Sunday, October 25, 2009

24 Hour Fever

This week, we thought we’d jump on the 24 Hour Bandwagon, especially since Mike, ahem, gave it a bit of a push. Marsha Moore’s book, 24 Hour’s London is going on sale soon. We both endorse this book--it is a fun read, even if you are not visiting London, and essential if you are. To help kick off its debut, we’re doing our own version of 24 Hours.

So buy the book, and while you’re at it, buy ours, too. Really, you need each one of them: Rules, Britannia, for what you must know if you don’t want to look like a pillock, Postcards From Across the Pond for what life on the ground is really like, and 24 Hours: London for what to do while you here.

They would make a great gift-box set for… say, isn’t Christmas just around the corner? (hint, hint).

Mike: 24 Hours in the Life of a Cyberspace Celebrity:

10am: Wake up. Send manservant to check the post and download the receipts for the week. It’s not as much as last week so you’ll have to scrape by with only £746,837, but in these hard economic times everyone has to tighten their belts.

11am: Sooth aching ego with a brunch of caviar and French champagne.

12pm: Gather lackeys and head for the stables to check on the polo ponies. Engage in pick-up game with lackeys. Make sure they let you win.

1pm: Have servants fill Olympic-sized bathtub with scented water and rose pedals. Invite a few “special” lackeys to join you.

2pm: Snack on canapés and brie on the east portico. Have servants release the hounds to keep gawking admirers at bay.

3pm: Off to your private golf course for another golf lesson from Tiger Woods.

4pm: Write Pond Parley article.

5pm: Show article to lackeys. See to it that they laugh hysterically. Fire those who do not.

6pm: E-mail article to Toni; she’s not busy, she can post it.

7pm: Take stretch limo to Brighton for private dinner at the Brighton Pavilion. Have lackeys follow in a bus.

8pm: Leave Brighton for London. Don’t forget copy of 24Hours: London.

9pm: Hunt for ghosts with London Paranormal: www.londonparanormal.com

10pm: Naked disco dancing at Starkers ( www.starkersclub.co.uk ) with “special” lackeys. Send others out for a kabab.

12am: (I know I missed an hour; but naked disco dancing deserves more than 60 minutes) Rent a Thames Clipper ( www.thamesclippers.com ) for you and your entourage. Pay the skipper the let you drive. After unfortunate incident involving tower Bridge and the Marine Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police, pay skipper to say he was driving.

1am: Pop over to the Mahiki Club ( www.mahiki.com ) for a chat with Prince Harry; he may be boring but it never hurts to be seen with him.

2am: Back to limo to leave London—the police insist. Seems the skipper spilled the beans.

3am: Dinner of fresh Maine lobsters and salad greens plucked from the allotments next door served by the poolside. A few of the lackeys are fading; fire them.

4am: Check e-mail, evaluate offers. Write a paragraph or two of some promised article.

5am: To bed. While drifting away on satin sheets, wonder what Toni is up to…


Toni: 24 Hours in the Life of a More Typical Blogger

5am: Wake up, two hours before I should. I hate when that happens.

6am: Finally drift back off to sleep after having mentally galloped through the day’s to-do list

7am: Alarm goes off. Hit the 5 minute snooze button. Prepare to be metaphorically shot out of a canon.

8am: Leave for school with Little Guy, after emotional debate about “cool” versus “warm” clothing. Teenagers have already left although one has left his glasses and the other her violin. Neither has taken keys. Think I will be “out” when they come home at 3.30pm.

9am: Allow myself an hour to do bloggy stuff. Having back issues helps here as I can’t sit for much longer.

10am: Jjump on treadmill. Deliberately donned workout gear first thing, so might as well make use of it all. Plus hair needs a wash.

11am: Apparently, I’ve pulled something.

12 pm: Having burnt off about three million calories, now famished and trying not to devour entire contents of fridge (which would be this week’s leftovers.)

1pm: Write something for PowderRoomGrafitti (dot com). Print off a chapter from next book and rearrange paragraphs for the tenth time. Deal with Mike’s half of Pond Parleys post. (Tut)

2pm: Head for shower. Stop off at laundry room and attempt the west face of the “mountain”.

3pm: Finish laundry and decide shower has to wait. Put on lipstick to distract from hair stuck to head and skanky workout gear. Head out to pick up Little Guy.

4pm: Sit in kitchen and patiently listen to teenage diatribes against school, homework, music practice and the world. Help Little Guy with “oo” words.

5pm: Stare hopelessly into fridge looking for dinner inspiration. (No, I’m not one who plans a week’s menus in advance.) Set to.

6pm: Gather everyone for raucous family dinner; phone keeps ringing about “team” science project that one team member has left until last minute and now everyone else has to jump. Make sarcastic comment to caller about “team” work forgetting that sarcasm is a lost art here.

7pm: Run bath for Little Guy and boot up computer nearby. Bloggy comments time. Teens look over shoulder and mumble about Expat Mummy (in terrible English accents).

8pm: Little Guy in bed. Glass of Pinot and perhaps inane “news” show on TV.

9pm: Tidy up stuff; look at list for tomorrow; shower – finally.

10pm: Bed. (No seriously). Half an hour of reading; get up and tell teenagers to go to bed.

11pm: Tell teenagers to put lights out.

12am: Still awake.
1am: Woken by Ball & Chain turning over and lacerating my shoulder as he drags duvet with him.

2am: Karaoke in nearby pub lets out. Louts singing the Macarena loudly.

3am: zzzzzzz

4am: B&C gets up to pee. Shuffles feet loudly on the floor in attempt to be quiet. Pees with door open; even louder.

5am: You know the drill…

To join in, write your own '24 Hours' post and send the link to marshawrites@gmail.com - she will link to the post and on 4 November, when the book is launched, one of the entires will win a '24 Hours London' T-shirt and a copy of the book.

You can also comment below. We like comments.

7 comments:

  1. ha!! I LOVE this - tis hilarious [at the risk of being fired] - read in the West study whilst covered in dust, paint and tile grout. Must get some lackeys...perhaps pass some of the non-laughing ones my way? ;o)

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  2. l'optimiste: Sure. I have no need for lackeys who don't laugh at my joked. They're all yours ;)

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  3. I love these 24 hour things. Where do you get one of these lackeys? I could do with a few! Admitedly they'd be more useful tackling my west side laundry mountain, but I can but dream about the naked disco dancing instead.

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  4. Ha! Much preferred Mike's 24 hours, although must admit my days of naked disco dancing, or naked dancing of any kind, have long since called it a day.

    Was most comforted to find Toni's ever-faithful gratuitous America slam buried within her 24, however it was disappointing not to see a scoring of who did and who did not say "please" that day.

    (^_^)

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  5. I love these! Great post! I wish I had had a lackey to write my 24 Hours post... :-)

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  6. Brit: Yes, at my age, I question the need for naked disco ;) But lackeys are great; I recommend them.

    Jill: I would have liked my 24 Hours better, too, if it had been real ;)

    Miss America: You didn't need lackeys to write your post, it was brilliant! Everyone go over an read it, right now!

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  7. Great post! Is a lackey like an intern? How do I pretend my writing life is a small business so I can get an intern? :-)

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