Annabel vs the Internet

by Annabel Port

  Let me know if he’s keen and then I’ll forward you three significant chapters.

  Many thanks and all best wishes,

  Annabel

  Guru

  I don’t have to wait long at all to hear back. His manager thanks me for my email and the offer, but as Noel has got a new book coming out soon, “He doesn’t feel it would be appropriate to read your book at the moment.”

  I’m not entirely sure what this means. Is Noel worried that he might accidentally steal some of my ideas for his book? Or do authors not read other books when they’ve got their own coming out as it’s like sleeping with the enemy? This is a real worry for me. I love reading, so I’m not sure I want to give that up when my self-help book comes out.

  Or perhaps it was a very polite way of saying no. But the most interesting thing he says is “new book”. Noel’s got an old book? I go straight on Amazon. And he does. In 2007, he published, Positively Happy, Cosmic Ways to Change your Life.

  And in 1994, Hold Your Own House Party, featuring Noel on the cover in a dinner suit and holding a candelabra above a laden table. There’s a new copy on sale for £2,499.50. I can definitely afford that once my book takes off.

  Anyway, I say all this to distract you from the fact that finding a celebrity supporter hasn’t gone massively well. But that’s okay as I probably need to focus more on the actual book. And one thing is missing. While there’s lots of science, there’s not much in the way of scientific evidence for my claims.

  I decide to go out to Piccadilly Circus to test them out. I approach a man, a builder, and say, “Hello, I’m Annabel, a self-help guru. Would you like me to make your dreams come true?”

  It’s only as I say it that I realise it sounds a bit dodgy but the man says, “No I’m all right, thanks.”

  I try someone else, a man in a T-shirt with the words “the spirit of rock”. His response is, “No, sorry,” like he’s inconveniencing me by not letting me make his dreams come true.

  A girl in a shirt with elephants on says, “No, it’s okay.”

  The next person completely ignores me. What is wrong with people?

  Then I try a tall man with a beard. He says, “Well, that’s lovely of you. Tell me more.”

  I do. I explain the sleeping technique and the shouting technique. He listens and nods. Then says, “It’s funny, as I do something similar to you.”

  It turns out he’s a life coach who works with men. In particular, how to talk to women. I don’t ask any more questions about this for fear he’s a British Julien Blanc and runs courses with titles like “Make girls beg to sleep with you after short-circuiting their emotional and logical mind”. Instead I ask him if he wants to try out the shouting your dream thing. He tells me he doesn’t as he’s tired and he’s relaxing now.

  I make a mental note to add to my self-help book, “Don’t relax at Piccadilly Circus; it’s not very relaxing there.”

  The man asks me if anyone has done the shouting technique. I feel a bit embarrassed that nobody has, so I say, “Yes, I’m going to do it now.”

  It probably would’ve been less embarrassing to admit nobody had ever done it than shout my dream out at Piccadilly Circus.

  But, anyway, I do. I shout out my biggest desire.

  “I REALLY WANT MY SELF-HELP BOOK TO BE A BIG SUCCESS!”

  Only one person looked, which says a lot about London.

  But the good news is, now that I’ve done that, it will come true. I’m not worried at all about my book. It’s time to start thinking about other ways that self-help gurus make money. And make no mistake about it, that’s what I’m interested in.

  I google “the richest self-help guru” and the name Tony Robbins comes up. He’s an American worth $480 million.

  He doesn’t just do books: there’s a lot of motivational speaking and workshops. This could be an area that I use to help more people, i.e., make more money.

  I go on his website and discover that the workshops have names like “Unleash the power within”, “Date with destiny” and “Life and wealth mastery”.

  This last one catches my eye. Who wouldn’t want to master life and wealth? I notice it’s a week-long programme in Fiji in October. There’s nothing about prices but there is an option on the website to have a live chat with a member of staff. It’s just after midday so it’ll be very early in the morning in America, but I think I’ll try it anyway. I fill in my name and then a note comes up saying, “You are now chatting to Mo Salami.”

  This is the greatest name ever. I think it’s a woman as there’s a photo of a pretty blonde lady at the top.

  Mo Salami is typing to me now. She writes:

  Goooood afternoon Annabel.

  Seriously. There are five “o”s in “good”.

  I write back:

  Hi, Mo Salami, I was wondering about the cost of the ‘Life and Wealth Mastery’ week in Fiji.

  And then because I want her to think I am serious and not a time-waster, I add:

  And do you get a free fruit basket in your hotel room?

  Mo comes back quickly with the price:

  $7,995.

  If you can afford this, you do not need a wealth mastery class.

  She adds:

  Re: the fruit basket, well, that’s one I can find out from the hotel. That sounds like a great idea actually.

  I’m helping one of the richest self-help gurus!

  I reply:

  Yes, I love free fruit.

  Mo writes:

  Absolutely! And that’s a pretty great welcome as well, I would say. Carefully selected fruit.

