So, Lembit’s doing a Cheeky Girl. Brilliant.

He’s a funny fish, Opik. He wrote a great thing for LNR/TFT a few years ago about The War Against Liberalism. And now he’s doing a Cheeky Girl.

And I’ve just remembered I wrote this about him for the Guardian in 2003…

WHY I LOVE LEMBIT OPIK

I’m terribly worried about Charles Kennedy. One minute he was standing in the House of Commons objecting to the imminent invasion of Iraq at the top of his whisky-loving lungs, and the next he was gone. Has someone kidnapped him? Has he run away? Charles, if you’re reading this, you’re not in any trouble; I just want to know you’re OK.

Still, one great side effect of Charles’s disappearance is that it increases the chances of my favourite MP, Lembit Opik, taking over as head of the Lib Dems. There is almost no reason not to love Lembit. He’s tall, he’s Welsh and he looks a bit like an enthusiastic Labrador. He can play the harmonica (but doesn’t). He’s going out with Sian Lloyd. His name was invented during a drunken game of Boggle. But, most importantly of all, while the rest of the honourable members are lying in the gutter, Lembit is looking to the stars.

It was only because of the MP for Montgomeryshire’s tireless campaign to increase asteroid awareness that the government agreed to set up a task force to investigate the risk of giant rocks crashing into the earth and wiping us all out. Even though these “global killers” (his words, not mine) usually only strike every 30m years, it has been about 65m years since the last one, and that one got rid of the dinosaurs. In other words, the end of the world is looking decidedly nigh. But there’s no need to panic. Thanks to Lembit, scientists are hard at work designing a giant “cosmic condom” (again, his words) to catch asteroids before they turn us into crostini.

If only the dinosaurs had had their own Lembit, they might still be here today. Although what they’d make of I’m a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here! I don’t know. Perhaps they’d eat Phil Tufnell.

Actually is twat masculine or feminine?

Right, so, what a weekend, eh? Decided, given that the first of the advance from the book is in that, having paid my rent and various bills that were nagging, I’d have a bit of a night out. To celebrate, like. Actually, that’s not true. It was more of a happy accident.

The original plan was to go to a ‘chav’ themed party dressed as Louis Walsh. Walsh, apparently, is some kind of chav king, thanks to his iconic work on X Factor.

Unfortunately, quick trips to the pub to talk about work things on a Saturday night being what they are, next thing I knew Savannah and I had drunk the best part of three bottles of wine and we were on our way to meet Michael at some central London bar or other. Via Camden. Don’t ask.

And that - to cut a long story short by simply leaving out all the plot - is how I found myself deciding - at five o’clock in the morning, no less - that it was about time I got some bloody exercise having been hunched over a keyboard for weeks. And how it was that I decided - rationally; genuinely not drunkenly - to walk twelve miles home from Bow. Carrying my laptop in a bag (don’t ask); listening to a borrowed iPod (don’t ask).

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘Paul - I don’t give a fuck’. And you’d be well within you’re rights. But you’re also thinking ‘and anyway, it’s not twelve miles from Bow to Victoria’. And again, justification would be your wingman.

But that’s assuming I had a fucking clue on how to get from Bow to Victoria. And that’s assuming I hadn’t stupidly gone out without my glasses. Glasses that, while not vital to seeing the world around me, make it easy to recognise landmarks in the distance; get my bearings - that kind of thing.

So yes, twelve miles from Bow, via Angel and a bit of Camden (I think), via Kings Cross, to Victoria. Carrying a laptop. Wearing quite knackered trainers. At five thirty in the morning.

Today, as I sit hunched over a laptop again, trying to make arrangements for our new office, I feel like Grampaw Broon.

Still, got some food on the way. Tiger prawns. Hopefully they’ll fix me up a treat.

(I just looked it up - it’s masculine)

So, I just sent out the big launch announcement. They say every time someone writes their own press release, a PR person dies.

So, that’s something.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ENDS

That last post was terribly boring.

I’m listening to the Fratellis and writing a press release now. Can I use the phrase “unfuck the media”, do you think? I’ve lost all sense of perspective.

Last week it was words, this week it’s numbers. I’m buried in spreadsheets. Cashflows, P&Ls. All that good stuff.

We’re meeting investors next week, you see. Having just bought a big thing, while setting up an even bigger thing, based on the first thing, my bank manager is looking a little nervous. It is Christmas after all. And so, to keep him happy, we’re doing a reasonably low-key fundraising thing to raise extra capital to allow the new business to grow at the rate it’s going to have to.

So here I am, tapping away, tweaking graphs, doing sums and using acronyms like EBIT and CPC. In different paragraphs, obviously. And do you know what occurred to me as I was doing it…? That I was doing exactly the same thing this time last year, getting ready for TFP’s public offering.

And do you know what occurred to me next? That the year before that I was doing exactly the same thing as we were negotiating first round investment. So this is my third Christmas of spreadsheets and fundraising.

And yet, somehow it gets a bit easier every time. There’s a cliche that it’s easier to get investment for a second business - and that certainly seems to be true (within two days of the press release going out, and despite me still not having officially announced what the new business is, I’d had three calls from people offering to either invest themselves or to put me in touch with people who would. Simple as that.)

But what’s more noticeable is the fact that I actually know what to do this time. This time two years ago I didn’t really know what a business plan looked like, outside my A Level business studies textbooks (which, helpfully taught me more about the Japanese principle of Kaisan and Maslow’s fucking hierarchy of fucking needs). This time two years ago I only had the vaguest idea of the difference between a P&L and cashflow. And this time two years ago, my negotiation technique was to simply sit quietly and pray I wasn’t being fucked over.

So, yes, exciting times. Very exciting indeed.

There’s just one slight downside. I found a photo of me taken two years ago. The Guardian took it for something - I forget what. I look about ten years younger. Seriously. Properly fresh faced. Wide-eyed even. I remember Michael once joking that he was starting to go grey because of the stress of starting a business. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Ok, a couple of days of post-book winding down and meetings to get everything clear and straight. But now it’s Wednesday and it’s time to get things started. I’m going to be blogging all the way, you’ll be pleased to here. So it’s likely that you’ll hear things here first. Worth a bookmark, for sure. Maybe even an RSS.

Book in a week. They said it couldn’t be done.

They were very nearly right.

But we showed ‘em.

Ok, what’s next?