raw fish, raw data and nerves of the same suit

"You sound like you're underwater," Mark said earlier. I think he meant the phone line was bad, but I had to wonder how I made it home this evening. It did feel like walking on the bottom of the sea. Talk about a cue:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejhIZZvDgw
The message was clear - "No trudging! Flip your heels and gargle a cheery song through a megaphone!" What it actually inspired me to do was eat some raw fish to avert a dead faint and go straight to bed for a nap when I got in. Now I've woken up and can address the shameful gap in postings.

Since the end of last week it's been all about the "cash flow model". My beloved old friend Dibble said he would do it but I had to give him the "raw data". Obviously. That involved pricing up collections over two years from prototypes to full production runs - figures completely at the mercy of a zillion variables - and budgeting for agents, PR, photo shoots, travel to factories, trade shows, office admin, anything I could think of and a ton I bet I forgot.

Anton has got back to us with some suggestions for PR companies. I liked the sound of one operation where the founding execs had backgrounds variously in First Division Football and a well-known sex shop. So Mark will hate that. (Not).

It's now Paris Fashion Week. Carolyn was duly at the Kenzo studio over the weekend til late every night. It's their 40th anniversary so their show will start with a retrospective. When not required for styling she was taking refuge at her desk and going through time lines with me - when stores place their orders, what month they pay up, how many times we need to visit the factories a season. Were we doing a Cruise Collection? Er, not quite yet, a Booze Collection maybe. So that information was all passed back to Dibble who then decided we probably ought to present the investors with a two-year illustration. That way the pattern of dips and peaks is clearer and it's not so alarming when all the money required to cover production leaves the bank account. Then I realised Holy Crap I'd been saying "wholesale" when I meant production costs, so we worked that out and bingo, he hit me up with a spreadsheet each for Cash Flow, Profit & Loss and the BS. Balance Sheet. My pa got out a bottle of champagne to give him as a thank you for being such a wonderful, numerate friend. Dibs refused to accept it. He said as and when the deal was done we'd drink it then. Are you getting the "beloved" bit now??

A recently rediscovered gem of an old pal, Chrissey is on stand by down in Brighton, primed to do the "parked" website (remember? So there is at least a home page with contact information). She deigned the flyers for my old West End club nights. I am anxious not to have more people give up their love and talent until the light goes green. But it's a damn fine feeling to know they're poised.

Heard back from the factory broker that Tim Bailey provided, kindly saying to use the LK Bennet name. It worked. Bulent Alkanli wrote to say he would be in London this week and so I went along to meet him at their London HQ. In the Woolworth Building on Marylebone Road his English colleague, a designer called Samantha, joined us and I was with them for over an hour. Li-Fung have eighty offices around the world and source from many hundreds of factories but would aim to keep all our production in Turkey. If, said Bulent, we can get there, to Istanbul, next week, for the first of three or four trips required for this collection, he could have delivery of samples by Christmas. They are used to clients ordering thirty-odd sets of prototypes, we are looking at three, maybe four. Due to that, he explained, costs for prototypes would be three times - not twice as I expected him to say - the price of the production costs. Which skews the figures of course. I factored in TWICE. Holy Crap, again.

After the meeting I made my way to Marble Arch. My computer bag felt heavy. I was trying to explain screen printing set-up costs down the mobile to Mark (who knows very well all about that as he has run that business for years) and was getting in a muddle. He didn't think it could be right. He started talking about laser printing and I walked into River Island for some respite from the shoving of Oxford Street. He was worried about the triple cost thing. We still have a bunch of other people, and factories direct, offering us their services, but there was such an air of competent efficiency about the place today, without being at all sterile. They do a lot of work for River Island. I stared at a sweater and peered at the legend on the label at the neck. "What is obtained through love," I read, "is retained for all time." How I do hope so.

I called one of our investors to see if he had a response to the P&L, CF and, haha, BS. It went to voicemail so I sent an e-mail as well. Harriet intercepted me on Bond Street. Waiting for her, I popped into Browns again and said hello to the menswear buyer - must take care not to make people nervous with over-zealous dropping in. Mark's little boy was home from school by now and had opened his birthday presents. "You bought me POKÉMON cards! They are my favourite!" he said down the phone.
"Did I get the good ones? Hope so!"
"Yes! Yes!" he answered. Keen to get back to his haul, he gave me back to daddy.
"Have the investors got back to you?" he asked.
"Not yet," I replied.
"I've got to take him birthday bowling now," Mark changed the subject.
"Don't forget to take your thumb out," I offered.
"You're meant to say 'Hope you win!'" he informed me.
"I hope you win. You will tell me tomorrow that you did."
Harriet ordered me a glass of wine before promptly leaving for an appointment so I sat there drinking alone, a bit shakey now. I paid up and walked down Bond Street, which reminded me tomorrow is the deadline to put a painting of mine up for auction. Christies and Bonhams are both keen to have it. I made it to Piccadilly, but feeling quite faint cut into Soho for sashimi. "DON'T HAVE RICE," hectored my nutritionalist (yeah right) Taffy down the phone, "just protein, rice will bring you down."
It got me home. I got into bed. The phone went.
It was one of the investors to say they were looking at the P&L, CF and, er, BS, tonight, and that he will come over to see me tomorrow to discuss.
Holy Bowling Balls.