Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘I know, I know. But take a look.’

  I looked, clicking on stories about the latest England manager, a volatile Arsenal striker, the rumoured transfer of a French international to Liverpool. There were articles about grounds, commentators, notorious supporters, the businessmen behind the clubs, what had happened to the star players in the previous year’s World Cup in France. There was a whole section comparing the tactics of the Premier League teams in terms that even I could understand. It was brilliantly written. Witty in places, opinionated in others, every piece was concise, clear and interesting.

  ‘This guy knows his stuff,’ I said. ‘That is, assuming it is all one guy.’

  ‘Oh, it is.’

  ‘What’s his name? Gaz?’ I said, peering at the screen.

  ‘His full name is Gary Morris and he lives in Hemel Hempstead.’

  ‘But who’s behind it?’

  ‘No one. Just him. It’s an unofficial site. He probably has a day job, but spends the rest of his waking life watching football and reading and writing about it.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘It’s our first corporate acquisition, Mr Bigshot. We’re going to buy Sick As A Parrot.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘I don’t know. A pint of lager and a packet of peanuts? We won’t find out until we meet Gaz.’

  ‘And when are we going to do that?’

  Guy looked at his watch. ‘In about two hours.’

  Number 26 Paget Close was a white pebbledashed terraced house in a row of white pebbledashed terraced houses. We opened the low wooden gate and stepped carefully through a tiny, immaculately kept front garden. A plastic ginger cat guarded the door. Guy rang the bell. It chimed sweetly.

  A small but stout woman with tight grey curls appeared.

  Guy hesitated for a moment, but he recovered quickly. ‘Mrs Morris?’ he asked with his best smile, which was generally recognized as a pretty good smile.

  The woman glowed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is your son in?’

  ‘You’re the people from the internet company, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Guy. ‘I’m Guy Jourdan, Chief Executive, and this is my Finance Director, David Lane.’

  ‘Come in, come in. Make yourselves at home. Gary’s still at work, but he should be back any minute now.’ She led us through to a small living room. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ And then hastily, to make sure we hadn’t misunderstood her: ‘A cup of tea, perhaps?’

  Guy and I sank into a deep chintz-covered sofa while Mrs Morris busied herself in the kitchen. Then we heard the front door open and close and a male voice call ‘Hi, Mum!’

  ‘Those internet people are here to see you, dear.’

  Gaz appeared. He was a thin man in his early twenties, dressed in light blue shirt and blue trousers with red piping. A postman. Guy was wearing black jeans and a lightweight black polo-necked jersey. I was in an old denim shirt and crumpled green trousers. We all sat down on the three-piece suite and the takeover battle began.

  He was no fool, Gaz. Guy started on some spiel about how ninetyminutes.com was a leading European internet holding company, when Gaz stopped him.

  ‘You’re just two blokes with some bullshit, aren’t you? I know all the footie websites, and ninetyminutes.com isn’t one of them.’ He had a prominent Adam’s apple that wobbled up and down as he talked, and he spoke with a sub-cockney accent. But he was right. ‘So how much will you pay me for Sick As A Parrot? Cash on the table.’

  Guy smiled. ‘I discussed this with my finance man this morning, and we’ve got an opening offer.’ He looked across to me. We had discussed a price on the way, but I thought it was far too early to put it on the table. I decided to give Guy the benefit of the doubt and nodded sagely.

  ‘A pint of lager and a packet of peanuts,’ Guy said, with a smile. ‘That’s just a down payment, of course. There’s more to follow.’

  Gaz frowned, then returned the smile. ‘That’ll get you to the table. Let’s go and discuss this properly.’ He stood up and called down the hallway. ‘We’re just going out, Mum!’

  Mrs Morris rushed to the door to hold it open for us, and fluttered her eyelashes at Guy.

  ‘Nice cat, Mrs Morris,’ said Guy as he passed the plastic mog.

  ‘Oh, thank you. I do like cats. We’d have a real one, but Gary’s allergic.’

