by Annabel Port
I’m in the reception now, which looks like a big posh drawing room with a lady at the far end behind a desk. She’s looking at me a bit strangely.
“I’ve got to go,” I bark into an unconnected phone.
Then I stride up to the desk and say, “Hi, I’m the well-known agent Annabel Port from Eroticabel. I’ve got a great new author called A. E. Thigh—”
She interrupts me. “Sorry, who are you here to see?”
She soon ascertains that I don’t have an appointment. But I’m not letting that get in the way. “Let’s sort this out,” I say, in the way that I imagine Lord Alan Sugar might say it.
Her phone is ringing now. She apologises and takes the call.
But maybe I’ve got a phone call to take too. My phone goes to my ear again and I’m saying, “I’m sorry but it’s not up for discussion, it’s five million or no chapter.”
She’s off the phone again and tells me she’s just seeing if anyone is around and that I should take a seat. This is unexpected.
I wait for a while and then a man appears. He comes into reception and towards me. He’s wearing a checked shirt and jeans and he’s slightly posh, very sweet and good looking in a bookish way.
I introduce myself and we sit down on the reception chairs. I dive straight in.
“Let me tell you about my author. With Fifty Shades of Grey, erotica is a big thing at the moment.”
We then get into a discussion about whether it is going to be a big thing or if it’ll just be this book. He doesn’t know. He also says they’re not doing any erotica at the moment.
“Well, you should,” I tell him.
Then as I pull out the first chapter, I add, “Do you know about furries?”
He doesn’t.
“Well,” I tell him, “It’s people who are into dressing up in animal costumes and doing ‘you know what’ while wearing them.”
He laughs awkwardly and glances up at the receptionist with a look that suggests he wishes she hadn’t called him down here.
I don’t stop though. “And this novel is set to the backdrop of the Olympics and there are other elements.” I bottle mentioning The Human Centipede as I fear I’m losing him.
“Well, we’d expect to see the whole book,” he says. I have forced the chapter into his hands now. He’s reading it and looking slightly terrified.
“Katherine is a hamster,” I blurt out. “And Michael’s a husky dog.”
He laughs very awkwardly again. Then asks me if I’ve got a card. Of course I don’t. I’m from an entirely made-up agency. Instead I write my telephone number at the top of the first chapter print-out and tell him I’ll get A. E. Thigh to finish the novel.
“Great,” he says, then gives me his full name, adding that if I ring reception they’ll probably put me straight through. I’m unsure if that was a barbed comment directed at the receptionist.
I leave thinking it went pretty well, but I’m worried about how long it takes to actually produce a book. First, it’s got to be written. Then there’s the editing process, the cover design, marketing strategy devised, the printing.
I need immediate results so I decide to publish online. And I know exactly where to go. The SoFurry website. Home to all my research. I upload my story. I have to tag it with at least two tags so I use “Yiff” and “Yiffy”.
It doesn’t go up straightaway. I worry that it needs to be moderated, then worry I did it wrong, so I post it again and both go up at the same time, which is a bit embarrassing.
But it’s there, my story, my erotica. Published. Sort of. And by the end of the day there have been nineteen views. Nineteen! Just think how many of these felt yiffy and then did yiffing after reading my story. I feel sick.
19
The Challenge:
To get nominated for an award
We’re in the thick of awards season. It was the Brits last night and we’ve just had the Grammys, BAFTAs and Golden Globes. The Oscars are next.
Geoff says, “What would be lovely for the show, would be if you got yourself nominated for some kind of award.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean a radio award or anything,” Geoff adds.
“No, obviously not,” I say.
The good news is I just have to get nominated, I don’t have to win. There is one condition though. I have to be nominated for a pre-existing award. I can’t just make one up. That’s my first idea ruined. The bad news is he also wants me to get thanked in an awards ceremony speech.
I start by seeing what awards ceremonies are coming up and discover that tonight, it’s the RCC Awards. The awards of the Redhill Cycling Club. A club in Surrey with around 400 members who take cycling seriously. It says “for members only”, but that doesn’t put me off.
The only way to contact them is to email through the website. I write:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to be nominated for an award at your prize-giving ceremony. You fail to list the categories on your website but I can’t do wheelies, so don’t put me forward for best wheelie. I also find it difficult to indicate that I’m turning left, something to do with not being able to balance with only my right hand on the handlebars. I’m probably not suitable for a maintenance award either as my bike has had a puncture for over two years. Recently, though, I saw a squirrel sitting on the seat like it was about to ride it. So that might help you.
All the best,
Annabel
I’m slightly nervous about ever hearing back so I look to see if any other awards are coming soon and find the perfect one.
The ceremony is two months away in Manchester. It’s hosted by BBC Breakfast’s Carol Kirkwood. It’s the UK Coach Awards. The transport type, not the training-person type. I had no idea this existed. I wonder if anyone’s ever won “Having a coach with a working toilet”. I imagine not.
