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Alexandra Blair changes a wheel

Things were going well. Until we got on to the jack.

“Now wind the jack to lift the car. You'll know which way to wind coz it only goes one way,” Gary Courtnell of Mansell Street Garage Ltd texted, half an hour after I had started. “Have u raised the car? If so, now take off wheelnuts, then the wheel. Then go in reverse order. Put spare wheel on, wheelnuts on, screw in. Tighten lightly wi wheelbrace (metal bar).”

Aaargh. Panic. What was he talking about?

“Don't know how to put jack on or where it should go,” I texted back.

At this point, an onlooking van driver could stand it no longer and insisted that he check that I was putting the jack in the correct place. It was cheating, but he warned me sincerely that I could kill myself or ruin the car if I got it wrong.

With the car raised, I removed the nuts and felt a surge of triumph taking off the wheel. As did Gary. “Wahey,” he texted, clearly appalled at my ignorance thus far. But putting it back on almost finished me - I could barely lift it into place. I did finally manage to, though, and put the nuts back on using my full bodyweight.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of trying to change a wheel by text was fending off the well-meaning help from any passing man and (a few) women, who correctly assumed that I had never done this before. And although I felt a genuine sense of pride that I had learnt a life skill, it did take me an hour.

Next time, I will accept those kind offers of help.

Penny Wark builds an IKEA flatpack

Sixteen texts of instruction, 75 minutes and we had a BEKVAM, otherwise known as an Ikea butcher's block. It just didn't have any legs. Or lower shelves. But hey, what an excellent top.

Would it have been any easier had I seen the instructions? In some ways, yes. The trouble for my expert helper was explaining what is essentially a visual process in txtspk to someone who had never so much as picked up an electric drill. Really.

Perhaps that's why he started with patronage. “I'm going to keep it simple.” Thanks. “1 Can you find 4 rectangular pieces of wood?” Yes, believe it or not, I can. Gr8.

It got better. I even found the four small brackets, but this is when texting has its limitations. Each had a vertical and a horizontal slot and it wasn't until I started to visualise what I was making - the framework on which the worktop would sit - that I worked out how to use them.

As instructed, I managed to turn the four planks into a 3-D square. And then came the eureka moment: “Hopefully when u finish u will have a structure onto which u can attach square work top.” We were motoring.

Then I got this: “Imagine the 4 planks are the sides of a squashed box which u r going to make into a box.” Fine, that really did make sense. It was the legs that stumped me.

“OK this is the hard bit. At the end of each leg is a round hole. U need to insert a barrel shaped metal cylinder into each one. The barrel has a hole in the middle of it which you need to align so that you can insert a seperate threaded barrel thro a nearby hole into it!!!!!”

Good job it wasn't surgery.

Will Pavia makes a souffle

To add the necessary sense of urgency I picture myself in the dank basement of a North Korean gulag. My guards assure me that as a corrupt Western spy I will die very slowly, very soon, but for the moment Kim Jong Il is possessed with a terrible hankering for haddock soufflé. I have one chance.

The first text arrives from Lindsey Bareham, the Times cook, a woman who can grate an orange just by looking at it. She does, however, need to work on her texting. Her first text contains almost no pronouns and stops abruptly mid-sentence. This is because her mobile phone dates back to the rise of Britpop.

“Oven 190C”, it begins. My oven is even older than her phone. The numbers rubbed off the dials towards the end of the punk era. I screw all the dials halfway round. I know that this method works because I once used it to cook a potato waffle. I “simmer haddock” as instructed, “smear butter” and “dust parmesan”. The text ends with a cliffhanger. “Melt 50g of butter,” it says.

“Cook gently five whisk smooth,” she continues.

Whisk. Yes. I have heard of this whisk. It has a handle, does it not? She replies, perplexingly: “Globe whisk will help ensure sauce is smooth.”

Then comes another strange command. I must “beat yolks one by one”, like political dissidents. It does not say what to do with them after that - it is like one of those American dramas that leave you uncertain of everything. The next episode is even more confusing. “Flake fish ... Whisk whites into soft peaks Mix 2tbsp into sauce gently fold rest.”

Fold? “Think air,” she says. “Into dish dust top 1tbsp parmesan Run thumb.”

The rest is silence. Finally another text arrives. “Round inside edge,” she says. I put it in the oven. But what am I to do with the egg yolks? “They get stirred in sauce first one at a time them flakes fish then whisked whites.”

I wonder whether I might be able to pull out the flakes and whisked whites with my fingers. I can almost hear the prison guards sharpening their red-hot pokers. In the end I throw the yolks in on top and put it in the oven.

Thirty minutes later the soufflé has risen a little. “It should billow over the rim,” says Lindsey. It tastes excellent though. I hope the Dear Leader will let me live.

Tom Whipple does a model's make-up

Chloe insists on referring to it as “the moisturiser accident”. I prefer “thorough hydration”. But as she picks blobs of white goo out of her ears, it is apparent that putting on make-up via text message is not the best way to get ready for a night out.

A vast make-up collection is spread over the times2 meeting-room table. Somewhere across the texting ether, Sarah Blowers at Bobbi Brown cosmetics has an identical set of make-up and is passing instructions. Our arrangement is a little like the scene in Apollo 13 in which the scientists back at Nasa try to save the stranded astronauts using only material found in their spaceship.

The main problem is that Sarah is not dealing directly with my client. Sarah texts me that she wants “soft and natural” but Chloe Lambert - who Sarah refers to as my “canvas” - keeps letting me down. Her hair gets in the way when I apply foundation, she complains that the concealer should be invisible and she keeps getting lipstick on her teeth.

It is also very hard to describe quantity and facial positioning in 160 characters or fewer. Sarah tells me to “pick up an ample amount of foundation with the flat edge of the foundation brush”. But I do this, and Chloe accuses me of “using it like I'm painting a house”.

I am told that “eyeliner is the key to this smoky look, apply close to the top and bottom lashlines”. I do this, but I'm not close enough. Apparently half the world's population routinely poke sharp pointy objects next to their eyes.

When I finish, Sarah sends me a final message. “I am sure she is smouldering! Well done you,” she says. Chloe disappears to the bathroom. At least one of them appreciates me.

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