Today is Michael Ball's 48th birthday. May all his wishes come true (not at once though, live needs the thrill of not getting everything at once)!

It so happens that today this website has been online for exactly 10 years!

We do not know how this has happened. Only yesterday we were exchanging vague plans to gather all the photos that were out there and make them available from one page. And here we are, now in our thirties and with proper, grown-up fulltime jobs….and Justy is still here. Our “daughter” gave us some sleepless nights and did cause some grief with her pre-puberty attics, but all in all she has given us so much joy and enabled us to meet the most incredible people and spent some of the happiest times we can remember in one of the most beautiful countries in the world (not having seen every single one of them we have to leave room for improvement).

If you want to take this opportunity to find out how it all started, please click here.

But now it's time to celebrate and we have decided that a mere collage of photos for the daily calendar will not do. We need a proper celebration. And what is essential for a big birthday bash? Exactly, pressies!

We have started to sum up what Justy really is all about. What makes her tick?

Style

Apart from a bit of a belated spring-cleaning we have come up with a brand new header (the banner at the top of the page) for the anniversary and hope you will like it. Also we have changed the home page photo after six years. You can tell that this was a difficult decision, can't you? Now there are varying random photos welcoming you to hop in.

Bye-Bye old header:

Hello new header:

Talking about style...ready for a real shocker? Really? Are you sure? Brace yourselves! This is what Justy looked like a mere 6 years ago:

enlarge at your own risk!

Information

As is natural for the kind of web archive that this page has started to become, we try to collect memorabilia from Michael's 25 years on stage and gather the bits and pieces to a pool of photos and material for you all to enjoy. For this special occasion we thought we will take this a step further: As to give is more blessed than to receive (or so they say) we thought we will not only make our latest find – the programme of the The Pirates of Penzance production in Manchester from 1984, with Michael as the juvenile lead – available as a picture gallery as usual, but also turn it into a PDF file and make it available as a download, so that fans can print out their very own version to keep. Happy downloading!

click photo to open pfd file

Videos

with the likes of YouTube around there is hardly the need for a video library anymore so we thought we would add some of your own stage door footage from our two recent trips to see Hairspray on tour. As they are not yet on DVD (We are collecting material until the end of the tour) the quality is not our usual standard, but the format should be easy to open for everyone and apart from maybe two longer clips, the file size should not be a problem for any computer. Enjoy those few moments of Ball At Work!

click to enter video gallery

Photos

Last but certainly not least! With well over 7000 photos we can truly and honestly say: mission accomplished. The plan to collect as many photos as possible and provide fans with a gallery of them has worked out beautifully (but will never be completed, of course). As a birthday treat we have opted to provide you with some seriously nice shots in high resolution (also in a smaller version for slow modems) and also with a few new photo galleries of concerts past. These 106 photos never made it onto the website as they are not up to our usual standards. But as we think birthday parties are all about having fun and Justy certainly would not be herself without a photo gallery or two, we hope you won't mind too much.

click to find the high res gallery

click to find 44 photos of Dyffryn Gardnes 2006

click to find 29 photos of Hampton Court 2008

click to find 33 photos of Cardiff in 2009

After the Ball is over...

We hope you have enjoyed yourselves on our birthday party and look forward to seeing you again. Just pop by when you feel like it!

Here's to the next 10 years. Same place, same time in 2020!

Our thanks goes to all the wonderful people who make our lives extra special and to the 725'800 visitors who made sure that Justy never felt lonely. Thank you!

A very happy Sunday, the 27th of June 2010 to us all!