by Annabel Port
I’ve gone on about the hamster thing for longer than I meant to there. So, straight to the point. I’m the CEO of the Four-Day-Week Campaign. It’s working in Gambia at the moment. Perhaps you’d consider emulating the President of Gambia (but perhaps not in making out you’ve invented a herbal HIV cure or insisting everyone call you His Excellency Sheikh Professor Doctor President).
But anyway, it’s going well there. Probably. I’ll admit I’ve not checked it out. But it’s not in the news so let’s assume it’s going well.
Therefore, our campaign proposes we also have a four-day week. BP (the company, not Billie Piper) have said they are interested in this and they are one of the biggest companies in the UK. I’ve been in long talks with HR there and they are pretty excited about this proposal.
Now, you’re probably worrying about what we’re all going to do with our extra day off. Thinking we’ll be lying about on urine-soaked mattresses and doing nothing but boosting the smack trade. Well then, you have a very low opinion of the British public. Our plan for the first few months of the new regime is to challenge Croatia for the title of World’s Longest Sausage, by making our own longer version to enter into the Guinness Book of Records.
Well please do get back in touch today by 7 p.m. at the very, very latest as I’ve got to report back to the board.
Many thanks and all best wishes,
Annabel Port
CEO, Four-Day-Week Campaign
P.S. Oh and it will create jobs.
Annoyingly, he’s not got back to me, but he’s probably busy calling round the companies of Britain telling them about the new regime. So get ready to make the world’s largest sausage. Or lie about on a urine-soaked mattress all day. Your choice.
22
The Challenge:
To have my portrait painted by a major artist
This won’t be my first portrait. My first one was twenty-two years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t use this as it was a nude that my boyfriend at the time did for GCSE art, which caused a bit of a stir when it was displayed in the corridor of his all-boys’ school. And my then boyfriend didn’t go on to become a major artist. Or even an artist.
But the good news is I have experience of having my portrait done. Experience of sitting still, that is. I just need to find a major artist.
I make a list of all the ones I know that are alive.
• Tracy Emin
• Banksy
• Damien Hirst
• Neil Buchanan
• That old lady who messed up the fresco of Jesus’s face when trying to restore it in Spain.
That’s it. I’m not in any way an expert on art. I know nothing and I’m not sure any of these people would want to do my portrait.
I try to find some other artists and my research reveals that there are portrait painters out there, but they’re not that famous. I can sort of see why. Why would you do a portrait when you have really great photography now?
I’m quite keen on the man who did the recent Kate Middleton portrait, because everyone hated it apart from Kate, who said it was amazing. Even though it did look like she’d just done a twenty-year stretch in prison.
I quite like the idea I’d get to be this well-mannered and magnanimous as I rarely am either of these things in everyday life.
I find out his name is Paul Emsley and that he spent three and a half months on Kate’s portrait. I’ve got three days to have the portrait done and hung in a major place. This is a bit worrying.
I move on to a woman called Isobel Peachey, who did a portrait of the Queen three years ago that was hung on a cruise liner, which is a bit of a weird place for a portrait. They must be constantly straightening it. But it is a really good portrait. I really like it, it’s nice and bright and the Queen looks good, not at all manly.
I manage to have some email contact with her but she’s busy this week, even though I say she could just do a quick pencil drawing and I’ll colour it in for her. I even get as far as sending her a holiday picture of me to work from. Communication ends after that. I wish I’d been able to find a holiday photo where I wasn’t nude. Not really! I was fully dressed by a lake. But it did end the conversation.
I manage to find another portrait painter though, someone called Nicky Philipps. I think she did the one of the Queen looking like a bloke in the wig. That’s the critics’ words, not mine.
When I google her I find that she’s represented by an agency, so I call them up.
“Hi, I’m calling about Nicky Philipps. I’d like her to do my portrait.”
“Yes, of course,” the woman says.
This is easy! But then she goes on to say she’s quite booked up at the moment and the earliest would be in seven months. My deadline is Thursday.
But just in case she can squeeze me in this afternoon I ask how much it’ll be.
It’s £19,000 plus VAT.
“Is that coloured in?” I ask.
There’s a pause then she says, “Yes, that’s oil, so yes, it’s in colour.”
I tell her I was hoping to have it done for tomorrow so I might call back.
I’m a bit worried now. Then I realise something. Geoff said I had to have my portrait done by a major artist. But he didn’t say when they had to be a major artist. What if I have my portrait done by someone who is a major artist in the future?
And I know where to find a future major artist. Art school. I head off to the art school that’s the closest to work.
It doesn’t look quite how I imagined. I thought there’d be stone pillars at the very least, but actually it looks more like an English language school.
I try not to let the lack of grandeur put me off. I go in. There’s a corridor before the reception. It’s all very empty. Then I see a girl coming towards me. She looks like an art student as she’s holding some rolled-up thick paper.
“Hi. Are you a student here?” I ask. She is.
