Annabel vs the Internet

by Annabel Port

  It’s a worry how I’m going to do this sober. On a Thursday lunchtime. But I’ve got to get the Brazilian spirit here, and preferably somewhere really boring and sombre, so even the slightest hint of party spirit will seem like Rio Carnival in comparison. I’m not keen on a library or graveyard, though. I just need a very peaceful area of London and it strikes me that Gray’s Inn Gardens could be perfect. It’s in Chancery Lane, where lots of sombre lawyers work, probably spending all day reading thick, dusty, leather-bound books. But they’ve got to take a break at some point and I’m sure this green space is where they go.

  When I arrive, it’s not quite what I imagined. It’s not all lawyers taking a break from dusty books. One man is wearing a football shirt.

  There is also a really posh bit, a fancy cafe in an open-sided marquee. I consider going in there but it looks like it’s lawyers meeting with clients and what if I jeopardised something big like Jarndyce vs Jarndyce or Kramer vs Kramer?

  I look around at the people sitting on the grass. I see three sitting down drinking Pimm’s. They’re clearly the work-hard, play-hard types. Maybe they’ve just won a big landmark case. This makes it easier; they’re already a bit lubricated but not yet wild.

  There’s a lady in a nice wraparound dress and two men in pastel-coloured shirts. One pink, one mauve. Neither are wearing ties. I walk towards them with a smile. Mauve shirt man spots me and smiles back.

  I’ve not prepared what I’m going to say as it’s too painful to plan ahead. I decide to be spontaneous and this is what comes out of my mouth when I’m by their group: “Party time! Let’s go! Uh uh uh uh uh!” Every “uh” was punctuated by me punching a fist forward. I’ve never made this noise or done this move before. I have no idea where it came from. It could’ve been the most excruciating moment ever. But they laugh and go, “Yeah!” They are not horrified. They might even be kind of enjoying our interaction.

  I keep going. “Let’s samba!” I then remember I don’t know how to samba, so add, “Can you samba?”

  “I can,” says wraparound dress lady.

  “Teach me how! I can’t do it,” I say.

  I can tell she immediately regrets saying she knew how.

  She says, “I’ve had a couple of drinks, I’ve probably forgotten now.”

  I immediately have fears for her career – with a memory this delicate combined with a lunchtime Pimm’s habit – but I gracefully say nothing.

  Now pink-shirt man is saying, “It’s all in the hips.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, moving my hips from side to side. “Come on, let’s do it!” I’m really trying to keep the energy up.

  “Maybe after a few more drinks,” they tell me.

  “Okay, I’m coming back!” I say, trying to sound non-threatening.

  I walk away to decide what to do next, how to keep this crazy Brazilian party in the park going. I sit for a few minutes, during which I notice them leave. But it is 2 p.m.; they probably had to go back to work. I’m sure that’s it.

  A lot of the area is emptying now, so I call it a day as I’m exhausted from being Brazilian. If I lived there, I’d have to take naps every two hours. I leave and go to the Tube station. The train is due in four minutes. I silently fume.

  25

  The Challenge:

  To collect more tax from the super-rich

  There’s not a person alive who’d be shocked to discover that the super-rich have been avoiding tax. Apart from the Chancellor George Osborne, who has expressed some surprise that this has been going on. He just couldn’t believe they aren’t paying the same amount of tax as the rest of us. That, on average, they are only paying 10% tax. He was flabbergasted. Something needs to be done. And while George Osborne is in a state of shock, Geoff believes I can help. In these times of economic woe, I can chase the super-rich for more tax. A bit like Robin Hood, but stealing from the rich to give to HMRC. And maybe not actually stealing.

  I know who I want to target. Sir Philip Green. His name is always coming up in relation to tax. He’s Mr High Street Shop man, the chairman of the Arcadia Group, which owns ­Topshop and BHS, among others. He’s always hanging around with Kate Moss and he definitely qualifies as super-rich. His son had a £4 million bar mitzvah.

  I head straight to the headquarters of his company Arcadia. I’ve not got a clear plan in my head on how I plan to collect the money, but I figure once I’m face-to-face with him, something will come to mind.