I don’t own a coach or coach company, but I’ve been on a coach before. Lots of times. In fact, I’ve gone by coach to Poland twice, and that’s a twenty-four-hour journey.
I have a look at the categories and the one that stands out for me is the prize for “Unsung Hero”. I truly feel like a hero for doing those twenty-four-hour journeys. This is the one.
The nominations come from readers of Coach & Bus Week magazine. If I can get to the readers of this magazine, I’m sure I can get nominated. After all, how big can the circulation be? It’s not the type of magazine you’re going to find in your local newsagent’s but there’s a place called Ian Allen Bookshops near Waterloo that stocks it.
I write out a series of notes that I’m going to slip into all copies of Coach & Bus Week.
It’s paper I’ve ripped out from my notebook. On it I’ve written:
Vote Annabel Port
From Annabel Port Coaches
For the Unsung Hero Award
At the UK COACH AWARDS
Then I thought I’d better add a reason so I put:
As she never gets annoyed in traffic
I write that a few times then get bored and change it to:
As she swerved to save a mouse
Which after a while gets changed to:
As she swerved to save a pig
I’m at the bookshop now. It’s a Mecca for transport enthusiasts. There are books and magazines on trains, buses, aircraft and trams. Trains really dominate. There is lots of model railway stuff. They also sell some toy soldiers. They really know their demographic.
So do I after being in here for less than five minutes. Apart from the woman at the till, I’m the only female in there. Possibly ever.
I go in search of Coach & Bus Week. There’s a massive problem. While they do have several copies, all but one are sealed in a plastic wrapping, to secure a supplement of Coach World.
And the one without plastic wrapping is over a month old. In fact, there’s only one copy of the most recent edition.
There’s only one thing I c
an do. I slip one of my notes in the open one and then take the wrapped ones to the till. I say to the lady,
“Can I make a small slit in the plastic and slip this note in?”
This is a shop dedicated to all things transport. This cannot be the strangest thing anyone has ever asked her. But she acts like it is. And it’s a no.
But we come to a compromise. She assures me that she will keep the notes by the till and whenever anyone buys a copy of Coach & Bus Week, she’ll hand them one.
This is great. I’m very optimistic. And something even better has happened. I check my email and find that I’ve heard back from the chairman of the Redhill Cycling Club regarding their awards:
Hello Annabel,
I’m happy to inform you that you are in the running for the “Best Email” trophy. Should the judges decide that you will be awarded this prize, we will contact you in plenty of time to hire an appropriate Gucci dress for the ceremony.
I’m slightly insulted that he assumes I’m not able to buy a Gucci dress outright. Even though he’s right.
I email straight back telling him I’m thrilled and ask him to give me confirmation of my nomination as soon as possible.
It’s the day after the night before. The night of the Redhill Cycling Club awards, where I think I was nominated for “Best Email”. Do I need to wait in in case they’d posted me my trophy? I email the chairman again to ask him how I did on the big night.
Then I turn my attention back to the UK Coach Awards. The notes I left in some out-of-date magazines might not be enough. I’d scoured the unsealed copy of the magazine but there was no information on how you vote for Unsung Hero. I find a number for Pat, the award’s administrator, and call her up.
The number goes to answerphone, which informs me that on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings until 1.30 p.m., they’re in a meeting.
That is a lot of meeting time. There’s now an option to leave a message or call Pat’s mobile number. I choose the latter. There’s no answer. She’s probably in another meeting. I leave a message asking her to call back urgently re: the Unsung Hero award.
I’m not holding out much hope, what with Pat’s heavy meeting schedule, so I call up Coach & Bus Week magazine.
A lady answers. I ask her how, as a reader of Coach & Bus Week magazine, I can vote for Unsung Hero in the UK Coach Awards.
“Let me find out,” she says and puts me on hold for around a minute. There’s no hold music. I was hoping for “National Express” by Divine Comedy.
When she comes back she says I need to contact Pat at the coach awards. This doesn’t seem right to me. Every person ringing Pat to make their nomination. It also sounds logistically impossible as Pat is always in one long meeting.
“Was it not in the magazine?” I ask.
The woman is getting defensive now. “Yes, it’s been in a few; we did a double-page spread in one.”
“So how did it say to vote when it was in the magazine?”
“The awards are nothing to do with me,” she says. Then she puts me on hold again for another minute before coming back to tell me she’s found an old copy of the magazine and you vote online at the website, where you can download a form.
I’m feeling now like she wants to get rid of me so I go back on the UK Coach Awards website, but there is nowhere to vote for Unsung Hero. In fact, the shortlists for all the other awards have already been announced. Not for Unsung Hero though. I’m getting worried.
But I’m momentarily distracted from all this by an email from the chairman of Redhill Cycling Club. I click on it. The following message appears:
Hi Annabel
Yes, your email received huge support from the vast audience. There were tears, laughter, screams of joy and anguish when – I’m afraid – you didn’t scoop the Cycling BAFTA equivalent in this hard-fought category.
The email from one of our longest-standing members enquiring about the best spokes to use during the winter months pipped you at the post, I’m afraid.
