This one can't possibly fail

I have a great new business idea.

I am going to make wands and sell them to witches.

No, honestly! This time, it is sure to be a success!

Okay, my idea about selling tactile steering-wheel covers to blind people. Admittedly, I did not think that one through. But witches! We have zillions of witches in England looking for circles and covens - I have even seen adverts for them in our local community hall - and I bet they all want new wands supplied with a special spell-collecting Knicker Drawer Witchery Note Book!

Shark is not impressed. As usual, she takes after her father. She pooh-poohs my idea and says I am just trying to fob off witches with old sticks.

Nonsense. I am helping the witches. I am helping them channel their natural spiritual energies into an essential tool of their craft. I know about these things. It is not black cats and Satan these days, you know. It is all healing energies, chakras and crystals. They have gone very New Age with their Druids. And I will be very respectful in my handling of that willow, elder, and oak. I will not simply stick on chunks of plastic to a bit of old wood before slapping on a price tag of a tenner.

Not that I had these thoughts in mind when I purchased my very own wand today. It cooed to me, I am your wand! I am your wand! I simply couldn't resist the calling, emanating from the Wytchy Market in a disused bus terminus opposite Milton Keynes railway station.

You may look at my wand, dear reader, since Shark has so far displayed nothing but scorn (possibly envy in disguise).

See? Half dark; half light; all bitter wood and twisted, with a gleam of false light at the end. It is mine.

I am filling my wand with energy right now, and will wave it about, probably over the washing up, the vacuuming of the stairs, and the clearing out of Squirrel's bed, when it will surely give me the strength to carry on.

And I am dealing with Shark. Becos any fule no that if you try to fob off witches, they turn you into toad.

Sounds like the makings of a business plan

I have a thought.


It is to magically transport myself to Sham Shui Po whenever I want where I will hunt down beautiful and amazing haberdashery items like acorn-shaped buttons


and I will tenderly stitch these lovely worshipful items onto my own, original design, hand-made leather notebooks, which I think are fast becoming the desirable must-have items on Etsy


even though I don't have an Etsy shop, never mind about that, but then, someone who is a real celebrity, alright I don't actually know anyone, just someone, howabout Vivienne Westwood? is she dead yet? well, she is photographed adoring an original Grit-stitched Note Me Note Book, and then no dastardly evil person will steal my ideas, like I'm pretty convinced about that Anya Hindswhatsherface, what with my cloth shopping bag that I wrote all over, and WTF! along comes her design!? and we're all calling that a coincidence?? but anyway I'm not holding grudges, because the personalised, character-filled, Grit-stitched Note Me Note Book is now all the rage and becomes

a fashion icon overnight!


and there is the most amazing storm in all the fash hag mags - Vogue, what about them? where the photographer must simply have moi in the publicity pictures where I look alarmed! but also cute, not scary, say I can be girl-next-door Ralph Lauren model, maybe twenty years younger, and not digitally retouched to make me look thin or anything, I am simply beautiful when I hold my Note Me Note Book in a coquettish and pouty but totally natural way


and then Hermès comes along! and pays a million pounds! or maybe more! I don't know, enough to mend the garage roof and buy a Prada handbag, they come along and buy my Secret Jotter of Brilliant Ideas, the one I keep hidden in my bra-and-knicker drawer (and obviously where I jot my totally fantastic and original ideas about notebooks), and then the fame brand of Note Me Note Book is so successful as a global enterprise that yes!

I accept the Legion d'honneur!

and this involves me being able to start the enterprise all over again aged 22, only this time with a permanently naked available man and no liver damage.

Fairy Godmother Note Me Note Book
(currently out of stock)

Sounds like a totally brilliant plan and I should be able to do it all, say, by next Wednesday.


Note Me Note Books coming soon to Etsy!

(When I said soon, I probably meant later.)

I am going to be an ace tour guide!

I have begun to find out about Hong Kong guided walks. Some are very expensive, aren't they? Asking $800 to walk with you from one side of our puny island to the other.

$800! There's only one path! If I was following that walk, for $800 and one path, I would want several naked men and a decent bottle of red wine thrown in.

Then I thought, I bet that's an easy way to earn money. Being a tour guide. I could organise tours for hapless tourists and I would be rich by next Thursday.

So I have decided to start my own tour guiding business. I'm doing it right now and I'm offering a more competitive rate than $800. I have to. Dig won't strip off.

But first I must cut my teeth on this tour guiding business.

I have found a list of do's. I shall follow that. I am sure to succeed!

1. Do: Organise the meet point precisely.
Well this is easy. I sit on the ferry with a broken phone connection and I make Ditta get on a boat too and come to meet me and be experimented on.

