Greeting the 500

Day 32 - Replies (W. Hague, J. Carr)

If someone else tells me that my project "is a bit like something that Dave Gorman would do", why I'll....I dunno, probably sigh and say "yes I know, lot's of people have told me that".

Anyway, I can't really insert a lengthy post here, as Ron Jeremy said on a recent film set, because I am at work and obviously it is far more important for me to be entering the names of lawyers onto a  database, since I am being paid a Huh-whopping £8.00 an hour to do so.

Suffice to say that both Jimmy Carr and the Right Honourable William Hague MP, have agreed to meet me. More on a need to know basis, or rather, more once I get home this evening and have a bit of free time.

....and now, I am home, yet possibly a few pints worse for wear so forgive any spelling mistakes. So as I was saying, a letter from Kirsten that I received this morning read:

On behalf of Mr Hague, I would like to thank you for your letter of 4th July concerning the challenge you have accepted.

Mr Hague would be happy to meet you though, now that the House is in recess, I am afraid that it will not be possible to make any arrangements until the autumn. However, if you would not mind, I will make a note to contact you then in order to agree a suitable time to meet.

With kind regards......

So what can I say, fantastic. My first quote Meeting unquote that is of a direct response to a letter sent by me. I am forever in your debt the Rt Hon, and you are most certainly entitled to your summer holiday. An 80 day recess as I am led to believe from today's copy of The Sun, and following hot on the heels of this letter, an email from Katie:

Hi Jules, Jimmy (Carr) would like to help you out with your mission. If you could
turn up to Xfm next weekend at 11am we can do the photo etc..

let me know,

So today has truly been a most pleasing one. There was I lying in bed last night, tearfully casting aside my copy of Harry Potter VI after reading the harrowing final few chapters, yet not realising that all would feel so much better come the morning. Two positive replies without even having to resort to the Imperius Curse. 

Day 35 - Yahoo!

...Is the loud exclamation of delight, usually eminating from the mouth of an excited American. Or is that Wahoo? or indeed Yee-Ha? Anyway, in this case it is the name of a website/search angine that recently received a request from me.

I have asked them to put this website in their 'Office Attachments' section, a category that is clicked on by bored people at work who are looking for quirky stories, computer based games or amusing photographs of giraffes on water-skis etc.

I am of the opinion that the more people get to know about my project, aside from raising sponsorship money for the RNIB Please sponsor me, the sooner the celebrities on my list will have actually heard about what I am doing, and hopefully be more inclined to grant me an audience.

Anyway Yahoo! said yes. So I'll give a very British - Hooray!

Day 35 - More Newspaper Interest

....Admitedly only local press, but it's a start. Katy from the Barnet Press, who read about my challenge in the Hampstead & Highgate Express, got in touch and asked if she could interview me for her weekly publication. I was therefore forced to take yesterday off work too, not necessarily a bad thing as aside from receiving an elephant's pay for my hard labour (I'm sure you can work it out. Think brown, crunchy and butter), I'm falling out of favour with some of my work colleagues. Perhaps it is my fault. When someone sent an all staff internal email asking "does anyone have a marketing contact For Field Fisher Waterhouse?" sending a reply of "Your mother" could be deemed offensive. But it was only supposed to be a joke.

Anyway a young photographer called Jazz came round to Michael's early yesterday, took a few snaps of us (I'd thankfully persuaded Michael not to sport his ridiculous cowboy hat), and left. Katy later interviewed me over the phone.

So whilst the man from The Sun hasn't, as of yet, got back to me, I am buoyed by the news that a few thousand households in the outer London suburbs are being kept up to speed about my limited success on a weekly basis. I'm now eagerly awaiting a call from the South Hillingdon Echo and the Bromley Bugle.

Incidentally, the link below will direct you to the piece that appeared in the Ham & High:

Ham & High Article

This is the picture that was used. The reason I include it is that I would like you to please note my appareil for I am now the owner of a lovely creamcheese-whit t-shirt which was printed for me by Snappy Snaps. Regretably, however, the kind people at the Ham & High were forced to doctor the picture and remove some writing from the t-shirt since written on it was the line www.greetingthe500.com, which is obviously WRONG. I did leave clear instructions with Snappy Snaps to include the 'dot typepad' part of it and in theory, I should storm back to the shop and get this error rectified, but frankly I'm far too lazy and have instead decided to buy a magic marker with which to make the necessary alteration myself.

