I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Site Launch Day: 76
User Count: 120
Going right: Had dinner with my old CEO last night who announced to the table in general that I was sitting on a multi-million business.
Going wrong: Had no alcohol and arrived back at a reasonable hour. Still feel deathly hungover.
Comment: Maybe it's a complete myth that alcohol causes hangovers.
'Is that the way you always look when you go to work?' asked my boyfriend as I sauntered down the stairs in my smartest maternity denim skirt, silver earrings and full makeup. Since I go to work in the corner of my bedroom, even getting out of my pyjamas means I have made an effort.
'This is the way I always go to work when I'm expecting TV cameras at my house, yes."
I, like the rest of Britain, get mildly excited at the sight of a TV camera, even though my middle class upbringing compels me to disguise this vicarious thrill by pretending to ignore them whist surreptitiously glancing under my eyelashes. Only yesterday I saw Ben from GMTV in the playground next to my house, and every time we see a helicopter we murmur confidently - "Oh yes there's Angelina off on her travels again." She lives somewhere on Richmond Hill. I regularly see John Hannah at our local pub and Jerry Hall is a stone's throw from my friend Jenny's house. Richmond is full of well - the 'riche monde'. Celebrities, middle class upwardly aspiring families and posh shops.
It is to film in this milieu that TV cameras are arriving today. The wondrous dichotomy that will be me and my Louis Vuitton bag with my yummy mummy friends in Richmond and the frightful unmade up hag in comfy tracksuits that I become by moving to Branno next week in the wilds of the Swedish archipelago.
The program targets women who are making radical life changes in their professional and personal lives. And of course as opposed to just making me look like a toffee nosed snob, I am hoping it will bring some awareness to the world that the corporate 9-5 is not the ONLY way to conduct your life around your family....and of course that Investment Impact can help you work your life differently.
This is not my first experience with the media but is my first experience with television. I have to admit that I am not expecting anything particularly great - you can do all the background checks you like, but if the media wants to twist your story to a particular angle, they will. They could make it look like "ooh Mother-bury-me-in-a-y-shaped-coffin-Theresa". But what other choice does one have short of making the documentary oneself? So if you see me on Channel four in a few months time looking like a prude, slut, snob or even a halfway decent human being trying to change the world...rest assured it won't be the truth. What am I really? Probably all four.
If you want a peek at the business that's driving me insane you can click here.