Yes Man (13 page)

A letter from the Patent & Trademark Institute of America! Finally the Do You Have an Invention? people had written back to me.

How important I felt! Strangely, though, the Patent & Trademark Institute of America seemed not to be based in Los Angeles or New York or San Francisco. No. It was based in Blackpool, England. On a very normal-sounding street.

Encouragingly, however, they appeared to be taking me very seriously. They even started their letter to me with “Dear Inventor.” Immediately I knew I was in safe hands. These people knew what they were doing. They had clearly recognised the ability in me to create life-changing and practical inventions and had decided, after careful consideration, to offer me a “free new product analysis.”

“There is no cost for this initial analysis,” they wrote. “Why not invest a few minutes today to properly document an idea, and our expertise will be available within a week.”

Good God! I had the ear of the Patent & Trademark Institute of America! And they wanted me to submit my idea! All I needed now was to have one!

I was excited. I wish I could say I come from a long family line of inventors, but I don’t. Unless you consider the fact that I was born and bred in Scotland—the country responsible for anesthetics, golf, quinine, marmalade, the steam engine, the adhesive postage stamp, the microwave oven, the fridge and, yes, hollow-pipe drainage. And which of us hasn’t got a few stories about what hollow-pipe drainage means to us?

I had my own inventions, of course, mostly based around the game Twister. There was Travel Twister, for starters, but later I’d taken this one step further and invented the Twister bedspread. I was sure that this would be a surefire hit with male students, at last giving them a valid excuse to invite girls back to their rooms. But I was heartbroken when, a year later, I discovered in a Sunday supplement that someone else had had the exact same idea but had actually gone to the trouble of patenting and marketing it. Damn the organised and resourceful!
Well, I wasn’t going to get caught out like that again. Not since I now had the ear of the Patent & Trademark Institute of America.

But I did still have one little trick left up my sleeve:
the electric toilet-seat lifter!
Never again would men have to stoop down to lift up the toilet seat. Never again would men have to ask themselves that universal and age-old question: Why
do
women always leave the toilet seat down?

Now, thanks to me, couples all across the country would have one less thing to argue about. Divorces would decrease, families would stay together, toilet seats would have to be cleaned less. Because I, Danny Wallace, was an inventor!

I threw some cereal into a bowl and began to devour the information pack sent to me by my new friends at the institute, looking for more hints and tips on what they were after, just in case my fallback idea somehow wasn’t right. But that was the thing—there were no hints on what they
were
after. Just what they
weren’t:

RESTRICTED IDEAS
NOT
TO BE SUBMITTED

Perpetual motion devices

Military weapons

Bollocks. My first two obvious ports-of-call, ripped from my hands by the invention fascists. I
love
inventing perpetual motion devices.

Pornographic devices

A pornographic
device?
How many pornographic devices were they getting? And what is a pornographic device, anyway?

Untested or unproved chemical formulas or cures for illnesses
.

Well, that wasn’t fair. Now I couldn’t send them untested or unproved cures for illnesses. I had
loads
of them! I’d have to actually test them out on my mates first.

Products based on unrealistic levels of technology

Bang goes the time machine. This was getting harder by the minute.

Literary or musical works

Right. So I couldn’t invent a poem or a new musical note. Which, if you’ve ever heard me sing, is all I seem to do.

Toilet-seat lifters

What?!

But mine’s
electric!

Well, that was fine, I suppose. This would obviously just take a little more work on my part. I sat down to think about what I should invent.

I looked around the flat for inspiration.

The mug. Invented.

The chair. Invented.

Shoes. Done.

Blimey. How do you go about inventing things?

The door. Invented.

Stairs. Invented.

The telly. Invented.

It was all very frustrating. Why was everything in my flat already invented? I was severely vexed, I don’t mind telling you. I had to admit that maybe development just wasn’t my thing.

I put on my jacket and grumpily prepared myself for the development meeting at the BBC.

I walked into BBC Television Centre to be met by a man named Tom.

“So you’ve worked in television before, haven’t you, Danny?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But not very much. I prefer radio.”