Day 36 - 2157 Hits

...well it appears that having this site on 'Yahoo Office Attachment' has done the trick. Instead of the usual 11 or 12 hits (or for non-computer genii- number of people looking at this website) per day, it seems that 2157 have had a look this morning. I'm a little bit scared to be honest, and cant help but think of the opening line to 'Without Me'- a song, or track as I believe young people call them these days, by Eminem. (If your not familiar with that track I suggest you 'Google' it. Or on this occassion 'Yahoo' it.)

Anyway, I've had some very good suggestions sent in to me from people who have had a look at the site today. Unfortunately I myself am at work having braved the tube, so can't reallly write as much as I'd like to right now, but I shall update it either tonight or tomorrow, just as soon as I have a chance.

Who knows, maybe this site will REALLY do the rounds, like that email a about lawyer asking his secretary to repay him 50p or some girl who used an odd shampoo that was manufactured by her boyfriend.

Oh, and thanks to the person who sponsored me £1.00.

(www.justgiving.com/greetingthe500)

Day 38 - Greeting Jimmy Carr

 Now I'm not normally one who would wake up at 8.45am on a Sunday morning out of choice, but today was no normal Sunday morning, for it was the day of my second 'meeting'.

I turned up at Michael's house promptly at 10.00am so as to leave plenty of time to make our 11.00am appointment with Jimmy Carr in the Leicester Square offices of X-FM, but I needn't have bothered, since Michael was still flat out on his sofa, drooling away onto his faux-leather cushions and no doubt dreaming about Sheridan Smith, or pies.

After a brief argument and a short drive into town, we entered the building in question and within five minutes, I was warmly greeted by Jimmy and job was done. I'd just like to extend a massive thanks to Jimmy actually, for being such a good sport and for taking a little time out in between playing songs on his radio show, to make me and Mike laugh heartily. As a memento he kindly gave us an X-FM bag which will hopefully go to making a bit of money for the RNIB at the future charity auction.

After a brief conversation where we discussed the similarity of my project to something that Dave Gorman might take on, we left Jimmy to continue with his show and headed home.

Once again then, a reference on this website to Dave Gorman. I would like to point out that, although I wasn't familiar with Mr Gorman or the sort of work that he was engaged in, when I first accepted Michael's challenge, I certainly am now. However, no-one should have a monopoly on making peculiar drunken bets in pubs and acting upon them so I hope that he'll forgive me. And agree to meet me for that matter.

My next 'meeting' should be coming up very soon with a bit of luck, as I'm currently in discussions with the agent of a famous personality from the world of sport, although I don't wish to divulge his identity at the moment, but fingers crossed.

Now I'm going to watch the Charity Shield, have a well earned creme de menthe and then go home and compile another 20 letters to be sent out. More very soon....

Day 35 - Replies (M. Owen, A Shearer, J. Wilkinson)

...Well in this instance, and amazingly enough, the replies were received without the three subjects in question ever having seen my letter, and no, these famous sportsmen have not all recently become highly experienced in clairvoyancy.

Now don't get me wrong, I have got and do expect to get a number of negative responses to my requests for meetings, but I'd feel just a tad happier if those who were telling me that they would not be able to meet me, knew that they were telling me that they would not be able to meet me. In fact knew that they'd been contacted at all.

I sent an email to the SFX Group (no nothing to do with murder by illusion) the other day. They represent nine of my celebrity 500, namely Steve Backley, John Francome, David Gower, Richard Keys, Gary Lineker, Prince Naseem Hamed, Michael Owen, Alan Shearer and Jonny Wilkinson.

In my email, I kindly asked that the letters I'd be sending to these people could please be passed on. I received a reply from one lady who deals with, or is the PA to the person who deals with Messrs Owen, Shearer and Wilkinson. It read:

Dear Jules...

....Unfortunately the players above will be unable to assist with your request as they have a huge backlog of outstanding charity and community commitments from last season, therefore we have been asked to limit any new enquiries for the time being. I am sure you will appreciate their position, in that they think it is only fair to undertake those elements they have already committed to undertake.

However, good luck with your challenge.

Kind regards....

Now obviously I do not in anyway blame the good people of SFX for this response, they are only obeying orders, it's just that when celebrities decide to "limit new enquiries" they may inadvertantly be overlooking those that are not only worthwhile, but would also take up just 30 seconds of their time, ie. mine.

Well anyway here I've been, moaning and whingeing about my lack of success, just one meeting had and two more lined up, whilst all the while forgetting Sir Issac Newton's (pictured) Third Law of Physics. You know, the one about every action having an equal and opposite reaction. It seems to follow that the more work I put into this and the quicker I send out letters, the sooner I will receive replies. I am therefore now nipping out to the post office to send off my letters to Ken Livingstone, Paul Ross, Rav Singh, Eric Hall, Anne Widdicombe and Sara Cox.

