“Bah!” “Schleur!” “Argherrirghingdd!” I’m a man of few words, and these were the ones I chose to express myself when I opened the front door to see my business partner. We left the bags with Ed’s girlfriend, Louise, went up to my room, shut the door, and got straight to it – opening Christmas presents.

 

As a budding young neuroscientist, Ed got me a nerve cell from the Giant Microbes range of cuddly toys (spot the error), and as a budding young city worker, I got Ed a wooden tie! Both gifts were of course exactly what we wanted, and after one more hug, Louise made it upstairs with the bags. Nice timing.

 

I’m so happy… Argherrirghingdd!

 

 

 

 

 

Between optimising margins and finding synergies, I had time to think about outsourcing blog writing.  As a trial run, my girlfriend (Louise) wrote today’s post on my behalf:

 

“Today was the final day Ross and I spent apart – thank goodness we will soon be reunited as I am currently losing all ability to function thanks to pining for him. Today I didn’t even manage to put on pants – just moved from my bed to the sofa to play XBox all day in the dark with my dearest, oldest, most sarcastically witty friend, Nattress. In contrast, my dynamic and perfect girlfriend chose to leave the house for a breath of fresh air battling through the January sales. She returned to me radiant and angelic, bearing beautiful silky garments at bargain prices (soon to be featured on ) – how I admire her talents! As well as bringing joy and happiness into the room she also brought lunch, which was fortunate as otherwise I would have only eaten leftover Christmas chocolate all day due to pure lethargy. It’s lucky I’m really buff to keep her sweet!”

 

After today’s trial blog post guest entry, and having consulted the PR team at Buy My Face, I’ve decided to keep writing the posts myself.  Anyway, time to watch Dinoshark with my siblings!

Every Christmas, my family and I go and visit all our relatives in sunny Wolverhampton.  However, this year was slightly different – my girlfriend was coming with us for the first time.  I led with my ace card, thrusting my 6-month-old baby cousin, Annabelle, into Laura’s arms.  She melted.

 

 

Being situated outside London gives my aunt the right to keep animals, and with this in mind, I decided Laura needed to meet the rest of the family.  Now I’m not going to bore you with the details on how things transpired (perhaps I misjudged things, or perhaps I was the victim of an elaborate conspiracy), but I ended up with a chicken in my hands. “Just touch it”, I kept saying to Laura, “you’ll like it”.  I paused for a moment to consider how all this sounded to passers by who could not see the chicken, before continuing on my mission.  “Laura, it’s a chicken, which I have picked up… as my girlfriend, you have to touch it!”

 

I won. Laura touched the chicken. We’ve made plans for next year’s Christmas celebrations.

Having not seen many of my home friends in quite a while, a Christmas gathering was in order.  The day was squandered playing cards and board games, drinking hot chocolate at the beach, and appeasing my friends’ persistent need to let me know I had something on my face.

In the evening, we ate fancy food at Prezzo – I’d highly recommend, if only for the joy of opening the menu to a sketch of Aldo Zilli, a stereotypically care-free Italian man.  Following this, we finished with a film, Hangover 2, which you’re bound to like if you enjoyed Hangover 1 – it’s almost exactly the same!

Ed: Mum, Ross and I… we… BROKE UP!…

Mum: It’ll be ok – it’s only for a couple of days… and you do have a girlfriend…

Ed: IT’S JUST NOT THE SAME!

 

After wiping the tears from the corners of my eyes and comfort binging on all 24 advent calendar chocolates that had accumulated whilst I’d been at Ross’ house, I’d calmed down a bit… Ross and I decided Christmas was a family occasion, so no matter how valuable our faces, or how weighed down our arms were with BFF bracelets, we parted ways.  I had a glorious time.

 

The Moyse family Christmas is a little unusual – because there’s 7 of us, we can’t remember who’s who, so a couple of years ago, we had a brilliant idea to raffle presents between my siblings.  We’d all buy one good, one medium, and one terrible present to add to the random lucky dip.  This year I lucked out with a box of celebrations, a telescopic fork, candy underwear and a board game… but you could end up with a melon, Tesco value jelly, baked beans and Baconnaise, as my brother Ben once did (I’ve posted Christmas raffle results into the previous blog entry for your amusement).

 

As if present roulette wasn’t enough to get our hearts pumping, it was time for the traditional Christmas day 1000 press-ups, to work up a beastly appetite.  No joke.  I’m finding it really hard to type right now.  Blog end.

