101 THINGS TO DO IN 1001 DAYS

I got this idea from the lovely hostess of Live in Imagination who in turn got it from the Day Zero Project.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (i.e. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (i.e. represent some amount of work on my part).

Italics - haven't started
Bold - In progress
Strikethrough – Completed

START DATE: Tuesday 8th September 2009
END DATE: Tuesday 5th June 2012

1. Quit Smoking Cigarettes
2. Run a marathon, preferably the London Marathon.
3. Enter the Mongol Rally
4. Complete the Mongol Rally…or failing that; get as far as physically possible without dying.
5. Raise £3000+ for charity
6. Get my driving license (before January 2010)
7. Get my first car. (Not the Mongol Rally one, that one will be held on trust for the person who’ll take possession of it when I finally reach Ulan Baatar)
8. Buy a fitted suit from a Saville Row tailor (this one is a bit ambitious, as the average SR suit costs about £5000)
9. Play, and win a game of vingt et un at the Monte Carlo Casino
10. Have a piece published in a big newspaper/magazine
11. Submit a completed script for review by a production company.
12. Submit a completed manuscript for a novel for review by a publishing house.
13. Begin either salsa or swing dancing classes.
14. Compose three new tunes that can be played by an Irish trad band.
15. Write and perform a 10-minute stand-up routine at the Comedy Store.
16. Have at least 1 more boxing match, for charity.
17. Read Wuthering Heights (and try not to root for Heathcliff.)
18. Shave my head.
19. Travel to Lexington VA, to visit my friends there (must be completed before March 2010)
20. See New York in winter.
21. Travel to Africa.
22. Try Speed Dating.
23. Begin to learn another language, and have made some progress in fluency by the end-date.
24. Learn how to play ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake on guitar.
25. See Yann Tiersen in concert again.
26. See King Crimson perform ‘Court of the Crimson King’ live. Somehow.
27. Make peace with RK, for Karma reasons.
28. Return the books I borrowed from my friend John Lamont in May 2008 – that are sitting on a bookshelf right in front of me.
29. Have a conversation with either Stephen Fry or Will Self.
30. See 10 live stand-up gigs
31. Live nocturnally for a week.
32. Find the exact pub in which I helped my uncle install AV equipment this summer (when I was in England that’s what I did sometimes) It’s called ‘The Aviator” and it’s in some part of SW London.
33. Take a flying lesson.
34. Read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books again.
35. Get tickets to be in the audience for the radio recordings of what will be a TV comedy show. e.g. – That Mitchell and Webb Sound OR Get tickets to be in the audience for an episode of QI.
36. Meet Charlie Brooker.
37. Go vegetarian for a month.
38. Find a flat in London.
39. Punch a racist. Right in the kisser. Preferably a card-carrying member of the BNP.
40. Go to a normal mass (not a wedding/funeral etc) once again just to make sure I’m 100% about the atheism thing.
41. Begin and maintain a letter-writing correspondence with GO’M and J-AS.
42. Read War and Peace
43. Visit Edinburgh for a weekend.
44. Grow my hair long, just to see if I have to patience for it.
45. Get another tattoo.
46. Learn the Czech Song ‘Jozin z Bazin’.
47. Watch every film John Candy made.
48. Drive on highway 66.
49. See the original copydex scroll that ‘On the Road’ is written on.
50. Read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
51. Learn how to cook an haute cuisine three course meal
52. Visit a Turkish bath.
53. Find out how a car engine works, and get a basic knowledge of how to fix it when it cocks up.
54. Buy a hammock.
55. Find a nice tobacconists shop in London, with a nice blended pipe-tobacco to rival my favourite – Peterson’s Connoisseur’s Choice.
56. Visit Cuba and have a proper mojito.
57. Along with my Rally partner – Ruairí Ó Maolain – come up with a spec. outline for a television comedy.
58. Shave the beard…at some point.
59. Buy an overcoat, one that will last for years.
60. Watch the entire Stanley Kubrick back catalogue.
61. Fire a crossbow at a scarecrow, or some other equally alluring target.
62. Arrive at an airport and have someone waiting with a sign bearing my name.
63. Get thrown out of a posh restaurant.
64. .Find a ‘local’ in London that does a good Guinness and a good pint of bitter..
65. Celebrate my 25th birthday in style. (Not too sure how to do this, but it can only be judged after the event.)
66. Attend a symphony performance of the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. Must be accompanied by a date/friend.
67. Play a session with a bluegrass band.
68. Learn to play one song on the mandolin.
69. Watch every episode of The Wire
70. Read either Milton’s Paradise Lost or Dante’s Inferno
71. Shoot a Lee Enfield Mk3 .303 rifle, or a Thompson .45 SMG.
72. Have a reunion with two of the best friends I ever had: Gabrielle DeCourcy and Theresa Dougherty.
73. Plant and grow a lavender bush.
74. Try to blag my way into a gentleman’s Club to see what the fuss is all about.
75. Find a small, reasonably priced Italian restaurant in London that does delicious food.
76. Attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, just to make sure she’s dead.
77. See/Hear Itzhak Perlman perform live in concert.
78. Drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains, just once more. Preferably while listening to Fleet Foxes.
79. Buy a set of Christmas presents that have been 100% thought out, and bought at least a month before Christmas. OR, make a present.
80. Meet two of my online heroes: The Novelista Barista and Nik from Serendipi-tea.
81. Do ‘Morning pages’ for a whole month, to try and develop the habit of writing.
82. Sleep in a coffin, just for a few hours.
83. ‘Get in shape’, whatever that may mean (basically get back into the shape I was in around January/February when I was boxing except about 1 stone heavier and not as skinny)
84. Try to appear as ‘the man in the street’ on the news, but with a pirate voice and a previously unnoticed limp.
85. Teach a Minah Bird how to say a phrase in Irish, or make the noise of an extending lightsaber.
86. Attend a Ray Mears survival weekend.
87. Do something incredibly stupid but cool: skydive/bungee jump etc
88. Show something that I’ve written to my grandfather, great uncle Brian or ‘uncle’ Stephen for their professional opinion.
89. Qualify as an Attorney for the State of New York by passing the bar exam.
90. Meet Alexa Chung, Rosamund Pike or Gemma Arterton and try not to trip over my tongue. (The ‘stretch’ here is maintaining a conversation and not automatically hyperventilating or asking them to marry me.)
91. Drive an Aston Martin DB6.
92. Have my wee sis over to London to see a show for her 16th birthday.
93. Eat a fish that I’ve caught, cleaned and cooked. (Not a huge stretch, but must be a cod or mackerel, caught off Cruit Island in Co. Donegal, which is the greatest place in the world, but a place that I never see as often as I’d like.)
94. Win a pub quiz – in first place.
95. Become proficient with cryptic crosswords and be able to complete the Times crossword alone.
96. Start a vegetable patch or a herb garden.
97. Enter a Texas Hold’Em Competition
98. Read Ulysses again (now that I’m old enough to understand it)
99. Save 12.5% of what I earn for a year.
100. Qualify as a solicitor.










101. Write another list.