e Squared (4 page)

 

From:
Liam O'Keefe

To: Bill Geddes

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.18

Subject: what's that stench?

 

You let one off again?

 

From:
Bill Geddes

To: Liam O'Keefe

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.22

Subject: Re: what's that stench?

 

It's llama cack. Just caught Susi in the kitchen heating it up on the new Aga. She says Ted's come back from the Andes with both frostbite and a traditional Argentinian remedy. But she assured me it's 100% organic, so that's OK, then. We can safely warm up our spaghetti hoops at lunchtime.

 

You seen Ted's all-staffer?

 

From:
Liam O'Keefe

To: Bill Geddes

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.24

Subject: Re: what's that stench?

 

Just read it. Exactly what we need, eh? A strolling minstrel, wandering the corridors, soothing our creative birthing pains with song...

 

Oh, hang on, can I hear the fucker? Is that a fucking nose flute?

 

From:
Ted Berry

To: Creative Department

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.30

Subject: New Facilities

 

As you'll have noticed, a bunch of hairy-arsed Poles have spent their Christmases getting scabby knees and calloused hands on your behalf. I hope you appreciate their efforts and think of them as you enjoy your fully reconfigured and radicalized Creative Department.

 

The three beach huts (bought for a song from Herne Bay Council) are intended as creative retreats. Enter and tell the world to fuck off.

 

The new basement Romper Room is solely for your use. I give you Wii, PS3 and good old-fashioned Lego. And give the ball pit a whirl. It's wicked—you can see why preschoolers are hooked. I promise you, an hour in there will give you an excellent cardiovascular workout as well as inspire some boundary-free thinking.

PS (mostly for Harvey): the “grass” on the floor of the creative conference room ISN'T REAL. It's plastic. So please don't bring your rabbit in to graze. It'll fucking die.

 

From:
Sally Wilton

To: All Staff

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.31

Subject: New Facilities

 

I am pleased to announce that the office refurbishment is now complete. To ensure the smooth and efficient operation of the new facilities, the following guidelines should be noted.

1. Kitchen: wet clothing should not be placed on the new Aga for the purposes of drying as this represents a fire hazard and will invalidate any insurance claim. Also, various health and safety directives prohibit the proving and baking of bread and other yeast-based foodstuffs.

2. Sessions in the SenzDep Think Tanks™ situated beside the post room must be booked with reception. Swimwear must be worn. Strictly no “skinny dipping.”

Thank you for your cooperation.

From:
Liam O'Keefe

To: Brett Topolski

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.38

Subject: Happy New Year, Rag Head

Ted has returned from the Andes, pissed that Beattie jammed his pole in the summit first and he's taking it out on us with a potent mix of world music and the stench of the pampas.

 

Times have changed. In the olden days, Simon Horne would make do with shouting at us in poor French. (I wonder what he's up to. Any sightings?) Mind you, this is getting more like the olden days in some respects. I told you Crutton is now at the helm, flailing about like a dad trying to body pop at the school disco. He carries a permanent look of incomprehension and a small leather cosh to beat off street hawkers and the weirder creatives. Actually, I haven't seen him resort to violence once since he got here. He does seem a lot calmer. Maybe he's discovered God. Or Ritalin.

 

Continuing the theme of Twats Reunited, another Miller Shanks refugee joined in December. Tell Vince to brace himself: Susi is Ted's new PA. She hasn't changed much except that now she's triple-barreled-Susi
Judge-Davis-Gaultier.
She married a Frenchy, a very distant relative of the fashion queen himself. She's predictably vocal about the connection, though I don't suppose Jean Paul has registered that he now has a total fuckwit dangling from the family tree like a label-dressed gibbon. Her skirts are shorter than ever. Her gyno needn't bother getting her in for an exam any more. He just has to sit opposite her on the tube.

 

Final Miller Shanks link: remember Nigel Godley? Four-eyed Godbotherer in accounts, used e-mail as a prototype eBay. No, he's not here. But Neil, his identical twin, is. The two of them are indistinguishable. Exactly like Mary-Kate and Ashley. Only you wouldn't want to fuck them. No, really you wouldn't.

 

So how am I, you ask? How am I doing in the agency that's so cutting-edge you slice your finger on the lift button? So love-struck with postmodernism that several meeting rooms have been laid with turf? I hate it, if you must know. I have no idea what the job is anymore. We're not allowed to just do ads these days. Everything has to be viral-guerrilla-left-field-pushing-the-envelope-out-of-the-box-and-up-the-shitter-of-convention
different.

