anti-virus software.
Failing that, get two cups, a very long piece of string and ...
BUY NOTHING EVE, NOVEMBER 28, 2008
Having given myself the day off, I was finally starting to feel more relaxed and looking forward to the day ahead. My schedule was supposed to look something like this:
7:00am Wake up, have some breakfast and read for a bit.
9:00am Meet Fergus, drive in his van to the wholesale food market to see if we could get some waste vegetables for the feast.
11:00am Go into town, print flyers for the feast and pick up any infrastructural stuff I felt I still needed.
1:00pm Lunch.
2:00pm Back to bed for an afternoon nap and some reading.
5:30pm Dinner.
7:00pm Meet my friends Chris and Suzie for a few farewell drinks before they took off on an around-the-world trip over land and sea.
10:00pm Bed.
10:01pm Read.
10:02pm Sleep.
Life regularly indulges its annoying habit of not letting things go to plan. Instead of relaxing before the most bizarre day of my thirty years on this planet, my day turned out something like this:
7:00am Wake up.
7:35am Wake up again and disable the snooze function on my phone. Have some breakfast and read for a bit.
9:00am Meet Fergus. So far, so good.
9:30am Realize the battery in Fergus’s van has died overnight. Shit. That is not good. Blood pressure is rising, anxiety is increasing and need to hide in a cabin in the woods is becoming stronger.
9:35am Realize there isn’t a chance of being able to get the battery charged and make it to the wholesale market before it closes at 11am.
9:50am As the market won’t re-open until five o’clock tomorrow morning, decide to give up on it for the day and leave getting 60% of our food requirements until the morning of the feast. This is obviously a very risky strategy. I am slightly anxious.
10:00am Go back to Claire’s house to check my emails.
10:15am Read an email from a journalist I spoke to earlier in the week, who says her article has gone into the
Irish Times
. I read the article; it’s far too kind to me but I have a sinking feeling I know what is going to happen next.
10:20am I get a call from BBC Radio Bristol, asking if I could do a live interview at eight o’clock the next morning. I say ‘yes’ despite knowing I have also got to find about 300 pounds of waste food, somewhere, at around the same time. I realize mystory is probably now on the BBC news feed, so I put away the book I planned to read.
10:25am BBC Breakfast News phones. Can I come in for their morning show? They say they’ll pay for cabs back and forth to London. I tell them I think they’ve missed the point, so they agree to send one of BBC Bristol’s satellite trucks to do it live. I tell them I have already agreed to be on Radio Bristol at the same time; they say that they’ll look after that. Why do they want to speak to someone who, as yet, has achieved absolutely nothing?
10:30am BBC Radio Bristol calls to say that I can do their interview from the same truck.
10:35am South West news feed phones for some more details. This is both a good and a bad thing. It means my message will get lots of publicity over the next two days; it also means I’m going to get very busy.
10:40am BBC Radio Wales phones and asks for an interview tomorrow morning too. Nice. I now have to do three interviews
and
find 300 pounds of vegetables for free before eight o’clock on the first morning of my year without money. But I never refuse interviews, especially live ones, as each one is a chance to get the message out.
10:45am My story is obviously on all the news feeds. Sky News is now on to it. They just want some quotes for their website, which is often the feed for the news stories on the Yahoo homepage. Good job Fergus’s van wasn’t working.
10:50am Start replying to as many emails as I can but they are coming in more quickly than I can type.
10:55am
Newstalk
, one of Ireland’s major radio stations, calls. I do an interview. All over in ten minutes.
11:05am A
Failing that, get two cups, a very long piece of string and ...
BUY NOTHING EVE, NOVEMBER 28, 2008
Having given myself the day off, I was finally starting to feel more relaxed and looking forward to the day ahead. My schedule was supposed to look something like this:
7:00am Wake up, have some breakfast and read for a bit.
9:00am Meet Fergus, drive in his van to the wholesale food market to see if we could get some waste vegetables for the feast.
11:00am Go into town, print flyers for the feast and pick up any infrastructural stuff I felt I still needed.
1:00pm Lunch.
2:00pm Back to bed for an afternoon nap and some reading.
5:30pm Dinner.
7:00pm Meet my friends Chris and Suzie for a few farewell drinks before they took off on an around-the-world trip over land and sea.
10:00pm Bed.
10:01pm Read.
10:02pm Sleep.
Life regularly indulges its annoying habit of not letting things go to plan. Instead of relaxing before the most bizarre day of my thirty years on this planet, my day turned out something like this:
7:00am Wake up.
7:35am Wake up again and disable the snooze function on my phone. Have some breakfast and read for a bit.
9:00am Meet Fergus. So far, so good.
9:30am Realize the battery in Fergus’s van has died overnight. Shit. That is not good. Blood pressure is rising, anxiety is increasing and need to hide in a cabin in the woods is becoming stronger.
9:35am Realize there isn’t a chance of being able to get the battery charged and make it to the wholesale market before it closes at 11am.
9:50am As the market won’t re-open until five o’clock tomorrow morning, decide to give up on it for the day and leave getting 60% of our food requirements until the morning of the feast. This is obviously a very risky strategy. I am slightly anxious.
10:00am Go back to Claire’s house to check my emails.
10:15am Read an email from a journalist I spoke to earlier in the week, who says her article has gone into the
Irish Times
. I read the article; it’s far too kind to me but I have a sinking feeling I know what is going to happen next.
10:20am I get a call from BBC Radio Bristol, asking if I could do a live interview at eight o’clock the next morning. I say ‘yes’ despite knowing I have also got to find about 300 pounds of waste food, somewhere, at around the same time. I realize mystory is probably now on the BBC news feed, so I put away the book I planned to read.
10:25am BBC Breakfast News phones. Can I come in for their morning show? They say they’ll pay for cabs back and forth to London. I tell them I think they’ve missed the point, so they agree to send one of BBC Bristol’s satellite trucks to do it live. I tell them I have already agreed to be on Radio Bristol at the same time; they say that they’ll look after that. Why do they want to speak to someone who, as yet, has achieved absolutely nothing?
10:30am BBC Radio Bristol calls to say that I can do their interview from the same truck.
10:35am South West news feed phones for some more details. This is both a good and a bad thing. It means my message will get lots of publicity over the next two days; it also means I’m going to get very busy.
10:40am BBC Radio Wales phones and asks for an interview tomorrow morning too. Nice. I now have to do three interviews
and
find 300 pounds of vegetables for free before eight o’clock on the first morning of my year without money. But I never refuse interviews, especially live ones, as each one is a chance to get the message out.
10:45am My story is obviously on all the news feeds. Sky News is now on to it. They just want some quotes for their website, which is often the feed for the news stories on the Yahoo homepage. Good job Fergus’s van wasn’t working.
10:50am Start replying to as many emails as I can but they are coming in more quickly than I can type.
10:55am
Newstalk
, one of Ireland’s major radio stations, calls. I do an interview. All over in ten minutes.
11:05am A
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