I’ll say ta-ta now. We’ve got a junk-food campaign to knock on the head. Hot dogs. They love them out here. And I thought it was all sheep’s eyeballs. Later we’re going for a dip in the Beckhams’ pool. No, they’re not there. Becks is still selflessly showing the idiot Yanks how to play soccer, but we made friends with their gardener and he lets us in through the back gate. Vince is under orders: however much he (bizarrely and probably uniquely) lusts after Posh, he’s not allowed to jiz in the jacuzzi.
Go with Allah
Brett
PS: How’s Lorraine? You didn’t mention her.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.35
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
You’re right, I didn’t mention her.
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.36
Subject: Sorry. Again
Are you talking to me yet?
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.39
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
I’m emailing you. Not quite same as talking, but as close as we get these days.
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.43
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Jan, if I could have done anything to avoid Rotterdam, I would have—you know my feelings on the Dutch. But account management here is such a shambles that I had no choice. I’m sorry.
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.46
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
You never have a choice, do you? With every family crisis you magically have an “urgent appointment” to flog a rickety concept to a gullible client. Yesterday I had to deal with Noah’s eyebrow trauma, declare war on Tam over her tattoo and delegate a court appearance to Corinne Tate Tait, who’ll only use it to make me look slack at the next partners’ meeting. What do I get for my troubles? A bottle of Coco from duty-free. Very nice, except it was half empty. A sampler you snatched from the spray monkey’s hand on the dash through departures?
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.49
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Have I touched a raw nerve? Mind if I poke at it some more with a salted cocktail stick by asking what’s going on?
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.53
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
I’d sooner not talk about it.
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.54
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
I will make it up to you, I promise. I’ll start by leaving tonight at 5.25. We do have to talk. About us, of course, but about Tam as well. I found something in the bathroom wastebasket when I was shaving this morning.
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.56
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
What was it? A home-piercing kit?
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 09.57
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Soz, mate. Know when to leave well alone. I’ll shut the fuck up now.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.00
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
God, you just don’t know when to leave it, do you? I’ll tell you, but after this not another word. OK?
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.01
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
OK.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.08
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
She left me. On Christmas Eve. With a 10 Ib turkey half defrosted. She went up to Manchester to see her folks, but I know she’s back in London now because she started her new job on Monday. Most of her stuff is still at mine. Don’t know what to do with it. Stuff it in bin bags and leave it on the pavement? Heap it up in the living room and weep over it?
Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: what the fuck has he gone and done now?
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.09
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Not something I particularly want to discuss in an e-mail.
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.10
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Why not? It’s never stopped you before.
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.13
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
OK, I’ll tell you. It was a pregnancy tester and it was positive.
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.14
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
You’re right. What the fuck have you gone and done now?
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.19
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Nothing, I swear. I’d been completely good since the thing with the thing. I didn’t even go to the office party this year because she had tonsillitis and I stayed home to look after her. OK, I also didn’t go because I’d reached the conclusion that, unless you’re twenty-three and are therefore stupid, office parties are crap (especially since the smoking ban). But it was mostly because of her tonsils.
Why did she do it? I’ve grown up, settled down, matured, done all the things you’re supposed to do. Why, why, why?
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.21
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Have you tried asking her?
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.22
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Her mobile’s dead. Must have a new one. Obviously doesn’t want to talk to me.
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.26
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Vince thinks you should go to where she works and tip a bucket of sheep’s blood on her workstation (something he saw on the Al Jazeera version of Springer). There might be something in it. Not the blood. The going-to-where-she-works bit. You know, just to talk to her.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.29
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
That’d make me look desperate.
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.31
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Hate to be the one to point this out, but you are desperate.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.35
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
Confession: I went yesterday morning. She works at Endemol so I had to schlep to Shepherd’s Bush. Couldn’t bring myself to go in. I just lurked on the pavement. Eventually a receptionist came out and said if I was there to audition for Big Brother 10, I should pop a video in the post. See? I obviously looked desperate.
Don’t want to talk about this anymore. What’s the weather like with you?
&n
bsp; From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.36
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Is that it? Our fifteen-year-old daughter is pregnant and you’ve got nothing to say?
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.38
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
What the fuck do you think it’s like? It’s fucking hot and fucking sunny. Look, you have to do something. I won’t mention it again, I promise, but you and Lorraine have been together eight years and you’ve been through a lot (well, she’s been through a lot) and you can’t leave it without an explanation. Vince agrees. He says you need to achieve closure. Something else he picked up on Springer AI Jazeera-style. I suspect his and Jamal Springer’s take on closure involves a public stoning, but I trust you to take a less confrontational approach.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.43
Subject: Re: Happy New Year, Rag Head
I’m taking relationship advice from a diagnosed psychotic? Think I’ll leave it be.