  It’s getting to the face-to-face bit that might be tricky. But I have an idea. If I go to reception and say Kate Moss is here to see him, he’ll come straight down. My only concern is that there’s a high chance that she’ll actually be up there with him.

  Obviously, there is the problem that I don’t look anything at all like Kate Moss, but I find if you say anything with enough confidence, you can often get away with it.

  I say to the young man at the reception, “I’m here to see Philip Green.”

  “And your name is?”

  I give him a look intending to convey, We both know what my name is, then say, “Kate Moss.”

  No reaction. At all. He’s on the phone now. I can hear him saying, “I’ve got Kate Moss here to see Sir Philip.”

  He does a bit of nodding, then passes the phone over to me.

  A woman says, “Hi Kate!” She’s very friendly. I think she thinks I am Kate Moss. I try and remember what Kate sounds like. It’s not easy as I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak. I know she’s from Croydon though so I try and get something of that in my voice.

  “Hi!” I say.

  “Kate, I’m so sorry, but he’s not here. He’s overseas.”

  “Nooo! Where?”

  “In the States.”

  “Nightmare!” I say loudly, and perhaps more coarsely than Kate would.

  “Do you want me to say you popped by?” she asks.

  I think about it for a moment, then say, “Yes,” and hand the phone back.

  This has not gone well. I may have got away with impersonating Kate Moss but I’ve not collected any tax. On the spur of the moment I say to the receptionist, “Have you got a present for me?”

  He looks confused. Understandably so. I try and help him out with, “Anything at all that you want to give me?” I’m not sure how helpful that was. He’s looking about in a slight panic.

  “Any stationery?” I suggest.

  “I’ve got a highlighter pen,” he says.

  “Great, thanks!”

  A highlighter pen is a start but I could probably do with collecting some more tax. Sir Philip’s Topshop is very close by. It’s obviously a risk going in there since I was banned. What if they call the police? I just have to hope that the security guards have not been studying my photo recently.

  I go in and straight to the tills. “Could I have a couple of hangers?” I ask.

  The guy shrugs, then gets me two. I shove them in my bag.

  BHS is a few doors down. This is also part of Arcadia. I go to the till there.

  “Hi, I’ve been sent from head office to pick up a spare till roll.”

  She gets me one. I walk out with it.

  Sir Philip Green may not be paying as much tax as we’d all like him to, but as of today he is down a highlighter pen, two hangers and a BHS till roll, which I now just need to take to the Treasury.

  At the reception there I say to the man, “Annabel Port here to see George Osborne.”

  “The Chancellor?” he asks.

  I suspect there’s only one George Osborne working there, but he seems incredulous that I’d be there to see him.

  I tell him that’s exactly who I’m here to see.

  He calls up. I hear him say, “Annabel Port is here to see George Osborne.” Then I get the phone passed to me. It’s a strict-sounding lady, who tells me there is nothing in the diary.

  “What’s it regarding?” she asks.

  “Well, I’m a tax collector and I’ve been dealing with Sir Philip Green and he’s got some extra tax to b
e transferred to the Treasury.”

  “Well, George Osborne’s not here, he’s overseas,” she snaps at me.

  Maybe George and Philip are overseas together, talking about how flabbergasted they are that the super-rich are not paying enough tax. I’m not giving up though.

  “Is there somebody else I could see?”

  “No,” is the blunt answer.

  I lower my voice. “It’s just that I’ve got this tax with me now.”

  She tells me it’s more of a HMRC thing. I’m a little surprised that it’s anyone’s thing. But if there’s somewhere better to go, I will go there. If I knew where it was.

  “Remind me where HMRC is,” I ask the strict lady.

  I’m at another reception. I wonder if it’s normal for tax collectors to spend this much time at receptions. I say, “Hello, I’ve been sent here by the Treasury. I’m a tax collector and I’ve got some extra tax that Sir Philip Green would like to transfer as a goodwill gesture.”

  “We just do meetings, not transfers,” the woman says.