Day 40 - Laurent Kabila

It has now been 48 hours since I posted my last progress report here and I would just like to take this opportunity to apologise for being a little slack in that respect but I've been a little bit ill. It started yesterday when I woke up in an awful state such as, say, Wyoming. Anyway my head was all over the place. It was the sort of morning where you're brain is in such disarray that you give yourself a toothpaste suppository and then brush your teeth with anusol (forgive me for my cruditee), so I've just been vegging out since then.

It's been the usual affair with my letter box since Sunday, nary a single response to the last 20 letters I sent out, and I'm starting to feel a little dejected again, but I shall carry on undaunted. Perhaps there's been a problem with the Royal Mail, although I think he's been far too distracted by Camilla to interfere with my post. Ithankyouverymuch.

So anyway, at the tail end of last week, as I think I mentioned, I had been sending out various emails to the agents of some of the individuals on my list, simply asking of them to please ensure that the letters that I would be sending, would actually make it to their intended receipients. On the whole these agents have not been negative in their responses. This is because in most cases they haven't actually been responding, but I shall take their silence on the matter as an indication of grudging acceptance. Perhaps I'm being naive here, time will tell.

(Villareal have just scored against Everton in the Champions League by the way).

Therefore, this evening I have just printed out 26 more of my letters which tomorrow morning will be sent out to, in no particular order: Peter Alliss, Paul Gascoigne, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Sienna Miller, Kate Winslet, Denise Van Outen, Patsy Kensit, Ewan McGregor, Sophie Dahl, Keira Knightley, Max Hastings, Bob Mortimer, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Bailey, Vic Reeves, Dom Joly, Lenny Henry, Chris Moriss, Harry Enfield, Steve Backley, John Francome, David Gower, Richard Keys, Gary Lineker and Prince Naseem Hamed.

You know the longer I'm involved in this project, and it really pains me (it's 1-1 now) to say this, the more I think that Michael's assumption was right. How very depressing. Perhaps my fortunes will pick up. It's a stupid project anyway. I have been very closed to packing it in on a number of times already, but I don't want to let the RNIB down.

Actually I was going to throw the towel in as recently as this afternoon as an AMAZING opportunity has come my way (2-1). Today, I have received an email from a Mrs Mbwango. It appears that her late husband acted as the charge d-affaires to Laurent Kabila, former President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (above). Now it appears that after Mr Kabila was overthrown 'a sum of monies totalling $6,000,000 US American' was deposited in a bank in Congo, and Mrs Mbwango, viewing me (quite rightly) as 'a most trusted and loyal person to whom I am awaiting a verbal response in affirmative', needs my help to get this money out of her country. She's going to give me HALF OF IT, all that she wants is for me to send her my bank details. So if this website is not updated ever again, you'll find me building myself a palace on the outskirts of Kinshasa and I'll be the one having the last laugh.

Tomorrow I am going to continue to try to drum up newspaper interest in Greeting the 500. Unfortunately, its something of a chicken and egg situation. I don't seem to be getting many meetings, probably because none of the individuals or agents I am contacting have a clue as to what this is all about. At the same time, most publications seem reluctant to entertain a piece about my challenge because it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. At least I have Yahoo to thank for keeping me on the Office Attatchment page.

Actually, while I'm on the subject, I noticed on the blurb that Yahoo wrote in describing this website, they mention that my challenge came about "as a result of a bet in a pub-PREDICTABLY". Well excuse me. Sorry for ever mentioning it. I've simply been recounting the background to the bet as it actually happened. Maybe I should have made things up. I don't know, Michael and I came up with the bet as a result of an argument we had whilst sailing a gondola down the Norfolk Broads......

   

Day 41 - Bush & Gabriel

I would just like to recount some words that I heard in a song on the way in to work just now (NB avoid the Grays Inn Road, massive tailback). The 'track' in question was not a collaboration between a president and an archangel, but by two fine stalwarts of the British music industry, Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel of course.

The only reason I mention this right now is because, as some people have noticed, I have been feeling a little dejected recently. This challenge that Michael the Slothful set me, is currently leaning heavily in his favour. Forgetting the 2 weeks where I contacted no-one (see posting entitled 'London Mourns') I have been working aciduously in trying to contact these 500 individuals, yet in 27 days I have had just 2 meetings (and 2 more lined up). If things continue at this leisurely rate, by the time that proceedings are concluded I will have had just 11.555 recurring meetings, and amongst other things, will be preparing to take part in next years London Marathon (one of my forfeits).