  I’m a bit worried that Mo Salami is trying to own my free-fruit-basket idea. But I need to address the money situation.

  I write:

  Wow, $7,995. I need to go on a wealth mastery course to afford this. But at least it’s not $8,000.

  Mo Salami now types:

  How have you heard about the event and who has referred you? And who told you about the fruit?

  It can sometimes be hard to infer tone from the written word but I do feel like Mo Salami has turned a bit on me now.

  I tell her I was told about the event and referred to the event by the website. And my own brain told me about the fruit but it’s often wrong.

  Mo writes:

  So will you be joining us in October?

  I feel like Mo is trying to get rid of a time-waster.

  She does soften it a bit with a follow-up message saying:

  The setting in Fiji is great and little details like the fruit certainly can make a difference.

  Mo Salami has totally stolen my fruit idea. She adds:

  And of course the programme is phenomenal.

  I’m starting to get worried that I’m going to be tricked, using techniques mastered by Tony Robbins, into signing up and paying $7,995.

  I reply saying I need to check my bank balance.

  One thing is bothering me though. In the photo at the top, the pretty blonde lady is wearing a microphone headset.

  I add:

  P.S. Why are you wearing a microphone headset when you are just typing?

  Mo’s answer is:

  I type, I talk, it’s great.

  She starts trying to talk me into cheaper options now, so I say I’ll browse the website later as I’ve got to have a bath.

  Mo writes:

  Have an outstanding day, Annabel.

  Then she immediately hangs up, before I get a chance to reply.

  But that’s fine as I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that I can charge $7,995 for a week-long course. So I devise these three courses:

  First week of October: Become more successful while you sleep – $7,995

  First week of November: Blink your way to more sex – $7,996

  First week of December: Get rich by working hard and not spending any money – $7,997

  Plus, a free basket of fruit with each one.

  All I need to do now is follow the advice of The Secret and spend some time reall
y wanting this to happen and then I’ll definitely become a billionaire self-help guru.

  32

  The Challenge:

  To debunk a scientific theory

  I am not a scientifically minded person. I’ve never asked why the sky is blue, because if someone told me why, I know the answer would be deathly boring. The only evidence that I’ve ever studied any science is a GCSE in chemistry. I got a D. But only because there was a lot of multiple choice and I must’ve been a bit lucky.

  I’ve always thought that scientists are know-it-alls with all those facts and figures and evidence. Boring! I’m quite excited about debunking one of their know-it-all theories.

  And it shouldn’t be too hard as they certainly don’t always get it right.

  Look at Sir Isaac Newton. He’s known for two of the big theories: gravity and motion. However, he also believed the Bible was one big cryptic code that revealed the future. It was an obsession. His biographer found thousands of papers where he’d written about it and he claimed the code reveals the world will end in 2060. To be fair to Sir Isaac, this could still be true. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

  Pythagoras, of that famous maths theory that I think is something to do with a triangle, also developed a theory that by using mirrors and human blood you can write on the moon. How this would work is as bewildering to me as why you would want to write on the moon. Maybe you could sell advertising if you did the writing big enough.

  I look for more proof that these know-it-alls don’t know it all and it turns out loads of scientific theories have been debunked. Even one of Einstein’s. He had a theory about the universe being static and Edwin Hubble made him look like a jerk by proving it was constantly expanding. But I imagine he had the benefit of his own telescope.

  Nobody believes the scientific theory of maternal impression anymore, the theory that a mother’s thoughts affect her unborn baby in the womb. For example, they actually believed that in the case of the Elephant Man, his mum had been frightened by an elephant when pregnant. Surely this would then mean that elephants, who are always scared of mice, would be giving birth to mouse-like elephants. If only.

  All this previous debunking is making me feel very confident. I just need to choose a theory to pick apart and expose.

  I start by looking at all the big main ones. My big problem is that to debunk them, I need to know a bit about them, and as soon as I start reading about relativity, for example, I’m so bored that nothing goes in.

  And then it comes to me, a thought I had two weekends ago while watching a David Attenborough thing about insects. I thought, What’s more believable: that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly or that someone once made up that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly and everyone just fell for it? The latter is much more believable to me. It’s just too science fiction that one creature can suddenly transform into another. No other living thing does it so dramatically. A butterfly is a completely different creature. It’s got wings, it flies, it’s colourful. And if it were possible, why isn’t anything else doing it?

  So either someone made it up years ago as a joke and everyone fell for it and they forgot to say it wasn’t a joke and then died; or someone was writing an educational but fun children’s book about a caterpillar but couldn’t think of a good ending, so they made up this butterfly thing and The Very Hungry Caterpillar was born. They certainly did very well out of it, with 38 million copies sold.

  I really think I’m on to something here.

  Just look at the whole process. A caterpillar is born and then all it does day and night is eat. Constantly gorging itself. Like someone morbidly obese. And then it just suddenly stops eating, like that’s easy. Whereas the £2 billion UK diet industry says not.

