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e Squared

Page 3

by Matt Beaumont


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

  Begin forwarded message:From: Harvey Harvey

  To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 09.38

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

  As I was leaving my flat this morning I was abducted by the Swampies of the Third Moon of the planet Delta Magna who plan to sacrifice me to their god, Kroll. Don’t worry because I know what to do. This is exactly what happened to the Doctor (Season 16, 1978). Assuming I manage to find the Fifth Segment (which is most likely disguised as an ancient Swampy relic), I will be able to get Kroll to ingest it when he emerges from the marsh. Then he will be disabled and the inhabitants of Delta Magna will once again live in peace.

  All being well I should be in tomorrow. Please give my apologies to Ted and tell him that even though I’m quite busy with the threat of Kroll and everything, I’m still thinking about the Murray Mints brief and I’ve had quite a few ideas already.

  Harvey Harvey

  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

  Subject: Re: Donald

  Since the purpose of the meeting is to present the boards, not much point in him going at all. DC will go ape if he finds out. I’d better get in touch with him.

  From: Milton Keane

  To: All Staff

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.27

  Subject: Interns?

  Are there any interns free to do some vox pops in Soho Sq? Free pastries for the successful applicant. Caroline’s out and I’m on my New Year diet,1 so they’ll only go stale!

  Milton Keane Assistant to Caroline Zitter

  From: Donald Gold

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.29

  Subject: travel arrangements

  Kaz—look into the possibility of me getting on a boat to Rotterdam ASAP.

  From: Kazu Makino

  To: Donald Gold

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.31

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  Your meeting is at 2.00. Think a boat might be on the slow side. And aren’t you at Stansted? No boats. Just big shiny planes.

  From: Donald Gold

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.33

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  FYI, thick fog has engulfed the entire airport. Just trying to be proactive here. Ferry timetable, please.

  From: Kazu Makino

  To: Donald Gold

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.36

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  I’ll look into it. Not a cloud in the sky in the West End, by the way. Also by the way, you left the boards by your desk. Don’t you need them?

  From: Donald Gold

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.37

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  I’ll improvise the presentation. The boards are crap, anyway.

  From: Kazu Makino

  To: Donald Gold

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.39

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  You’re going to mime perfumes? That I’d love to see. Especially when you get to DDaring by Jodie Marsh.

  From: Donald Gold

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.40

  Subject: Re: travel arrangements

  Very funny. Hold ferry search! Sirens going off. Jesus, it’s 9/11 all over again.

  From: Dotty Podidra

  To: All Staff

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.48

  Subject: Interns?

  Are there any interns free to dust the leaves on David’s kentia palm?

  Dotty Podidra Assistant to David Crutton

  From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  To: All Staff

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.49

  Subject: Interns?

  Any interns free to apply Savlon to Ted’s frostbite?

  Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier Assistant to Ted Berry

  From: Róisín O’Hooligan

  To: All Staff

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.50

  Subject: Interns?

  And when the interns are done palm polishing and ointment applying maybe they can take down the bloody tree, which is still bloody here and on top of everything else it bloody well smells of cat wee.

  Róisín

  Reception

  From: Darren Bates

  To: Asif Mohammed

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 10.59

  Subject: emergency!

  In-flight meals for BJ404 to Plovdiv up in smoke! Some sort of spontaneous combustion. My guess is too much saturated fat in the new-recipe lasagne. Flight booked with Bulgarian weight-lifting team. Anticipate they’ll be v. hungry and/or popped up on steroids. Not a good combination. Any chance you could get down to the Bishop’s Stortford Subway and buy 120 jumbo turkey-breast subs?

  Darren Bates

  Ground Operations Manager, Stansted

  From: Neil Godley

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.10

  Subject: hairdressing privileges

  Hi David

  I must bring a serious matter to your attention. I have been told that access to the company hairdresser is restricted to the Creative Department. In my opinion, this policy is not in the egalitarian spirit of a so-called “Thought Collective.”

  All I wanted was a trim.

  I look forward to your views on this matter.

  Neil Godley (Accounts)

  From: Janice Crutton

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.11

  Subject: Tam

  What time will you get off tonight? I’ll be stuck in a partners’ meeting until seven. One of us needs to be home early-ish to have a word with Tamara. I’ve had a call from school. She’s been excluded from PE on account of her tattoo. Did you know anything about this? Apparently it’s on her thigh and it’s of a skull with a dagger through the eye socket. It only shows because the gym shorts she insists on wearing are so small they’re practically a thong.

  What is it with her fetishes for exhibitionism and self-mutilation? Please get home and talk to her because I’m at a total loss.

  And you and I need to talk. About something else. Entirely.

  Janice x

  From: Ted Berry

  To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.12

  Subject:

  agony get in here do e 4 me
<
br />   From: Ted Berry

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.15

  Subject: Esmée Éloge

  I just walked past Gold’s office and saw Maggie T. She’s supposed to be in Rotterdam getting the arse presented off her. Why has the stupid cunt left the boards here? I thought you were going to be hands-on with this account, David.

  From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  To: Milton Keane

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.17

  Subject: need love and latte!