Christmas Raffle 2009:

 

William:

- Sex Panther

- Bag of fun gums

- Superbad DVD

 

Ben:

- Baconaise

- A Melon

- Tesco value jelly

- Baked beans

 

Andy:

- Guillian chocolates

- Borat mankini

- A party popper

 

Christmas Raffle 2010:

 

William:

- Justin Beiber Calendar

- Cranberry jaffa cake bars

- Keychain army knife

 

Ben:

- Handerpants

- Wine gums and jellybabies

- A beer

 

Andy:

- Mario kart for Wii

- Magnetic puzzle (magnet cube)

- Baby shampoo (telco value)

 

Ed:

- Jazzy trousers

- Naked gun trilogy

- Christmas Dinner flavoured Pot Noodle (still got it – saving it for another Christmas)

 

Louise:

- Die Hard Quadrilogy

- Poker set

- Onsie

 

Christmas Raffle 2011

 

Bella:

- Rayman on X-Box

- The gift of giving (had to give Ed Risk 2210 – originally from Andy for Ed’s birthday)

- Caution stinky toilet cone

- Xample CD

 

William:

- Collection of water predator DVDs (e.g.mega piranha)

- An egg

- Scratch-card and lottery ticket

- Self-stirring mug

 

Ben:

- A strawberry

- Sweets and babe clicker

- Megashark vs. Giant Octopus

- Giant toilet mug

 

Andy:

- Dre. Beats Headphones

- Animal DVDs (e.g. sharktopus)

- 6 value chocolate wafers

- “Looks like a c**k” book

 

Ed:

- Box of Celebrations

- Telescopic fork

- Candy underwear

- Tension board game

 

Louise:

- Paint Stripper (paint by numbers stripper)

- Nerf gun

- Tesco value sweets and Tesco value instant noodles

 

While painting my face this morning, Ed just couldn’t stop shaking. This could be because Christmas was now closer than ever, or it could be due to the fact that Ed shut his fingers in the car door yesterday – either way, I was amused.

 

Being rather unorganized individuals, we rarely get the chance to enjoy watching others rushing around at the last minute. Well today at Bluewater Shopping Centre, we got to enjoy the panic from the other side of the fence. Watching was fun for a while, but it wasn’t long before Ed and I began offering potential gift ideas… I think we helped.

 

 

 

 

Just another typical day for us in the head office at Milton Keynes – wandering around the shopping centre, paint on our faces, wishing Fiona Eldred a merry Christmas, and armed with 500 “Merry Christmas Fiona” stickers. Whilst we were actively publicising Fiona’s merry Christmas, nobody else had the slightest clue that they’d be branded with this festive greeting* – Ross and I planted stickers on unsuspecting victims to our hearts’ content… and by hearts’ content, I mean until the hoards of disgruntled last-minute Christmas shoppers turned nasty…

 

*or so we planned – our cunning stick-and-run technique wasn’t as covert as we initially thought

So now that we’re ten-thousandaires, you’re probably wondering if this is affecting our lifestyle – is it now Tropicana instead of Tesco’s own? Zara instead of Primark? Poundland instead of 99p store? The answer is no, to everything. Today we spent our money on a £40 parking ticket and a suitably small Christmas present for my girlfriend. Bring on hundred-thousandaires!

Today we completed our collection of the national german broadcasters by filming with ZDF. In between painting, and the odd radio interview (three to be precise), we answered the questions that all TV presenters want to hear:

 

What are you doing?

Selling advertising space on our faces.

 

Why are you doing it?

To pay off our student debt and have a great time whilst doing it.

 

How long have you been doing this?

Around 80 days now.

 

Has it been successful?

We think so. We’ve been in hundreds of newspapers and have been on national radio and TV. Our website receives thousands of hits a day, and we’ve made over £11,000 in under 3 months [I enjoy answering this question].

 

Will you carry this on for longer than 366 days?

Nope.

 

Where is the toilet?

Down the hall and to the left.

 

So many questions, so many well-rounded, impeccably timed answers. After the interview, we hopped in a cab and went into London to visit Fresh Minds and show them their face ad face to face.

 

 

 

 

The pile of Quality Street, After Eights and Thorntons has been growing at a steady rate over the last few weeks, but today it reached the threshold level where not only was ‘the pile’ a dominant feature of the lounge; it also indicated Christmas must be close – so close that we could no longer contain our festive excitement. It was time to decorate the tree. Once Ross, my brothers and I had loaded the tree with as many baubles as it could take, we took the rest of the evening off to discuss how much we were going to eat on Christmas day, leaving my mum and sister to tactfully amend our decorative faux pas.