By the way, if/when you decide to tell Vince about Susi, don’t mention she brought Bubbles in before Christmas. She was dressed in head-to-toe Gaultier. Poor kid looked like a prostitute from Moulin Rouge Junior. Susi had also doused her in Allure, which sent out a clear scent signal to anyone within a half-mile radius on the sex offenders’ register. Made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. But what the fuck do I know about parenting? Maybe Tiny Ho is the new look from Gap Kids.
Enough. You’ve got your hot dogs and I’ve got a particularly tricky product-recall ad to do for Winter Sun instant tan. We did the packaging for it. The instructions read “leave on for 3 hours” instead of “3 minutes.” There are roaming packs of angry women out there with complexions like pickled walnuts. God knows what Ted wants. A viral? A pavement poster? The world’s first ad delivered via ESP? Certainly won’t be a nice old-fashioned quarter-page in the Mail. That would be boring, wouldn’t it?
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.47
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Are you even there, Janice?
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.52
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
I’m here. It wasn’t Tam’s pregnancy test.
From: David Crutton
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.53
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Whose was it, then?
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 10.55
Subject: Re: Sorry. Again
Well, it wasn’t Noah’s.
From: [email protected]
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.01
Subject: Your account
We regret to inform you that we have been obliged to terminate your account due to the failure of your credit card. We advise you to contact your bank as a matter of urgency to discuss the situation. We must also inform you that we cannot review this decision until you have cleared your outstanding debt, which now stands at:£26,745.02
This is an automatically generated e-mail. Please do not reply.
SafeBet.com Go on, have a punt
From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
To: All Staff
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.03
Subject: Interns?
Any interns free to clean Ted’s car?
Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
Assistant to Ted Berry
From: [email protected]
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.05
Subject: SPECIAL OFFER!
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From: Liam O’Keefe
To: All Staff
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.10
Subject: Interns?
Any interns free to kiss my arse? My self-esteem has taken a bit of a battering.
From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.17
Subject: Re: Interns?
FYI, Ted’s Cayenne is covered in mud after his orienteering trip yesterday. He has to drive to a client meeting this afternoon and it needs to be clean. Therefore the job of washing it is work-related and is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask a work-experience person to do.
Also FYI, I didn’t like your attitude when we worked together at Miller Shanks and I don’t like it anymore now. I’ll thank you not to continue sending snide all-staffers.
Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
Assistant to Ted Berry
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.23
Subject: Re: Interns?
Don’t think my e-mail mentioned Ted’s car, but since you have, why does a certified midget need one big enough to carry the entire Serbian basketball squad? Have you ever seen the Serbian basketball squad? They’re like a copse of extremely lanky elms.
Anyway, I think car-washing makes an excellent entry on any undergrad’s CV. Bound to land him/her that top job at McKinsey/Goldman Sachs/NASA. Shit, I’d do it myself if I didn’t have an important Esmée Éloge product-recall ad to do. Do you reckon Ted will be happy with a few ideas for guerrilla street happenings or is he looking for something more left field?
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Kirsten Richardson
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.25
Subject: feeling shite
You available to pick me up with a therapeutic tease? I’m thinking quick wash ‘n’ trim, but I’m happy to be your plaything.
From: Kirsten Richardson
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.28
Subject: Re: feeling shite
I’m about to do some remedial work on Ted’s split ends, but I’m free after that. About 1.00? You haven’t got much to play with, have you? No. 2 again?
From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
To: Milton Keane
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.33
Subject: Help!
Just had a really unsettling e-mail from Liam in creative. I think he was being ironic, but it’s so hard to tell. Need to discuss. Starbucks in 5?
From: Milton Keane
To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.34
Subject: Re: Help!
Cazza’s out so I’m free right now. Starbucks in 2!
From: Sally Wilton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 7 January 2009, 11.38
Subject: Office Audit
Att: inventory_jan09.xls
Dear David
I have completed the audit of office furniture and equipment that you actioned prior to Christmas. Everything is pretty much in order. We appear to be slightly over-inventorized on copiers and scanners, but otherwise OK. Stationery stocks are running at adequate levels, assuming current levels of staffing are maintained. You can view a full breakdown on the attached spreadsheet.
I did come across a couple of anomalies. A Wii console and remote, three Wii games and two leather-upholstered beanbags appear to be missing from the new Creative Romper Room. Let me know if you wish me to investigate further.
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