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ said Gaz, escaping through the wooden gate.

  We continued the discussion in the pub around the corner. Guy bought Gaz his promised pint of lager, and he got one for himself and his Finance Director as well.

  ‘Sorry about the bullshit, Gaz,’ he said. ‘It’s what I do. I’ll give you the real scoop in a moment. But before that, tell me about the site.’

  Gaz was happy to talk. He was proud of his work, as well he should have been. ‘I started it two years ago. At first it was nothing more than a home page. Then it sort of developed a following all by itself. I adapted it into a proper-looking site, people told other people about it, pretty soon it had more or less taken me over.’

  ‘How many visitors do you get?’

  ‘About a hundred thousand a month, last time I checked.’

  ‘Wow. It must take a lot of time to keep it up.’

  ‘It does. I spend almost all my free time on it. I don’t get much sleep. But I enjoy it.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ said Guy.

  ‘I know,’ said Gaz.

  ‘I can tell you’re an Arsenal fan. Why didn’t you just do an Arsenal site?’

  ‘There are two types of people who like football,’ Gaz replied. ‘The tribal type, who are looking for a grouping to give them some kind of identity, and those who just love the game. I’m not writing for the tribal type. Sure, it makes it much more interesting if you support one team or another, but I’m just as happy watching and writing about teams other than Arsenal. More happy: it’s easier to be objective.’

  ‘And do you design the website yourself?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s no problem. I studied physics and philosophy at uni, so I can get my head around a computer. At first I did the whole thing from scratch in HTML, but these days you get packages like Dreamweaver that make it all pretty easy anyway. Don’t get me wrong,’ Gaz said. ‘I’m not a geek. It’s football I love. It’s just that I understand computers and that’s how I tell people about football.’

  ‘So if you’ve got a degree in physics and philosophy, how come you’re a postman?’ I asked.

  ‘I like being a postman,’ Gaz replied defensively. ‘It gives me time to do what I like to do. And funnily enough knowing about Wittgenstein and the theory of matter didn’t seem to impress the recruitment people.’

  ‘It should have done,’ I said.

  ‘OK, OK. But where did you learn to write like that?’ Guy asked.

  ‘I’ve always written, ever since I was a kid. It comes naturally, especially when I’m writing about football. It’s like I’m compulsive. I just have to get it down.’ He sipped his beer. ‘What about you? Tell me what your real story is.’

  Guy talked about his plans for ninetyminutes.com and for its growth. He admitted Ninetyminutes would need a lot of money to get off the ground, and that we hadn’t raised any of it yet.

  Gaz listened hard.

  ‘What do you think?’ Guy asked him.

  ‘You’ve read my site?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know my views on the commercialization of football.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Do you like living at home?’ Guy asked.

  ‘It’s all right, I suppose.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like your own place within walking distance of Highbury? Wouldn’t you like to write this stuff during the working day instead of at night or at weekends?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t want to sell out. All the commercial sites are crap. They’re all pushing this TV station, or that football shirt. You can’t say the chairman is a wanke
r if he’s the one paying your salary. Or if his best mate is.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ said Guy. ‘The commercial sites are all crap. But so are the unofficial ones too. Even yours.’

  Gaz raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t expecting this.

  ‘The design’s crap. Sorry, but it is.’

  The colour rose in Gaz’s thin cheeks. He slammed his pint down on the pub table. ‘What’s wrong with the design?’

  ‘Gaz, we’re not here because of your eye for colour, or your sense of perspective. We’re here because you write the best stuff on the net and off it. But you need more. You need a good site design, you need a PR and marketing campaign so millions of people will hear about it, you need hardware that can deal with the traffic, you need people working for you who can write the stories you want in the way you want. You need someone to pay those people, you need someone to pay you, you need an office, a computer, time to think, time to watch football.

  ‘This site is going to be what you make it, Gaz. And it’s going to be big. And I’m sorry, but you’re going to make a shit-load of money out of it too.’

