personal.
2:25pm Quick lunch. Get email that I am giving an hour’s talk at a Permaculture event on Sunday. Nice to be given so much advance notice.
2:45pm With Claire, set off in a van to try and find some grains destined for the trash. Go to a local organic food co-op. They give us fifty pounds of polenta, fifty pounds of wheat flakes, seventy pounds of rice and twenty pounds of couscous that were all out of date. Big result.
3:20pm Interview with 105–107fm from passenger seat of van, while looking for out-of-date food. I’m bored with hearing my voice say the same thing over and over. I try to sound like the words just came to me but I struggle. I’ve said the same thing in the same manner so many times today. I hope I don’t sound unenthusiastic, because I’m not; I am just bored with the same questions.
3:45pm Get back to my friend’s house, get my bike and cycle to town.
4:15pm Quickly print flyers.
4:30pm Buy some food for the last time for a year.
4:45pm Buy myself a book while I still can.
4:50pm Cycle to the BBC’s Bristol studio.
5:15pm Do an interview with the World Service. I love World Service interviews – they ask the real questions and waste very little time on trivia. It’s a pity I couldn’t have done interviews just with them all day. They were the first people not to ask what I was going to miss the most.
5:50pm Start cycling home.
6:05pm Get a puncture in my back wheel going through a part of Bristol synonymous with broken beer bottles. The shortest route isn’t always the quickest.
6:25pm Walk a mile to Fergus’s house. I am extremely concerned that I have buckled the back wheel of my bike with about fifty pounds of stuff in saddlebags. That cannot be good for the tube.
6:30pm Fergus and I (in Fergus’s van that is now working again) go to Claire’s house for dinner. I am going to stay there for my last night of normality. Whatever that means.
7:00pm Trying to fix the puncture, I unscrew the rear dérailleur instead of the wheel. I’m dead on my feet and this is the last thing I needed.
7:02pm Kick the sofa. Apologize to Claire. Lie on the floor utterly exhausted.
7:03pm Watch Fergus attempt to fix the rear dérailleur.
7:10pm Tell Fergus it is utterly, utterly hopeless as neither of us has a clue.
7:45pm Fergus claims to have fixed it. My body receives a second wind.
7:47pm Hug Fergus.
8:00pm Still hugging Fergus. He wrestles me off before asking when dinner is.
8:05pm I test the bike. Although the front dérailleur is not working, the back gears are fine. I have a functioning bike again.
8:15pm I start making dinner. Eat half of it, digest very little, fix the puncture.
9:45pm Cycle to town on my half-mangled bike.
10:00pm Meet my friends Chris and Suzie. Buy my last beer, and a couple for them, and drink it rather quickly.
10:40pm Cycle home to do my last interview of the day at 11 pm.
11:00pm Interview with the BBC World Service, the Europeanedition. I remember to speak as slowly as is possible for an Irishman to do, since English isn’t the listeners’ first language. Not sure it’s mine, either.
11:30pm Give the last few pennies in my pocket to Claire. Being a student, coupled with the fact she is soon to be the girlfriend of the UK’s most financially-challenged man, she gladly accepts.
11:35pm Get into bed.
11:36pm Asleep.
11:36pm Woken by a text message from a producer in an Oscar-winning production company. Not knowing this at the time, I respond with something to the effect of ‘yeah no worries pal, I’ll give you a shout sometime’. Not my most impressive move.
With my ‘relaxing’ last day over, it was time to start a year without being able to use money. As I lay in bed, I knew that when I woke up the next day, life would have changed drastically. It was almost impossible to not let that thought weigh heavily on my mind. I had completely underestimated the public and media’s interest in a story which hadn’t even been written yet and I had a feeling it was
2:25pm Quick lunch. Get email that I am giving an hour’s talk at a Permaculture event on Sunday. Nice to be given so much advance notice.
2:45pm With Claire, set off in a van to try and find some grains destined for the trash. Go to a local organic food co-op. They give us fifty pounds of polenta, fifty pounds of wheat flakes, seventy pounds of rice and twenty pounds of couscous that were all out of date. Big result.
3:20pm Interview with 105–107fm from passenger seat of van, while looking for out-of-date food. I’m bored with hearing my voice say the same thing over and over. I try to sound like the words just came to me but I struggle. I’ve said the same thing in the same manner so many times today. I hope I don’t sound unenthusiastic, because I’m not; I am just bored with the same questions.
3:45pm Get back to my friend’s house, get my bike and cycle to town.
4:15pm Quickly print flyers.
4:30pm Buy some food for the last time for a year.
4:45pm Buy myself a book while I still can.
4:50pm Cycle to the BBC’s Bristol studio.
5:15pm Do an interview with the World Service. I love World Service interviews – they ask the real questions and waste very little time on trivia. It’s a pity I couldn’t have done interviews just with them all day. They were the first people not to ask what I was going to miss the most.
5:50pm Start cycling home.
6:05pm Get a puncture in my back wheel going through a part of Bristol synonymous with broken beer bottles. The shortest route isn’t always the quickest.
6:25pm Walk a mile to Fergus’s house. I am extremely concerned that I have buckled the back wheel of my bike with about fifty pounds of stuff in saddlebags. That cannot be good for the tube.
6:30pm Fergus and I (in Fergus’s van that is now working again) go to Claire’s house for dinner. I am going to stay there for my last night of normality. Whatever that means.
7:00pm Trying to fix the puncture, I unscrew the rear dérailleur instead of the wheel. I’m dead on my feet and this is the last thing I needed.
7:02pm Kick the sofa. Apologize to Claire. Lie on the floor utterly exhausted.
7:03pm Watch Fergus attempt to fix the rear dérailleur.
7:10pm Tell Fergus it is utterly, utterly hopeless as neither of us has a clue.
7:45pm Fergus claims to have fixed it. My body receives a second wind.
7:47pm Hug Fergus.
8:00pm Still hugging Fergus. He wrestles me off before asking when dinner is.
8:05pm I test the bike. Although the front dérailleur is not working, the back gears are fine. I have a functioning bike again.
8:15pm I start making dinner. Eat half of it, digest very little, fix the puncture.
9:45pm Cycle to town on my half-mangled bike.
10:00pm Meet my friends Chris and Suzie. Buy my last beer, and a couple for them, and drink it rather quickly.
10:40pm Cycle home to do my last interview of the day at 11 pm.
11:00pm Interview with the BBC World Service, the Europeanedition. I remember to speak as slowly as is possible for an Irishman to do, since English isn’t the listeners’ first language. Not sure it’s mine, either.
11:30pm Give the last few pennies in my pocket to Claire. Being a student, coupled with the fact she is soon to be the girlfriend of the UK’s most financially-challenged man, she gladly accepts.
11:35pm Get into bed.
11:36pm Asleep.
11:36pm Woken by a text message from a producer in an Oscar-winning production company. Not knowing this at the time, I respond with something to the effect of ‘yeah no worries pal, I’ll give you a shout sometime’. Not my most impressive move.
With my ‘relaxing’ last day over, it was time to start a year without being able to use money. As I lay in bed, I knew that when I woke up the next day, life would have changed drastically. It was almost impossible to not let that thought weigh heavily on my mind. I had completely underestimated the public and media’s interest in a story which hadn’t even been written yet and I had a feeling it was
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