Got home in the early hours last night, having packed the troop of milkmaids off on the train back to Soho, to discover I’d left the phone off the hook. Putting it to my ear, the bank from the day before (See episode six) is still promising to answer my call in strict rotation. I am now second… no, first in the queue!
Wikipedia, my on line encyclopaedia of choice, has helpfully informed me that the average cost of procuring all the necessary gifts to complete the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ quest is $27,673.21 (a little short of sixteen grand, at current pound:dollar exchange rates). This is up from a mere $12,623.10 in 1984. There’s an index of the cost, kept by the PNC bank in Pittsburgh; you can read that on line as well. Quite why Pittsburgh should host this information on the most romantic gift sequence in the history of popular song, I swear I don’t know (Pittsburgh is a town of steel and men in purple uniforms with football helmets, isn’t it?) Anyway, this figure seems wildly above the general rate of inflation, but it brings home the degree of commitment I have embarked upon.
As you may recall, in the past few episodes, I have been considering the financial commitment in relation to the growing inflexibility of my credit card. Basically, it was already as stiff as a board before we began. What still lies before us – dancing, leaping and obscure musicians – amounts to a ‘Gatsby’-esque four-day piss up, a party, an orgastic humdinger of a long-weekend blow out (see, I borrowed a word from Gatsby that doesn’t even exist, but that’s how wild this thing’s gotta be). I need members of the aristocracy to turn up, and that’s not going to happen on the kind of own-label booze you can buy in discount supermarkets. Staging this is going to cost money. Against this, my card seems now as a mere digestive biscuit in a desiccating jar. I need funding.
Cognisant of all this, I click the phone onto hands-free and get myself a brandy while Tina Turner sings that I’m ‘simply the best’. I am also ‘better than all the rest’ which I’d previously thought of as being the only way to be the best, but apparently it needs clarification. Quite why an on-line bank would wish to convey this message, when they have previously refused to loan me any money and their own competence is measured by taking three days to move virtual credit balances from one account to another (something I can do in an Excel spreadsheet at the click of a button), is somewhat beyond my comprehension, but there you are.
Anyway, finally at 2.45 a.m., the long-promised Cassandra (you’ll remember her friend Melanie in Part Six) comes onto the line.
“What can I help you with today, Sir?”
I hesitate. Should I tell her that it is no longer ‘today’? It is, in fact, the day after the day after tomorrow if you consider when this call for help was first placed.
“Melanie said I could get a loan from you ‘business team’ people if I had a business plan.”
“You have a business plan you could send us?”
“Erm, yes, but I’m rather in a hurry. Could I pitch it to you over the phone?”
“That’s not normal, Sir.”
“OK, but this is special circumstances. I need cash. You see I’m doing the Twelve Days of Christmas. I’ve sent gifts to the values of… let me see… £6,428.23, so far and I need about another ten to get the rest of the job done.”
“Ten pounds?”
“Ten grand, including booze and waiters.” I hesitate. I think quickly. I won’t take no for an answer. “I’m televising the whole thing on line (YouTube Live), blogging about it through Facebook, and attempting to pay for the whole thing by selling advertising click-throughs. I understand it’s how all good billionaires get their start these days. I’m not saying it looks immediately profitable. I mean, I’ve looked up Facebook, for example. They never made a profit for, like, ten years. They started by rating pictures of students for hotness; now they have 864 million users a day. I’m just saying, watching me try to woo my true-love with extraordinary gifts must be a better commercial proposition than checking out who Cindy-Lou’s in a relationship with this week. So far, my first eight days have created, erm, two hundred thousand views.”
OK, a slight exaggeration (keep clicking, guys, I need you; hit the like button.)
“I’ll just put you on hold while I get my supervisor,” Cassandra says. And then we’re back to Tina Turner. I get the impression I am on the wrong end of one of those calls where someone rings you up and proceeds to read you a prepared script about double glazing, while you turn the receiver to the wall and go off to get a cup of tea. You know the ones.
I decide, whatever the bank might think, to go for it. The idea I just came up with off-the-cuff is my best shot. I go on-line and order a marquee, then I post my event on the aforementioned Facebook, and tweet about it randomly. This is how all the best flash mobs are assembled these days: ‘Come dressed as a Lady, or if you don’t have the gender credentials for it, come tomorrow as a Lord.’ ... And then, just for good measure: ‘Bring a Bottle.’
Get the DJ to spin the Birdy Song, pass round some straw for sucking up the Lidl-branded Asti Spumante with a bit of extra oxygen (that gets the alcohol to really work its magic), and I have no doubt I’ll get nine dancers cavorting on my rapidly constructed dance floor, though ‘ladies’ might be pushing it, description-wise. Too late now, I’m off to set up the web-cam stream for YouTube.
I’m deeply worried about the Leaping Lords for tomorrow, but I do have a bit of a developing brainwave: Althorp House is just up the road. Charlie’s probably home for Christmas.
If you haven’t done so yet, check out the rest of the series…
- The Partridge in the Pear Tree
- The Two Turtle Doves
- The Three French Hens
- The Four ‘Corley’ Birds
- The Five Gold Rings
- The Six Geese-A-Laying
- The Seven Swans-A-Swimming
- The Eight Maids-A-Milking
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