Simon Carr: The Kitchen Capitalist

The story so far: the author has sold his house to finance a manufacturing project in the hope of making a small fortune to finance his old age...

Right. That's that done. They've finished making them. I haven't dared ask Warren what happened to the production slot and he hasn't wanted to tell me. But that's behind us now. The first mass production is complete. We can fill that box in the project management master plan with a little tick. Yes, or we can grip a fat, black marker in a chimp-like fist and vengefully cross the box and re-cross it, issuing stertorous sobs until the box is obliterated and there is a wet black hole in the paper and then crumple up the schedule and tear it into little bits.

Yes, doing it like that makes me feel much better.

We have made progress, and this is welcome. There are 129 cartons in a dispatch bay at a factory in Guangdong. Just for old times' sake, Warren sends me a message that a year ago would have made me wail (you see how resilient I've become): "TNT have told us that due to they have not have sea-shipping transaction with your company before, they will need your approval to release us the booking. Please contact TNT and let them know you will be shipping goods. When they done confirming please forward us their confirming letter so that we can take it to TNT."

Every sentence in this e-mail needs "sic" written after it in snooty little brackets. I don't understand any of it. My account frequently ships by sea, it is well known to TNT. What does TNT have to release to Warren? And why do I have to approve something I've already ordered? And how...

Let's not go on. Let's just take it for granted that the goods will arrive before the end of the month. You think it would be prudent to assume that the ship will be sunk by a meteorite? Or that Customs will hold the goods until I can produce seven clearing documents satisfying 110 EU waste directives? You might be right.

But there are worse things. It all might go smoothly and then in three weeks' time I will be launching my publicity campaign. That really is daunting, because answer me this: where is the publicity plan? The interlocking public relations and paid media campaign with viral and ambient strands to achieve spontaneous recognition and medium-term mind-space? Hell, yes, where did I put that? I think it got ripped up in the therapeutic episode with the production schedule.

In fact, there isn't a plan. This moment has been so remote for so long that I haven't really taken it seriously. So many deadlines have passed that I thought it wise to promise nothing until I had the goods in hand; when I had the 129 cartons actually in my storage unit. Otherwise, you might have been waiting for your three-day delivery for 18 months.

Was that a good idea? It might yet be. The goods, after all, still haven't left China.