I know that this will be devastating but I can only encourage you to keep submitting emails at the high standard you have already set.
There’s always next year.
With commiserations
Adrian
Chairman
This is clear favouritism towards a long-standing member rather than me, not a member at all. Or never even been to Redhill. Unless you count passing by on a train. But I did get nominated. I think.
And there’s still hope that Pat might come out of a meeting and get back to me about the Coach Awards.
I’ve still not heard back from Pat. I try calling again and the phone is answered by a Pat-sounding woman. But it isn’t Pat. It’s Margaret. Pat is out of the office until this afternoon.
“Is she in a meeting?” I ask.
“Yes,” Margaret says.
While I’m not entirely giving up on the UK Coach Awards, I do feel like I should be maybe looking at a ceremony that is a bit better organised. Something bigger. Like the Oscars this Sunday.
It is too late to be nominated. And I’ve not been involved in a film in the past year. But, I could get a thank you in an acceptance speech. I hadn’t forgotten about this part of the challenge.
I look at the nominations. Colin Firth has one. I’m trying to think if I know him. Then I realise I don’t.
Banksy is nominated for best documentary. It might be tricky to get hold of him. Although probably not as tricky as Pat.
I look to see if anyone else British been nominated and I find a man who has been shortlisted for Best Visual Effects in the film Inception.
I look him up and his company is on Shaftesbury Avenue in central London. This is great.
I can go there, meet him and then ask him to thank me if he wins the Oscar on Sunday.
There are two cool young guys on reception.
“Hi. I’m here to see Ben Franklin.”
“Oh, okay. What’s your name?”
I give it to them.
“Is it for an interview?”
“Kind of,” I say.
I’m not looking for a new job, but there will be questions and answers.
They take my photo, which is a bit weird, but I give them a lovely smile. Then they tell me to take a seat.
After a short while, one of the guys calls over to me, “I take it he’s expecting you?”
“I think I made an appointment but my memory isn’t great,” I say.
He gives a half laugh. A short while later he asks, “Are you sure it’s Ben Franklin? There’s no one here of that name. Was it Paul Franklin?”
“Oh,” I say. “Is Paul Franklin the top dog, the Oscar man?”
It appears I may have made a slight faux pas. By getting one of the founding fathers of the United States confused with the head honcho at visual-effects company.
I hear them mumbling now about how they don’t think he’s in today, how he’s usually in that office over there. But they say to me that it’s being sorted and someone is coming out to see me.
That someone is a woman called Ashley. She introduces herself as the PR manager and says she’s a bit confused as she takes me into a meeting room.
“Did you have a meeting set up with Paul?” she asks.
“Well, I might’ve done but my memory is not great.”
She starts really apologising and saying that I’ve just missed him as he left for the Oscars yesterday and that she didn’t know about the interview.
“Is it about the Oscars?” she asks.
It’s gradually dawning on me that they don’t think I’m here for a job interview. They think I’m here to interview Paul Franklin. Although they’ve not asked me where I’m from. It’s probably time for me to leave.
Ashley asks me to email her and then says she’ll get in contact with Paul and try and set something up.
I’m well on my way to getting acknowledged at the Oscars. Should I get to speak to Paul and then Paul agrees to thank a total stranger for no reason at a
ll during the biggest career moment of his life. Oh, and that’s if he wins. If not, I’ll always have the Best Email nomination at the Redhill Cycling Club awards.
20
The Challenge:
To invent a new kind of clothing
This is finally my big chance to use the skills I learned in GCSE textiles over twenty years ago. Even though, as you may remember, I actually got my mum to do my coursework of making a dress and only got a C, which she was not happy about.
I know it’s hard to imagine, looking at me now, but I was very interested in fashion when I was younger. When I was twelve, my friend Tessa and I invented a new trend of wearing tights with shorts, which we debuted at the school disco to much apathy.
I also remember wearing, at another school disco, a gingham puffball skirt hitched up on both sides by mini gingham braces, revealing a petticoat I was wearing underneath. This is the kind of crazy creativity we’re dealing with.
I can definitely see a big gap in the clothing market, a much-neglected area. The face. My face is always cold. And it annoys me that if you have a bad hair day, you can wear a hat. If you have a bad face day, there’s nothing you can do. There is the balaclava, but it’s a bit terroristy. And a bit woolly. I need something a bit more high fashion. I make a note to come back to this.
I’m thinking now about how the onesie has become a big thing recently and I’m very bitter about that. I was saying for years I wanted an adult babygro, which is what it is, but I never did anything about it. I could be a onesie millionaire right now.
Still, maybe there’s more to be mined from the baby world. I very briefly think about adult nappies but realise this would be less of a fashion invention and more a breakdown of society.
I consider bibs for a bit. They’d be good for jazzing up a plain T-shirt and you can just take it off if it gets messy. I also think about booties. They kind of already exist for adults with the boot-like slipper. That’s a cross between a bootie and a slipper. Or as I call it, the blipper.