“Ah, why’s that? Because the pictures are better on the radio? Because there are less people involved, and your vision can become a reality?”

“Um, yes. And also the radio department is a lot closer to my flat.”

We walked through the vast, shiny corridors of power toward the lifts that would take us to our meeting. Television Centre is rather different from Broadcasting House. On the whole the latter is rather tatty with musty carpets and lightbulbs that have needed changing since the Second World War. Television Centre, on the other hand, is a vision of the future with huge, glassed-in
newsrooms, and reception areas that look like they’ve been hit by some kind of pastel bomb, and even areas for producer relaxation that have been dubbed “ThinkPods.” I’d love to work somewhere that had a ThinkPod. I’d probably get a lot more thinking done. And I’ve
always
liked pods.

We arrived at the development meeting, and I took a seat.

“Okay, everyone, this is Danny. He’s joining us today from the radio department in order to give us a different perspective on things.”

I smiled eagerly and waved to my TV colleagues. One of them waved back. Another managed a weary smile. Two of them hardly looked up from their pads.

“Danny, do you want to just tell us a couple of the things that you’re working on right now?”

Hmm. Tricky. Should I mention the inventions?

“I’m working on some new radio show ideas,” I said, before adding by way of taking up a bit more time, “which I am working on.”

This seemed enough for everyone, and we cracked on with the meeting.

“Right then,” said Tom cheerily. “The first thing we need to do is decide whether or not to continue developing this chat-show format.”

“No,” said a man opposite me, dismissively. He was wearing designer spectacles and a T-shirt with an ironic saying on it, so he certainly looked like he knew what he was doing.

“I agree,” said the girl next to him. “Kill it. It’s going nowhere.”

“Danny? What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t really know anything about it,” I said.

And so they filled me in.

And to be honest it didn’t sound like a bad show. I’m not allowed to tell you much about it, but it involved a pretty big concept, a host like Johnny Vaughan and a guest like Delia Smith. I didn’t know that much about development work, but I was sure they could probably get
something
out of it.

“So bin it or keep it?” said Tom, and there were a few murmurs of “bin it.”

“Danny? Would you watch that show if it was on?”

I thought about it. Was that an invitation? A suggestion?

“Yes, probably,” I said. “I suppose it depends upon the trailer.”

“Hmm,” someone said quite loudly.

“Really?” said the man in the T-shirt, smirking. “The trailer?”

“Well, yes,” I said, standing my ground. “I mean, you know, if it looked … inviting.”

“I see what you’re saying, Danny,” said Tom. “It’s crucial that this show feels inclusive.”

Phew.

“That is definitely what I was saying just then,” I said.

“Good,” said Tom. “I think it’s got potential, too.”

Hey!

The man in the T-shirt was quick to backtrack.

“Yes, well, obviously, with a bit of development and the right kind of—”

“So,” said Tom, cutting him off, “who wants to take the idea on? Do a bit more work on it?”

No one said anything.

“Danny? How about you?”

“Me?”

“Well, I mean, there’s no pressure. Just to see how you get on?”

“I’ll do it,” the T-shirt man said immediately.

Tom ignored him.

“Danny?”

“Yes. Sure.”

“Good.”

No, not good. Bad. What the hell was I doing? I knew nothing about this idea except that it had Delia Smith in it. And now here I was taking responsibility for it! What was I supposed to do with it? And now Tom was moving his way through the agenda, and everyone was saying no, we should drop this idea, or no, that idea is going nowhere, and here I am saying yes, I’ll do a little work on that idea, or yes, I don’t mind doing a bit of development on this one. I watched in horror as more and more documents and show outlines and pieces of paper were put in front of me. All this work! I was actively volunteering for all this work! This wasn’t like me at all!

“Arse,” said Tom. “Look at the time. I’m late. Right, so … who’s doing what for the next meeting?”

Everyone looked at me.

“I think Danny’s doing, well,
everything,”
said Sam.

“Oh. Right. Well. Danny,” said Tom, “do you want to come to the next meeting on Friday and let us know how you got on? I’ll clear it with your radio people.”

“Yes,” I said, slightly heavily. “That would be excellent.”

