WordPress - Recent Posts with Images

I’m looking for a script that will display the three most recent posts (with an offset of 1) , and will present posts in the following format;

• Post image/icon (using the guff ‘Post Image’ plugin or similar)
• Post title
• Post meta/info (date/time, posted by, categories)

I have a nearly working example of this project on my blog - DotNeil.com, but part of this function is broken, which is why I have this project.

You’ll notice that the ‘Recent Posts’ Loop, in the footer, will only show the unique post icon for each post if the respective post is also being shown in the main Loop, in the white section of the site. Obviously the first, ‘proper’, Loop is pulling up an attribute for each post which the ‘Recent Posts’ WP_Query Loop isn’t calling, so the guff Post Image plugin is unable to display the unique image that is assigned to each post unless it is also being shown in the first Loop.

This is the script that pulls up the Recent Posts;

You can see this problem in action by visiting DotNeil.com and looking at the Recent Posts script on the homepage - the post images are only showing the default post icon. But if you click on a ‘recent post’ and, therefore, get taken through to the individual URL for that post, you’ll see that the post image for that ‘recent post’ will now be shown in the ‘Recent Posts’ section in the footer.

The guff Post Image plugin can be found here;

guff.szub.net/2006/02/09/post-…