Further Details on LMP's Mission To Mars

Added on 09 March 2011

So where exactly does the Long Midnight Publishing Mission to Mars stand at this precise moment?

Our Scientific Cost Analysis Team, headed by ace accounting boffin Elvis Shackleton, estimate that to put together a programme from scratch that will be in a position to get a Mars landing project in the air and on its way across the solar system in approximately twenty months, we'll need something in the region of £750billion. And fifty-five pence.

A quick phone call to our Business Helpline reveals that LMP's bank balance currently stands at £258.67. On the plus side we're due a couple of hundred pounds from Amazon, so give it a few months and that number is just going to balloon to something in the region of £500, which is nothing short of incredibly exciting. And furthermore, to add to the raw excitement of the plus side, if you consider that most big businesses are massively in the red - for example, Real Madrid owe the bank $659m, HSBC owe other banks $17.5billion, and RBS are still $14trillion trillion in debt to the taxpayer - being £500 in credit actually looks quite tasty. On the down side, of course, it still leaves us $749,999,999,500.55 short.

Today Elvis and I will be sitting down with the LMP Finance team of Trevor, Bilbo, Adrian and Malky Eight Feet to see what ideas there are to try to bridge what, on paper at least, looks like a substantial funding gap. Just off the top of my head we can investigate the following:

• a cake sale
  

• getting Dan Brown and JK Rowling to co-author the next Barney Thomson book, and have it feature James Bond, Alex Ryder and a vampire
  
• appearing on Cash in the Attic
  

• selling as many relatives as we can club together
  

• winning Total Wipeout
  

If we can pull off just a couple of those it will at least allow us to open the project office in Singapore, and to start planning to achieve our ultimate goal of placing the LMP flag on Mars by sometime in the middle of 2013.

It promises to be the most incredible space adventure of all time. Ever.