 

A for instance: just before Christmas we brainstormed a list of celebs for some new perfumes. We flicked through Nuts and heat and came up with the usual suspects, plus Helen Mirren and Glenn Close to add a bit of class. Ted took a look and said, “Bollocks. Too fucking predictable. Gimme something different ... Gimme Margaret Thatcher.”

 

Margaret Thatcher? She wasn't hot when she was twenty-one. These days she dribbles out of the side of her mouth, for fuck's sake. What's she going to smell of? Piss and meals on wheels? What next? Eva Braun and Eau de Zyklon B?

 

But as I write, Maggie's stroke-skewed mug adorns an A1 board and is on its way to Rotterdam for presentation.

 

I should be happier, really I should. The office was done up over the break with the design brief of taking it as far away from Dilbert-style cubes as possible. A Good Thing, you'll agree. But coming in this morning was like the big reveal at the end of
Changing Rooms.
You walk in to see your front room transformed into an MDF Persian whorehouse when all you wanted was a bit of beige and a nice tartan throw for the sofa.

 

There's barely any room in my office now that the company-issue pinball machine is in here. I hate pinball. I put in for a one-armed bandit (making the sound business argument that, given my luck on the wheels of fruit, it would turn a handsome profit), but I was told we'd need a gambling license. Their point being...?

 

I'm only thirty-seven, but I'm too old for this. I've come to realize that, actually, I just want a Dilbert-style cube. And a brief I can get my head around. And some workmates from the same planet—or at least from one in the same solar system. Weary of convention, Ted no longer hires on the strength of portfolios of fresh and original ideas. No, he's wowed by offbeat haircuts and interesting psychiatric reports (on which topic, someday I'll tell you about Harvey Harvey). And the average age of this lot must be fifteen. They look at me funny because I can actually draw a layout—you know, with a pen, like it's a fucking goose quill. The next time one of the spotty gobshites asks me if I remember the days when Whitney Houston wasn't a crack whore I'll floor him. Or her. I don't care.

 

You know it's come to something when your only mate is a suit. He's called Bill. He's thirty-six and we reminisce about Tiffany, Salt-N-Pepa and smoking in pubs. Give us rocking chairs and pipes, I say. Though obviously you'd have to put the rockers in a field fifty miles from the nearest human settlement on account of the FUCKING SMOKING BAN.

 

Jesus, I'm ranting now.

 

How are you? I still can't believe you shipped out. I know we've got the congestion charge and Harpo Marx for mayor while you've got 24/7 sunshine and half the Chelsea team for neighbors, but Miller Shanks Dubai? What were you thinking? Anyway, give me news. Has Vince had a fatwa declared on him yet? Write soon. If there's any consolation to being thirty-seven, it's that I'm now mature enough to admit I miss you.

 

From:
Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

To: Ted Berry

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.39

Subject: Fwd: Please tell Ted I'm very, very sorry but I won't be able to come in

 

Hi Ted. I just got this e-mail from Harvey. Should I call his care worker?

 

Begin forwarded message:

 

From:
Neil Godley

To: Kirsten Richardson

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.43

Re: hair appointment

 

Hi Kirsten. I was wondering if you could fit me in for a quick trim at lunchtime. I'd normally nip out, but I'm up to my neck in reconciliations.

 

From:
Kirsten Richardson

To: Neil Godley

Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.47

Subject: Re: hair appointment

 

I'm strictly a Creative Department resource. Ted's orders. Even if I wasn't I've got a perm, three highlights and a mega tease to do over lunch. Soz-Kx

 

From:
Bill Geddes

To: Kazu Makino

Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.12

Subject: Donald

 

What time is his flight to Rotterdam?

 

From:
Kazu Makino

To: Bill Geddes

Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.14

Subject: Re: Donald

 

11.30

 

From:
Bill Geddes

To: Kazu Makino

Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.15

Subject: Re: Donald

 

So he's not coming in to pick up the presentation boards?

 

From:
Kazu Makino

To: Bill Geddes

Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.16

Subject: Re: Donald

 

He'd have to move like Billy Whizz, so I doubt it.

 

From:
Bill Geddes

To: Kazu Makino

Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.18