  Gaz was listening. I watched his face. I could see Guy’s magic working on it. ‘OK. So, what’s the deal?’

  ‘Twenty thousand quid up front and five per cent of the shares of the company.’

  Gaz looked from Guy to me. We let him think.

  ‘Thirty.’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘Done.’ Gaz held out his hand. Guy shook it. ‘And another pint of lager.’

  ‘So, what do you think, Davo? Six hours in the job, and we’ve already done our first deal.’ We were zipping down the outside lane of the M1 in Guy’s electric-blue ten-year-old Porsche, roof down, stereo and wind loud in our ears.

  ‘I tell you, that’s more than I did at Gurney Kroheim in the last year,’ I said. ‘But I couldn’t believe that bullshit you gave him at first! People aren’t going to fall for that, Guy.’

  Guy smiled. ‘Precisely. He was expecting bullshit, so I gave it to him. Then he had a chance to see through it and I could make the real story more credible.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit risky?’ I said. ‘Don’t we want him to think he can trust us?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll trust us now. But remember what he’s looking to us for. He wants us to talk the talk. He can’t do that. I wanted to show him that we can do his bullshit for him. And it worked, didn’t it?’

  ‘It did. Not bad.’

  ‘There are some advantages to an actor’s training.’

  ‘So I see.’ It was clear that Guy’s finely honed skills in manipulating people were going to come in handy in the months ahead.

  Guy slowed as he spied a police car on the inside lane.

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘at some point soon we’ve got to talk about money.’

  ‘Money?’

  I leaned forward and turned the Gallagher brothers down. ‘Yes. Like, how much of it do we have?’

  ‘I’ve got zip in my account. I think Owen’s got about thirty k left in his.’

  I winced. ‘Which he’s willing to give to Gaz?’

  ‘Absolutely. Owen’s willing to put everything he’s got into this. We both are. In fact we both have. Owen’s already put over twenty thousand in.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Well, as you can guess, I had less. But that’s all gone too. What about you?’

  ‘I think I can put in forty thousand.’

  Guy slowed a fraction, and turned to me. ‘Forty? Is that all? Come on, Davo, if you’re in, you’re in. You can’t keep nest eggs on one side.’

  ‘Forty thousand is all of my savings. Or nearly all. It will leave me with a few thousand to get through the next few months. I told you I wasn’t seeing any of the big bonuses at Gurney Kroheim. And my place in Notting Hill is mortgaged up to the hilt.’

  ‘OK, Davo, I believe you,’ said Guy. ‘And the forty is good. Very good.’

  ‘But we need more money.’

  ‘Right.’ Guy slowed as he entered the slip road off the motorway. The traffic thickened.

  ‘What about your father?’

  Guy shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You mean “no you won’t ask him”, or “no he’d say no”?’

  ‘I mean both.’

  ‘You’ve got to try.’

  ‘I can’t, Davo. I’ve asked him for money so many times in the past. At first he used to give it to me. I think he liked the idea of me having a good time. Plus he felt guilty about what happened in France. Neither of us really got over that, as you know.’

  Guy drove on in silence, embroiled in his own thoughts. I didn’t interrupt him; France was a topic I wanted to stay well clear of.

  Then he came back to the present. ‘Dad paid for my flat in London, he paid for drama school, he paid for me to go to Hollywood. Remember the Cessna I used to fly? Golf Juliet? He paid for that. And there’s all kinds of other stuff.’

  ‘But this is different.’

  ‘That’s the point. This is different. This time I’ll use that money properly. But I’ve fed him so many stories over the years, I don’t want this to be another one. If I tell him I’m going to start an internet company, he’ll laugh in my face. Worse than that, he won’t even laugh. He’ll just look disappointed.