So, never did it seem so pertinent that, as I sat in a traffic jam, a song with the title 'Don't Give Up' came on the radio. Whether or not I have "no fight left, or so it seems, I am a man whose dreams have all deserted...." remains to be seen, but I have certainly been fortified by the kindly words of friends and family and indeed people writing in to this site. I see I have well wishers from as far afield as Rome and Southern Spain (I hope the weather improves) and this continues to bolster my spirits, but I am STILL left with the nagging feeling that this was a ridiculous exercise to take on.

I have been called a 'publicity seeker', an 'insignificant little t**d who no-one will reply to' and 'a poor-man's Dave Gorman', and that's just by my friends. But to be honest, whether or not the features editor from the Evening Standard does ever get back to me, I shall plough on regardless, if nothing more than for Matt and all at the RNIB, who just this morning sent me a letter thanking me for the £1,000 cheque that they had just received.

So what I am trying to say, in a nutshell, is a massive thanks to everyone who has been supporting me. In return, I offer you a picture of Salisbury Hill.

Day 43 - Reply (K. Livingstone)

Never ask for chips in an internet cafe. They'll be silicon. This will be a quickie because I myself am in an internet cafe, as my home computer is dead. In this place time really is money. Anyway TRIUMPH ! SUCCESS ! no, I haven't magically scheduled 55 meetings over the next 2 weeks, but I have finally received another reply. It's from the Mayor of London. He doesn't have 2 minutes to spare me in the next 5 months. He's probably going to be too busy deciding.....actually I'll bite my tounge at this point.

Very nice of him, or should I say his PA, to get back to me.

I am currently in discussion with several newspapers and magazines about the possibility of submitting an article about what I am doing. No word from anyone yet. I'm also hoping that Christine & Michael Hamilton, Dale Winton and Frank Lampard, will be contacted by my various charges d'affaires over the next few days and I am awaiting news from the agent of John Motson as to when I might be able to meet him.

Day 47 - Agents

I am delighted to see that I continue to have more than 1000 people looking at this website on a daily basis, many of whom are sending me messages of support. I have taken on something of a thankless task but I am determined more than ever to see it through, despite my lack of success. I guess that the real problem lies in the fact that I've still sent out less than 100 of my letters, yet the fact that I need to support myself and must therefore continue to come into work for most of the week, means that I am finding little time to devote to my challenge.... Anyone got a spare £5,000. (Joke)

I am now finding it more and more difficult to contact the remaining individuals on my list directly and am increasingly resorting to using the medium of celebrity agents. At this stage I have found that they fall into two distict camps. The unhelpful and the incredibly kind. As if to illustrate this point, this morning I received an email from a lady at the PBJ Management company, home to some of the most famous British comedians around. I hope she will forgive me for divulging the the gist of her email but her first line read:

"Any chance of emailing your request to me so that I can forward it on?"

I was so moved and grateful that she had taken it upon herself to forward my request to her client, an unbelievably busy comedian, when so many in her position might not do so, but would simply disregarded the envelope that they had received.

I have said all along that I am not the least bit concerned if the listees get beck to me telling me that they cannot meet me, just so long as I know that they've been made aware of what I am doing, before making a judgement on whether or not they can be accomodating.

Obviously I'm well aware that most of the individuals that I am trying to contact (or their agents) receive hundreds of letters and requests a day, many asking for the impossible, but the fact that I am happy to travel anywhere, be it a sports training ground, a place of work, a TV studio, a film set, the entrance hall of the BBC etc, and that I would be in and out of there quicker than excrement through a proverbial goose, leads me to believe that ultimately very little effort at all is being sought.

Alternatively if my letter, or even an outline of my request, is not being passed on, this invalidates the experiment that Michael and I were keen to examine ie. are celebrities generally selfless or not? I suppose in order to test this hypothesis, a control group or two should also be set up, to see how the categories compare. Perhaps I should also be writing to 500 bank managers and 500 hairdressers.

Anyhow today's letters will be sent out to Jenny Agutter, Lord Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, Jane Asher, Rick Astley, Joan Armatrading, Linford Christie, David Bellamy, Lord Archer, Sir Terence Conran, Jasper Conran, Tom Conti and Jack Dee. Lets see how I get on. Oh, and a massive thank you again to Janette.

If you're wondering what the picture is of, it's a-gents.