“Will you do my portrait for me?”
I hold my A5 lined notebook and biro out to her, while wishing I’d thought to turn up with some proper paper and a nice pencil or some charcoal or something.
But the girl says, “Oh, okay.”
This girl is amazing. The type of person who is willing to do the portrait of a complete stranger, there and then, is the type of person who will become a major artist.
I offer to hold the rolled-up thick paper for her but she tucks it under her arm. She’s willing to draw me but not trust me.
Her eyes are flicking up at me then down to the paper, and she’s drawing away. I’m smiling, as I want to look nice in my portrait and my resting face is very melancholic.
Time passes very slowly when a stranger is drawing you in a corridor. I felt like I was there for about fifteen minutes but it was probably only about three.
And then she’s finished. She signs it with “Misa”. She seems embarrassed by it but hands it over. It’s good. Apart from I’m not mad on the eyebrows. I had them threaded at the weekend but she makes them look very untidy.
But, remembering Kate Middleton’s good manners, I tell her I love it and she’s got a bright future, she’s going to do great. This might just be the confidence boost she needs to become a major artist.
She took a photo of it, which was nice. And then it was a bit awkward as she was leaving and so was I. I had to really power-walk off so we didn’t have to walk together.
Now I just need to get it hung in a major gallery and it obviously has to be the National Portrait Gallery. With portraits of William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I and, soon, me, done in biro on a ripped out bit of an A5 notebook.
I decide to really help them out by framing it, as I’ve got a spare IKEA one at home. I frame it on the Tube. I feel like it gets admiring looks. They could also be interpreted as “looks”.
I’m on my way to the gallery when I realise that I can pretend to be an arty type, a bit airy-fairy, which might mean that I can get away with more.
I arrive at the reception. There’s
a man behind the desk. I say to him, “Hi. I’ve got the Misa portrait that’s going to be hung today.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well, who are you here to see? Have you got a name?”
Now is my chance to be a bit arty.
“No, I don’t use names.”
The man repeats back, “You don’t use names.”
“No, I don’t work with names. Not something I do. Sorry,” I say with my warmest smile.
“Okay,” he says slowly, “that does make things a little difficult. Three hundred people work here.”
I try and distract him from the name issue by getting the portrait out to show him. There’s no visible reaction. Instead he tells me he’ll make a call and can he take my name.
“Annabel Port,” I say without thinking. He repeats it back to me, but to his credit, he doesn’t pick me up on the fact I’m happy to use my own name.
He makes some calls but is clearly not getting anywhere. He asks me, “Is the portrait for a collection? Or a competition?”
“No. It’s a Misa,” I say, like someone might say, “It’s a Picasso.”
He politely asks no further questions and instead makes another call. He tells a lady my full name and the situation but not that I won’t use names, just that I don’t have a name. Then passes the phone to me.
The lady is asking questions about my contact and how I was corresponding with them. I tell her it was by phone and she says she’ll come down to talk to me.
I sit and wait. I wait a really long time. Long enough, I slowly realise, for this woman to google my name. This could be humiliating. What am I doing? I’m wasting the time of people with proper jobs.
I realise I can’t cope with being confronted. I tell the man on the front desk that I need to make a call and I go.
But I don’t go very far. I’m not giving up. Do I really need this woman’s permission to display my portrait in the National Portrait Gallery? Probably, is the answer, but I ignore that.
I go into the gallery. I wander round and find a room with an exhibition by Jonathan Yeo. There are lots of celebrity portraits grouped together. I don’t recognise them all so maybe some of them are normal people.
The bottom row is hung quite low to the ground, which is perfect. I get my portrait out and l lean it on the ground against the wall.
An older lady in a lilac raincoat and a beret-like hat takes a closer look. She must know about art if she wears a beret.
It seems to be going down quite well. Nobody is throwing rotten tomatoes at it. A few people stop to take a proper look.
Then a member of staff comes up to me and, pointing at the portrait, says, “Is this yours?”
I consider denying it. But it is a portrait of me. And I’m proud of it. I say, “Yes.”
“Could you keep it with you as I’ve had security calling me,” she says.
“Oh right, yes, fine,” I say.
They just want me to keep it with me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t stand holding it up by the other portraits on the wall. Surprisingly, this seems to be fine. I have no further complaints. My arms hurt a bit after a while, but the room gets quite busy and I display my portrait to a lot of people.
It would seem I really did have my portrait done by a (future) major artist and displayed in a major gallery.
Q&A 2
More questions you might be
asking yourself
I quite enjoyed talking to myself before, once I’d edited out “you’re worthless”, “why are you doing this, nobody is going to read it” and “you’re wasting your life”. Here’s more of the Q&A.
Is your flat really that bad?
If you came round, you’d probably think that it’s not that bad. But that’s because I’d have spent the week cleaning and tidying in anticipation of your visit. When I moved in it was in a nice condition, but not decorated to my taste. I was telling a friend about how I’d have to redecorate and she said, “Why don’t you just change your taste? It’d be a lot easier.” So I did. And she was right, it was a lot easier.
