you talking to yourself?

I have one amazing friend called Sarah (@KyeLani) who stayed up with me for two nights. Without her help I would have struggled.

Who would you like to play you in the movie adaptation?

John Cusack.

Any memorable or exciting tweets you wrote? Can you even remember them?

I’ll probably remember the last one the most ‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-flz3dZUQrE Goodnight twitter it has been a wonderful 2days xxx

Does it bother you thinking about what Jack Bauer would have accomplished in the same period?

I think he’d be envious of what I achieved in 48 hours.

It must be too late to donate now.

Nope.

Oh, it’s not. Where can we donate?

http://www.justgiving.com/Gray-Collins/ all donations welcome.

Go on, sponsor him. Even though he’s already done it. It makes you feel good. You were only going to waste that fiver on a KFC, and frankly, you could do with missing a meal or two.