  ‘And I wouldn’t blame him. I know I’ve pissed away the last few years. Sure I’ve had a good time, but I’ve never actually achieved anything at all. I used to think Dad was cool because he knew how to have fun. But at least he’d earned the money to spend. He’d done something. I haven’t. Until now. But it’s all going to change, you’ll see. No drink. No women. I know I can make something out of Ninetyminutes, Davo. But I’m going to have to do it without my father.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Have you tried anyone else? Friends? Contacts? Relations? Your mother?’

  ‘I have. Lots of them. It’s humiliating. The truth is, they all think I’m a loser. Just like you did when I first told you about it in the Dickens Inn. At least you listened in the end. Most people don’t. Anyway, any of them that would be willing to give me money without much chance of ever seeing it again have already done it.’

  ‘What about Torsten Schollenberger?’

  ‘Torsten’s worth a try. I haven’t seen him for a while, but he’s always up for a night on the town. And his father’s loaded. I’ll go to Hamburg and give it a whirl.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm.’

  ‘But what about venture capitalists?’ Guy said. ‘Won’t they be falling over themselves to get into this deal?’

  ‘I doubt it. At least not yet. I think they’ll think the same as Gaz did at first. Two bullshitters with nothing.’

  ‘But you said the plan was good?’

  ‘The plan is good. And as soon as we get back to your flat I’ll make it better. But it’s too early to go to them yet. They’ll want to see a website with real people visiting it. Lots of real people.’

  ‘We’re going to need some money from somewhere,’ said Guy. ‘Once we go to the next stage with the web consultants, we’re going to have to pay out real cash. And when we hire people we’ll need an office. And we’ll need money for the marketing campaign. TV advertising, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I think we’re probably going to have to start slower than that, Guy,’ I said.

  Guy slammed his hand down on the steering wheel. ‘No! We have to move fast. If we start slow, we’ll end up nowhere. We have to start in the lead and move ahead quickly enough to stay there.’

  I frowned. ‘Let’s see what we can do.’

  9

  I had never worked so hard in my life. My social life ended, I had no time for flying, I scarcely watched any TV. Every morning I arrived at Guy’s flat before eight. I walked from the tube station opposite the Tower of London, alongside Tower Bridge and St Katherine’s Dock to Wapping High Street, passing the grim faces of suited bankers on their way in to the City sweats
hops. Guy was already at work when I arrived, but Owen didn’t emerge from his bedroom until about eleven.

  For the first couple of days I found his hulking silent presence intimidating, but I soon got used to him. He preferred to communicate by e-mail rather than speech. Sometimes Guy and I would discuss something for half an hour, only to get back to work and find an e-mail waiting for us from Owen giving his views on the matter. Very strange. But it was quite possible to work a few feet away from Owen all day and ignore him completely, and he liked it that way.

  He was making good progress on the architecture of the website. But, as Guy tacitly recognized, Owen had a people problem, so normally either Guy or I would accompany him to meetings. I quickly began to gain a basic understanding of the various components that would make up our website: the host servers lodged in fireproof, bombproof, high-security premises, the internet connections, the routers, the proxy servers, the firewalls, the databases. At this stage, it was all fairly straightforward, but once we started selling stuff over the web it would become much more complicated fast. Owen was wise to look ahead.

  I spent a lot of time on the finances. One moment I would be worrying about whether the revenue in year five should be £120 million or £180 million. The next I would be figuring out how to save a few quid on printer toner. Guy had picked up a lot about internet businesses in a short time, but the money side had passed him by. I bought a bookkeeping software package and laboriously typed strings of figures into it. I set up files and simple procedures. I opened a company bank account. And I put a lot of thought into company structure, who owned what proportion of how many shares, how much to keep back for future key employees and how to value the company now and in the future.

  I was concerned about the shareholders’ agreement. I wasn’t a lawyer, but it seemed to me that there were holes in it. As the number of shareholders grew, this agreement would become more important. Guy had used a law firm who specialized in film and TV contracts. They were difficult to pin down and when I did get hold of them, they waffled at my objections. We considered using some of the City firms I knew, but they would be far too expensive at this stage so we decided we would have to put up with Guy’s lawyers until we had proper funding.