“And in the meantime, I’d like everyone to come up with three new ideas for Saturday night entertainment shows. Okay? Good. See you Friday.”

“This is terrible, Ian,” I said, walking away from Television Centre, mobile in hand. “I’m in over my head. I just kept saying yes every time they asked me to do something.”

“Oh, come on! You’re a producer! You can produce!”

“No … I’m a
radio
producer. In Light Entertainment. We are unique. We are a different breed. We were born to get to work a bit late and spend the morning eating bananas and surfing the Internet, and then head for the pub in the afternoon. We are not like television producers. Television producers are hungry for success, and they get up early, and they eat cocaine, and they dress like people out of magazines, and they know people like David Beckham and Ant ‘n’ Dec. Who do I know? Brian Perkins.”

“Well, so what? You’ve said yes to the work, so do it, and then just forget about it. I’ve a feeling that once they see what you’re capable of, you won’t have to worry about being asked back.”

“But they’re expecting success! And Tom wants another three ideas on his desk by Friday.”

“What kind of ideas?”

“Just … ideas. Ideas for entertainment shows.”

“Oh …,” said Ian.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that, well …”

“What?”

“I’ve
got some ideas.”

“Meet me in the pub in half an hour.”

“No, Ian.”

“Why not? It’s a perfectly good idea.”

“How to Get
Fat is not a perfectly good idea. Who’s going to want to watch a show that tells them how to get fat?”

“Skinny people.”

“No.”

“This one, then,” he said, sliding another piece of paper across the pub table.

“What Do Moles Mean?”

“You know … What does it mean if you’ve got a mole on your cheek? Is it different from having one on your ear?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t
know. I’m saying no to the idea. It’s rubbish.”

“There is no such thing as a bad idea, Dan!”

“What?”

“I saw a lady on telly saying that. ‘There’s no such thing as a bad idea,’ she said. ‘And even a bad idea can lead to a good one.’”

“But I thought that
no
idea was a bad idea,” I said, confused.

“Exactly. No idea is a bad idea. Exactly.”

“But if there are no bad ideas, how can we get from a bad idea to a good one?”

“Exactly, my friend. No idea is a bad idea. There are only … ideas. How abouti
Toddler’s Guide to Wart?”

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Yes, true enough.
My Philosophies and Beliefs?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just a show about my philosophies and beliefs. Each week Ian Collins takes a sideways glance at—”

“No.”

Ian looked at me, coldly.

“You say no a lot these days….”

I left the pub, and with a slightly grumpy face, headed off to do my homework.

Once home I flicked on my computer and prepared to come up with some Saturday night entertainment brilliance.

How to Get Fat
.

Maybe there was something to it.

I typed the tide onto an otherwise blank document and stared at it for a little while.

But then there was a
bing-bong
. An e-mail had arrived.

From Omar.

DEAR BROTHER danny

THANK YOU FOR YOUR LAST NOTE YOU SENT ME. BUT WE MUST MOVE
QUICKLY. I MUST HAVE YOUR BANK DETAILS RIGHT NOW. SEND THEM TO ME.

ARE YOU ALSO FREE TO TRAVEL TO HOLLAND, NETHERLAND. YOU NEED TO BRING CASH GIFTS TO ASSOCIATES OF MY FATHER, WHO HELP US MOVE THE MILLIONS OF DOLLAR.

Eh?! He’d never mentioned that I’d have to travel to Holland before! And what was all this about bringing cash gifts?

I KNOW IT IS MUCH TO ASK7 I AM TAKING A BIG RISK IN CONTACTING YOU.

PLEASE SIR WE MUST MOVE NOW. IT IS GOD’S WILL. SEND ME YOU DETAILS.

OMAR

I’ll be honest: In the two days since I’d last heard from Omar, my feelings toward him had cooled slightly. And paranoia had set in. What if he wasn’t
really
the son of a murdered sultan? What if he was just after my bank account details? Neither did I like this fresh talk of international travel and gifts for mysterious strangers. Omar was moving a bit too quickly for my liking. It felt like next he’d be telling me I had pretty hair, and could I please look into marriage visas.