Monday 22nd October
For children and teachers in most parts of the country it's Half Term. For me, it's Turtle Week. Because from today until Saturday it will be my sworn duty to transport Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Raphael (these being the names of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) to locations various, there to entertain childs under my watchful eye.
So at 8am this morning I arrive at Rainbow and shoehorn four big red bags, each containing one of our amphibious friends, into the back of my car and as soon as my fellow Road Manager, Sandy arrives, we chug off through central London towards Oxford Street. Almost immediately, things begin to deviate from plan. Having agreed to follow Sandy into town, I'm soon left standing at traffic lights somewhere in Wandsworth pointing in direction unknown, whilst Sandy completely unaware, pursues her circuitous backstreet route without me. Somehow I manage to negotiate the innumerable road closures in Central London and end up in a parking space right outside our first venue, which then takes me a full half hour to pay for over the phone, using Westminster Council's brilliant new Pay For Your Parking Over The Phone system. (To anyone from Westminster Council who might be reading, this new system takes almost exactly twenty-eight minutes longer to pay for parking than plonking coins into a meter used to do. Nice work).
Our first call was the flagship branch of a well-known music and media retailer to be found on Oxford Street - a company I once spent almost a year working for, and whom I'm entirely unsurprised to find just as arrogant and obnoxious a bunch of people as I remember them. There ahead of me were Sandy and our four artistes for the day. Also there were two representatives from our client, a representative from their client, a representative from Warner (who own the Turtles), a face painter and an almost total absence of children (this being Monday morning of half term, when anyone who finds themself not having to go to school would be still in bed). As well as the green lads themselves, we're also carrying numerous boxes of Turtle-based merchandise to be given away. We should also, it turns out, have been carrying a job lot of cardboard standees, which no-one remembers seeing, so calls are made to Rainbow to have them sent over by courier. We should also have received a comprehensive set of instructions as to the week's itinerary, but we haven't. Much head-shaking and hair-tossing ensues from the client ladies. Thus, with the morning rapidly disintegrating into a shambling mess and every one of the persons involved having a slightly different idea of what should be happening, the Turtles go out on their first appearance, do a little dance on a specially onstructed stage and muck about in front of the entrance to the store, trying to entice people in, as there are about five people in the shop. By the time it gets to the second appearance, the girls from S-team (our client), their client and their client's client are starting to relax a bit because they've suddenly realised that we know what we're doing, the standees have turned up, there are now neary ten people in the shop, and things are running smoothly at last. At this point, it's time to pack up the costumes, break down the standees and put everything - costumes, standees, boxes of merchandise - back into the cars to move on to the next venue. Ah yes, did I not mention that? We're doing two venues each day. Joy. There ensues a half-hour period of me running repetedly between the store and Sandy's car which is parked miles away, before Sandy and the artistes are sent off to have a lunch break. All the various clients disappear, leaving just The Lovely Emily from S-team, who will be with us for the week, and the two of us pack up the Turtles and set off towards Brent Cross.
And breathe....
At Brent Cross we find a much smaller branch of the same music retailer, where the ony place available for the girls to get into costume is outside the firedoors in the loading bay corridor. We then have all the fun of trying to get them from the staff area through the store, without kicking over the teetering piles of DVD cases at every corner or causing other demolition. Perhaps I should have mentioned that, despite their heroic ninja status, these Turtles have bugger all visibility, and without someone to lead them and murmer directions their ninja skills largely include bumbing slowly about and bumping into things. For extra fun, they are supposed to be walking all the way down into the main foyer of the Mall to perform their hastiy improvised dance routine but this takes so long and looks so bizarre that after the first appearance it's abandoned and we spend the rest of the afternoon meeting and greeting outside the shop.
With everything packed up at the end of the day, the crew making their separate ways home and me having only to drive a little way round the North Circular to get home, you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing else could go wrong today. No such luck, though, for as I approach Ealing Oona the Laguna sustains her first injury at the hands of a London Driver, as a small bashed-up Nissan crunches into the side of her then roars off into the night, leaving my poor car with a dent in her passenger door. Well, it could have been worse. No car that lives and drives in London is going to remain unmarked for long.
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