From then, it takes only 45 minutes to locate each other in the shopping centre. Both of us hang on the telephone to follow each other round, saying things like 'I'm just passing Zara!' 'So am I!' 'We must be near each other!' 'Yes! I'm just passing City Super!' 'So am I!' 'We must be near each other!' (Repeat for 45 minutes until one of us stops at a toilet.) It only takes us one hour 30 minutes to get started! PASS.

2. Do: Give everyone information in advance about the places you will see.
I can do that! Hey everyone! We are going to the Ping Shan Heritage Trail to explore the Tang Clan!

Ping Shan? Tang Clan? It rhymes! Let's go to Ping Pong Ding Dong and find out about Bang Shang Dang! What do you mean, Squirrel? Am I being rude? Hmm. Upsetting the neighbours doesn't sound good for my business. But what about Humpty Dumpty? He rhymes. Good grief, you can't say anything these days. It's all so controversial. Very well, let's go to Ping Shan for the Tang Clan and not say Tingtong Dingdong Bingbong. PASS.

3. Do: Plan your route in advance.
PASS. Except I have never been here in my life, obviously. When you take Grit's Guides for real, of course we won't blunder about the metro looking for an exit, or take the path that looks likely. It's a dead end, stupid. We'll know what we're doing second time. Take the road, turn left by the truck stop, head to the rubbish bins. These Chinese, they know how to present a heritage trail.


By the way, I apologise for my assistant Tiger. When she faces sudden new directions she breaks out in a screaming fit.

4. Do: Tell an interesting story at each stop on your route.
EASY. Here is the pagoda! Six hundred years old!


Looks like it was built in 1992. Apparently it brings good luck. Except the top four storeys fell off in a thunderstorm. Maybe it brings good luck but only if you stand in the right wind direction, what?

And, did you know? Pagodas are Buddhist and will show you the way to immortality. Typical. We can't get in. Bloody cheek. The pagoda guard just shut the door on me then hung a sign on it, saying Meal Break. We will have to find our own way to immortality until 2pm. Never mind. PASS.

5. Do: Draw everyone's attention to interesting features as you walk.
Yes, here we are, passing the Shrine of the Earth God!


No Ditta, I don't know anything about it. Except that it is v. interesting.

And here's the walled village! Strangely reminds me of Sheffield.

Old well.

PASS!

6. Do: Add original research to your tour.
EASY EASY EASY. I can make up stuff like a proper tour guide, no problem! Ditta, you can have a flying wombat if you like. One that lands on someone's head and claws their face off. It is an evil wombat! Help us! Only the forces of good can save us now!

Ahem, apart from that type of original approach, here's stuff I nicked from a blog. I shall read it out.

'Here is the shrine of a general. He is revered as a god, because he gave up his li fe in honour of his master.'

What is that, his lee fay? What is a lee fay? I don't know what that is. It must be something Chinese. Alright everyone, listen to me explain this. I am the tour guide.

This man was very brave because he gave up his lee fay. Do you not know what a lee fay is Squirrel? Tsk. I shall tell you. His lee fay was a magic shield which had been given to him by another god who was very pleased with all that he had done in his life.

What's that Squirrel? Life? Li fe? Shut up. Don't tell anyone. I think I got away with it. PASS.


7. Do: Keep the group together at all times.
Yes Ditta found Shark eventually. What do you take me for? The type of tour guide who hasn't a clue where she's going and can't remember the faces of her own children? PASS.


By the way, here are some ancestral halls. V. old.

8. Do: Make sure all stops on the tour are accessible.
It is only a little hill! Stop whining! And how was I to know the explanation gallery at the top is locked up? Who's supposed to be organising this? Don't they know these places shut?


Squirrel, what do you mean you are copying out the map in case we get lost again. Tsk. I shall demote you in my new office arrangements if you're not careful. PASS.

9. Do: Leave time for questions.
No I don't know. Ask Dr Internet about calligraphic practices in public places 1280-1460. I'm busy, talking to Ditta about saucepans. Right, any more questions about the woks, Ditta? PASS.

10. Do: Make sure the tour ends at a convenient place for departure.
No problem. I'm sure there will be an underground station if we look a bit harder. What's that? Is it a tram? Can we catch it? I have no idea Tiger. But let me reassure you. We won't end up in Pittsburgh.

There! This tour guiding stuff is EASY. Ditta says I am very good! I made it with FULL MARKS. Well done me.

Now I am a fully qualified tour guide available for hire at only $2000 per walk. I know it's a little bit expensive but I guarantee to make your tour extra memorable when half way round I take all my clothes off.