  I feel like she’s really saying, “This is not a bank, you idiot.”

  It has no effect on me though.

  “It’s just that I’ve come from a meeting at the Treasury.”

  This is in no way a lie. I really have come from a meeting at the Treasury. If you count standing at a reception as a meeting.

  “Take a seat,” she says to me briskly.

  I do. It’s a bit away from her desk so I can’t hear what’s going on but she appears to be making a lot of calls. Then two men with lanyards appear and start talking to the receptionist. One of them uses her phone to talk to someone.

  I’m starting to feel a bit nervous. Then they’re coming towards me.

  One sits next to me and says, “So you’ve not got a meeting here, then?”

  I explain the situation. He speaks to me in a very slow, gentle, kind and patient way. Almost like he would if he’d been told I’d had a breakdown but that the doctors were on the way and he just has to keep me calm. He’s telling me I need to go on the website and sort things out from there.

  “It’s just that I’ve got it with me now,” I tell him.

  What harm can the two hangers, a highlighter pen and a blank BHS till roll do at this point? I start pulling them out of my bag.

  He patiently looks at the hangers and the till roll. I can’t find the highlighter pen. I make a great show of being very worried about this.

  He’s still telling me I need to go on the Internet.

  Then he says gently, “We know you were trying to see the Chancellor.”

  I feel so embarrassed. The Treasury/HMRC grapevine has really sprung into action. I ask if I can leave the bits here. He says I can’t. It’s probably time to leave.

  But I can still transfer the tax. I’ll just put the two hangers, highlighter pen and BHS till roll in a Jiffy bag with a note for George Osborne. And if I can’t find a pen, I’ll cut out letters from a newspaper to spell out what I need to say. Then I’ll pop it in the post. Super-rich Sir Philip Green has just paid a bit more tax.

  26

  The Challenge:

  To befriend Vladimir Putin

  How do you solve a problem like Putin? According to Geoff, befriend him. Maybe the Russian president has just been mixing with the wrong sort. Maybe he just needs a good friend to set him on the right track. A good friend like me. And there’s only one way to make friends with someone quickly. Buy their friendship. If I give him a lovely gift, this friendship will be sorted.

  I’m thinking about what he’d want, when I realise that people often give presents that they actually want themselves. So I look at what he’s gifted in the past.

  When Angela Merkel first visited him at the Kremlin, he bought her a fluffy toy dog. At first, this just seems like he bought her an idiotic present. That he thinks all grown women like cuddly toys. But actually it turns out Angela was bitten by a dog in the nineties and is really scared of them. It was actually a really evil present.

  It could’ve been worse for Angela, though. He once gave Hugo Chavez a puppy. A gift that is a ten-to-fifteen-year daily responsibility. Hugo Chavez did die six months later, though. Still, it’s nice that he spent the last months of his life scrubbing wee off the carpet.

  Silvio Berlusconi got off lightly. Putin gave him a gift of a bed. That’s an unusual gift. It’s unlikely the recipient will go, “Oh just what I need, I haven’t got a bed.” But Putin clearly thinks it’s a good present.

  I call up a big department store and tell the main switchboard I want to know what bed is most popular with Russians.

  “Let’s have a look,” he says.

  This is exciting. Maybe they have a spreadsheet for things like this. But then he goes, “Okay, I’ll put you through to the bed department.”

  I’m speaking to another man now and asking him what bed is most popular with Russians.

  He repeats this back to me, then immediately adds, “I’ve not got a clue. We wouldn’t know that. It’s not something we’d be able to say.”

  “Oh,” I say. “It’s just that it’s a gift for Vladimir Putin.”

  “Right, okay,” he replies, like this is totally normal. To be buying a gift of a bed for Putin.

  “Well, I can’t really advise as it’s down to individual preference as to mattress type and the decor of the bedroom.”

  “Well, which bed is most popular as a gift?”

  “It’s very rare for people to ask for beds as a gift. We don’t get customers coming in saying I’m here to buy a gift for X, Y or Z.”

  I agree, that would be weird. To be buying a gift of a bed for a letter of the alphabet.