It turns out if you just leave the garden, though, it changes quite a lot. I do worry that I’m that woman with the jungle front garden that all the kids on the street are scared of and tell each other that I’m a witch.
The thing I probably should’ve changed is the pre-pay electricity meter. You don’t usually find one in the house of someone with a job and mortgage. I think it’s a nice glimpse into what my life will be like when I get found out to be a talentless fraud who should never have got a job in radio. It’s also seems to quite annoy Geoff, so that’s the main reason I’ve not changed it.
What’s Geoff like?
When he’s not showing disdain for my pre-paid electricity, frugality, wearing Topshop clothes that “are not age-appropriate”, the fact that I don’t eat meat but I do eat fish, and refusing to believe that I had the primary school nickname of The Flying Flea, claiming instead that it was actually Hamble after the creepy doll from Playschool, he is lovely.
He’s big-hearted, enormously clever and extremely generous, and I’d probably be living in a gutter if not for him. Just never play Monopoly with him. He’s a commie bastard who won’t buy property and hands his money out at random intervals. It’s infuriating.
Do you think maybe you should get a real job?
I’d probably have to go on an adult-education computer course first.
But yes, there are moments, like when I’m pretending to be Councillor Drugget from The Brittas Empire on a Wednesday afternoon, that I wonder if my time could not be better spent.
Yes, about that – do you worry that you are wasting other people’s time? People with real jobs, making a real contribution to society?
The best I can hope for is that it gives the people involved something to talk about when they get home from work. “So today someone came into the leisure centre and they were pretending to be someone called Councillor Drugget and kept calling me Gordon and they said Songs of Praise was being filmed there. It was kind of annoying as it interrupted me from finalising the figures for a big charity event at the centre that would’ve raised millions and I won’t have time to go back to it now, so it’s being cancelled. It was really weird. Why would someone do that?”
Yes, I worry about it all the time.
Have you ever said no to one of Geoff’s challenges?
Once. He challenged me to join the Harlem Globetrotters. I’m five foot three! I live in London! I was quite good at netball when I was eleven, though. When I definitely, definitely had the nickname of The Flying Flea. Perhaps I should’ve done it.
And travel to Harlem? I can’t help noticing you don’t like to travel too far from your work or home for these challenges. Why is that?
Lack of time, laziness. All the usual reasons.
Some of the things you do are really embarrassing. Don’t you get embarrassed?
When I’m doing the more brazen, ridiculous things, I become someone else in my head. A more naive, innocent version of myself. I’m also so good at lying to myself that I often start to become convinced I really am, for example, starting work that day as the assistant Ravenmaster and can start to feel quite indignant that nobody seems to know about it. Lying to yourself is a good skill to have. I’m pretty sure it’s the only way anyone has the confidence to do anything.
We’re about three-quarters of the way through the book now. What would you say you’d learned now?
Again? Really? Okay.
1. If you’re not in contact with someone from the past any more, it’s because they don’t want to see you anymore. Contacting them is embarrassing for you and for them. Don’t do it. Just leave it.
2. If you’re going to turn up at a big company, or any company, wanting to talk to someone about something, it’s best to do some research first and come armed with a name of someone who works there. It took me a worryingly long time to work this out. It also helps to have a business card, even if you’ve made it yourself out of a Caffè N
ero card and a TGI Fridays receipt.
3. Warwick University really will make no exceptions for anyone. They are very rigid. I feel a lot better about them rejecting me all those years ago.
4. People at work are always in meetings. Either that, or a good way to avoid speaking to someone is to pretend you are in a meeting.
5. I really have no shame.
23
The Challenge:
To expose some Internet fraud
I’m no stranger to an online investigation. I’ve been known to carry out some heavy-duty googling and facebooking to work out if various boyfriends have been cheating on me. The things I’ve found out! How hard can this be? Especially as I’ve always thought that the people writing these email scams can’t be too bright. They all seem so obviously fake.
However, the first thing I learn is that they are written really badly on purpose, to draw out only the most very gullible who might give out their bank details. And there are lot of very gullible people; these email scams made $9.3 billion in 2009.
I’ve realised what I’ve got to do. If I appear very gullible and not so bright, I could trick an email scam fraudster. Trick them into giving me their details and then I can fly to Nigeria or wherever and confront them. If I can get enough money for the flight from petty cash at work.
I just need to find an email scam now. It’s not hard. I just go straight to my spam folder, where one catches my eye. It’s from a David Ellis, who claims to be the Head of Inspection Unit at the United Nations Inspection Agency. That’s a lot of inspection going on there. But what’s he inspecting?
I soon find out. It’s an abandoned shipment. “$4 million or more” in two metal trunk boxes weighing approximately 110kg each that had been transferred from John F. Kennedy Airport to their facility in Atlanta. I’m slightly unclear why, but presumably for inspection.