  Ted’s fingers look like big fat sausages and he’s been making me do his e-mails for him all morning. I don’t mind, honestly, but he just literally forced me to type the C word! I feel sick now and my hands are still shaking. I’m trying so hard to get on with him, but he makes it impossible. What am I going to do? Starbucks in 5?

  From: Milton Keane

  To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.18

  Subject: Re: need love and latte!

  Cazza’s out so I’m free! (God, that makes me sound sooooo gay.) Starbucks in 2.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Janice Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.19

  Subject: Re: Tam

  Not sure what time I’ll make it out of here. Should we think about a boarding school for Tam? Didn’t do me any harm.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Janice Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.20

  Subject: PS

  What’s the other thing you want to talk about?

  From: Janice Crutton

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.21

  Subject: Re: PS

  Not something for e-mail. Later. Please get home at a reasonable hour.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Ted Berry

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.23

  Subject: Re: Esmée Éloge

  Gold’s a useless pillock. I’ll get on it. I must say, though, that I have misgivings about presenting deliberately wacky celebrity names to a company as essentially conservative as Esmée Éloge. Aren’t they looking for the likes of Keira Knightley and that woman who used to stand in the middle in Destiny’s Child?

  Incidentally, is the new office troubadour an example of the new fit-for-purpose hiring policy? I’m intrigued.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.24

  Subject: Esmée Éloge

  Tell me, how is your boss planning to present the Esmée Éloge work without the actual work? He’s either a genius or a complete twat. Let him know I want a full debrief the second he returns.

  From: Ted Berry

  To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.25

  Subject:

  if back from coffee run need you do e

  From: Ted Berry

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.29

  Subject: Re: Esmée Éloge

  If Esmée Éloge had wanted “conservative,” they’d have gone to Miller Shanks. They came here because they wanted outer-rim thinking and I’m fucked if I’m going to disappoint them.

  On your second point, Yossi is here because I intend to restore the jingle to its rightful position in British advertising. Some cunt is going to produce the next Shake ‘n’ Vac and I intend that cunt to be working at Meerkat360.

  Capisce?

  From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  To: Milton Keane

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.31

  Subject: C word again!

  Twice in one e!!! Feel so tainted.

  From: Milton Keane

  To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.33

  Subject: Re: C word again!

  Remember what I told you. Ted is just a naughty potty mouth and he gets a kick out of upsetting you. The best way to beat him is to rise above it. Be strong, Sooz. And maybe book a soothing sesh in the Think Tank.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Neil Godley

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.34

  Subject: Re: hairdressing privileges

  Discussions on the status of the office hairdresser are ongoing. In the meantime, I suggest you forgo the trim. By the way, if you bother me with this crap again I will come down to the basement and cut your hair myself. Nicky Clarke I’m not.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Alex Sofroniou

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.35

  Subject: why isn’t this bollocks sorted out yet?

  From: David Crutton

  To: Caroline Zitter

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.36

  Subject:

  I sent you an e-mail on Christmas Day. A response this month would be nice.

  From: Caroline Zitter

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009,11.37

  Subject: Out of Office AutoReply

  I am out of the office attending Business Goals Through Buddhism III. I will return on Wednesday 7th January. If you have an urgent request please contact my assistant, Milton Keane, on milton@meerkat360.co.uk.

  From: Kazu Makino

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.38

  Subject: Re: Esmée Éloge

  Hi David. Donald had the boards redone over the Christmas break. He made a call to check out the lighting in the Rotterdam meeting room and felt a matte finish would work better than gloss for presentation purposes. Hope this is OK.

  Kazu Makino

  Assistant to Donald Gold & Bill Geddes

  From: Kazu Makino

  To: Bill Geddes

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.55

  Subject: Don

  He’s hysterical. Has he always been like this about flying?

  From: Bill Geddes

  To: Kazu Makino

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 11.59

  Subject: Re: Don

  His fear of flying is matched only by his terror of spiders. He has a recurring nightmare about flying long haul and being served chicken/beef by a tarantula dressed as a stewardess.

  From: Alex Sofroniou

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 12.11

  Subject: Re: why isn’t this bollocks sorted out yet?

  Hi David. Sorry for the delay in replying—several server issues to resolve. Changing the signature protocol for department heads requires agreement from the partners. In the meantime, I can change the typeface. Some suggestions:

  Personally, I like Lewinsky (second from bottom). It has a certain cool modernity and the italic suggests restless dynamism. Let me know what you want to do.

  From: David Crutton

  To: Alex Sofroniou

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 12.18

  Subject: Re: why isn’t this bollocks sorted out yet?

  What is it with this collective decision-making? It worked for about ten minutes in post-revolutionary Russia before common sense prevailed in the shape of Stalin. It doesn’t work at all here. I’ll have to do something about it, won’t I? For now, I’ll go with the bottom one. There’s something pleasingly despotic about it.

  From: Alex Sofroniou

  To: David Crutton

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 12.23

  Subject: Re: why isn’t this bollocks sorted out yet?

  It’s called Blackmoor. I’ll action it ASAP.

  From: Neil Godley

  To: All Staff

  Sent: 5 January 2009, 12.31

  Subject: FYl

  I will not be at my workstation between 1.00 and 2.00, since I am obliged to leave the building to obtain a haircut. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by my unscheduled absence.

 

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