  He goes on to say they recommend customers come in and try before they buy.

  So I say, “What if I brought in Vladimir Putin?”

  “Not an issue,” he says. “Just let us know in advance what you’d require.”

  I think for a second and then ask, “Would you close the whole store for an hour on a Tuesday afternoon?”

  The man says that although it’s not his decision, he doesn’t think that’d be possible. But perhaps Putin could come in early before they open.

  Putin wouldn’t be happy with that. But I’m sure there’s a great bed for him there. I say, “Putin is a real manly man’s man; have you got any beds with any really manly features?”

  “Nothing at all,” he says apologetically. “We do have some in dark colours and men do tend to go for those, but we don’t have a manly bed like we do a boy’s bed.”

  “What about a bed with pop-up nails that turn it into a bed of nails?”

  “No, sorry, nothing like that.”

  I thank him and say I’ll call back. I won’t though as I’ve a better idea. A tank of piranhas! Putin would love that and better still, you can get one on eBay.

  If this is not enough, if his friendship can’t just be bought, another good basis for friendship is shared interests.

  I know he loves judo. He released a learn judo DVD a few years back. I don’t like judo, though. It annoys me that there are no proper fastenings on the jackets and they’re always coming undone. When will they realise that a belt is not enough?

  He’s also into topless fishing. This is not for me. Ditto the topless horse riding. He likes deep-sea diving and went down into the ocean a few years back, where they’d planted some ancient pottery shards for him to amazingly find. But I don’t like putting my head in the water.

  Then I remember when he went in a motorised hang-glider to guide five cranes on their migration. I’m not sure why they needed his help. The idea of hang-gliding terrifies me, but I do like the idea of it feeling like flying.

  I call up a place in the Midlands where you can do this. I say to the man, “Hi, I’m looking to book a session in a motorised hang-glider for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.”

  “Right,” he says in a completely disinterested tone. “We don’t do motorised ones, just microlighting.”

&nbs
p; I ask him to explain the difference but don’t retain any of the information. He does say it’s the closest you can get to motorised hang-gliding though.

  I ask, “Do you think Putin will like it?”

  “Yes, it’s good fun,” he tells me. He’s still disinterested.

  I ask him if you do it with an instructor or solo. He tells me it’s with an instructor. This is not good. Putin won’t tolerate looking like he’s not the boss.

  “Could we make it look as if Putin was the instructor?” I ask.

  “Yes, he could take over the controls at times, he can have as much or little control as he likes.”

  This is better. But I think it can get better still.

  “What about making it a bit more macho, a bit more dangerous?”

  He slightly more interested now. “Oh yes, he could do spirals.”

  “What about if Putin could find something up there?”

  I’m thinking back to those ancient pottery shards he pretended to find underwater.

  “Yes,” he says. “They could do navigation.”

  “Oh no, I meant, could he find a new breed of bird or type of cloud or Amelia Earhart?”

  The man says, “I suppose so. Not so much the birds. As we don’t have many of them. But our instructors will know a lot about clouds.”

  He doesn’t mention Amelia Earhart, so I leave that. I also don’t mention this worrying news that they don’t have many birds in the Midlands.

  Instead I say, “One more thing, could he do it topless? Would that be an issue?”

  “No, no, that’s fine. Although he’ll be cold.”

  I get the prices and it’s cheaper than you’d think: £125 per hour. This is going to be a great bonding activity for Putin and me to do together.

  I just need to get in touch with him now. I ring the Kremlin. Russia is four hours ahead so it’s 7.30 p.m. there but they seem like hard workers, so I’m hopeful someone will answer. They don’t. It just rings and rings. There’s no answerphone, which is a bit weird. I try a twenty-four-hour helpline number that I’ve found on the Kremlin website. It’s just a recorded message in Russian. I wait, hoping for an English version. But when it pauses and restarts again, it appears to be the same message. I can’t know for sure, as I don’t understand Russian, but I do feel like I’m listening to the distress signal recorded by Rousseau when she first got to the Lost island and transmitted from the radio tower on a loop.