  Then the caterpillar hangs upside down from a twig and spins a silky cocoon so it can do the transformation inside. Out of view. Very convenient that, doing the metamorphosis hidden. If I said, “Yeah, I can transform into a cat. Just close your eyes for a bit.” And then you open them and a cat is there, you’d laugh at me. So why aren’t we laughing at these caterpillars and butterflies?

  I feel like I’ve got clear proof now that it’s all lies. But how do I get my debunking believed by everyone? What credibility do I have?

  Well, I do have some credibility from the fact I once had a science accident. I picked up a tripod that had had a Bunsen burner under it so was very hot. I got a bad burn on my hand, which scarred. I feel very much like Marie Curie who discovered radium but died of radiation exposure. Or Galileo, who used his telescope to stare at the sun too much and blinded himself.

  It’s clear I’ve got the war wounds, which give me some credibility, so now I just need to get my thoughts out there. I briefly consider getting some mirrors and human blood and trying to write it on the moon.

  Then I remember Dr Ben Goldacre. He’s always debunking bad science and he started out with a column in the Guardian. It’s probably a bit much for me to get a column at this short notice and, I suppose, based on one idea. But there’s no reason why I can’t get my views on the Guardian website.

  I go to the science section. There are now lots of sub-sections so I go to “biology” as that feels like the closest one. Then I find a very recent article that’s getting loads of comments. Over 1,000 since it was posted yesterday.

  It is about Brian Cox’s TV show and evolution. I’m not sure exactly what, as I don’t read it; I don’t need to. I go straight to the comments, where everyone is getting in a tizz about evolution and write this:

  I think the point that everyone is missing here and the thing that nobody is brave enough to talk about, is the lie that is metamorphosis. Are we really still believing something as ridiculous as a caterpillar turning into something completely different – a butterfly? It’s a joke. It belongs in science fiction. Not science.

  My comment blows everyone way. They are stunned by the truth, stunned into silence. Then are busy going off and doing their own research on this revelation, which explains why there were no responses.

  That’s really exciting but I need now to push my theory even further out there. Where would we be if Charles Darwin had just left his theory of evolution in the comments section of the Guardian website beneath an entirely unrelated article?

  I decide the best thing to do is make contact with the Society of Biology. Mainly because they’ve got their own publication, the Biologist, where my findings can be on the front cover. Maybe with a mocked-up picture of a caterpillar and butterfly on the stand in a courtroom being cross-examined.

  I head off to their offices in London and decide on the way, to avoid looking like someone who has just wandered in off the street, that I’m from the RSRS, the Royal Scientific Research Society, which is entirely made up but sounds really real.

  When I arrive I see that it’s a building with five other societies so I tell the receptionist I’m from the RSRS and here for the Society of Biology.

  “And who exactly are you here to see?” she asks.

  “Oh, I don’t have a name,” I say. “We’ve just made a new discovery at the RSRS and I was so excited I just rushed straight over!”

  This appears to be enough for her to call up and I hear her saying, “I’ve got a lady here from the RSRS where they’ve made a new discovery so she rushed over to share it.”

  There’s a pause, where the person on the line is clearly asking a question. Then she says to me, “What’s the RSRS?”

  I laugh in a way that suggests I think she’s joking as everyone’s heard of the RSRS; it’s like asking what the RAC is.

  She looks at me blankly so I tell her it’s the Royal Scientific Research Society. She repeats it on the phone and when she hangs up she tells me somebody’s coming down to talk to me.

  I wait, feeling so excited about how close I am now to my theory being lauded by the scientific community. Then a man appears who tells me he’s something do with marketing. I’m not sure marketing is right – shouldn’t it be the chief d
iscoveries officer or something? But we take a seat in reception and I tell this man all about how at the RSRS we’ve discovered that it’s totally made up that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

  When I finish, he says, “That’s a big statement, quite staggering really.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s incredibly exciting, we’ve all been led astray all these years.”

  And then he says, “It’s funny as I heard someone on the radio talking about this last night.”

  I have a moment where I think, Oh my God, other people think this too. Not just me.

  Before he continues with, “Yeah, on Absolute Radio.”

  Oh. It was me.

  I’ve got no idea what to do now. I could go, “Right, yes, okay, you’ve got me there. I’m not really from the RSRS, I’m a radio presenter pretending to have made a scientific discovery.”

  But that would be mortifying.

  I’m just going to have to try and style it out and keep pretending that I am from the RSRS, which turns out to be no less excruciating. As we both know I’m lying but we both carry on with the charade.

  I say, “Yeah, I did speak about it on the radio last night; it was great to get that publicity. I also got it in the Guardian.”

  “And what is the RSRS?” he asks me.

  I tell him what it stands for but I stumble a bit on the scientific bit. I go to say “society” and have to correct myself. He’s smiling broadly at me the whole time.

  Then he gives me his card and asks me to email it all to him.