To: Beverly Crutton, Sarah Franks, Geraldine Crutton and 17 others ...
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.03
Subject: The Crutton Chronicles, Volume 9 [continued]
Now to news of my two (almost) grown-up children. Noah was thrilled with his A-level results, as were we, though they weren’t quite enough to get him into his first choice of Hull. With typical good sense he is taking stock with a gap year. In case you feel you’ve missed his e-mail bulletins from various Thai internet cafés, that’s because he hasn’t yet departed! He is still poring over the maps, determined to make his the best-planned tour of South East Asia conceivable. David and I can only admire his diligence.
[saved as draft]
From: Janice Crutton
To: Noah Crutton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.08
Subject: We leave at dawn TOMORROW
You’ll still be asleep when I go out, but I expect you to have packed some clothes by the time I return (roughly 5.45). Clean or dirty, I’m past caring, but you will need clothes. You can’t go the whole Christmas holiday with one Slayer T-shirt and the jeans you’ve been wearing for the past three months.
It’s only a small task, and I shouldn’t have to nag, but I know how long these things can take you. And yes, I appreciate how exhausted you are—sixteen hours of sleep a day can take it out of a man—but you are running out of time. WE LEAVE AT DAWN.
Mum x
PS: I’ve left a bowl of Oatso Simple in the microwave. You just have to press Start. Remember it isn’t ready until you hear a “ping.” Remember also to remove Clingfilm before eating.
From: David Crutton
To: Dotty Podidra
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.09
Subject: Gift list
I’ve signed off your gift suggestions for Janice. It’s ready for you to collect and process.
From: Dotty Podidra
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.11
Subject: Interns
Any interns free to do last-minute Christmas shopping for David? Totally adorable shops like Liberty, Mulberry and Smythson of Bond Street, so don’t all rush at once!
Dotty Podidra
Assistant to David Crutton
From: Neil Godley
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.12
Subject: Christ is born!
Then the Lord said unto me,
“The prophets are prophecying lies in my name.
I have not sent them or appointed them or
spoken to them.
They are prophesying to you false visions,
divinations, idolatries
and the delusions of their own minds.”
No foreign MUMBO JUMBO! All carols sung in GOD’S ENGLISH!
From: Nigel Godley
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.14
Subject: Come praise Him!
The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.
The Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath.
All TRUE believers welcome. Promise of genuine MIRACLES. The blind WILL see and the lame WILL walk!!
From: Neil Godley
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.17
Subject: Christ is born!
You serpents, you brood of vipers,
how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Any BLASPHEMERS, HERETICS and SATANISTS who bear witness at the lunchtime service of so-called worship will NOT be welcome at the evening carol program. You WILL spend ETERNITY in FIERY DAMNATION.
From: Nigel Godley
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.19
Subject: Christ is born!
Now the men of Sodom were wicked
and were sinning greatly against the Lord.
(Sodomite Vicars + Lesbian Priestesses) - Moral Bearings = Church of England
From: David Crutton
To: Sally Wilton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.22
Subject: That’s it, I’ve had enough
I want the basement chapel shut immediately. Tell the Creative Department they can have their ball pit back. Or you can use it for stationery. Or as an animal-rescue shelter. Or as a dorm to accommodate the dozen interns we seem to have on our books at any one time. I really don’t care, so long as the Moral Minority no longer has access. I’ll probably go to hell for this, but I suspect I was heading in that direction anyway.
PS: Now I think about it, why do we have a dozen interns on our books at any one time? Are they really necessary? There must be a limit to the amount of menial bollocks a company the size of ours can find for them. Or are they part of some ongoing people-trafficking scam, and should I therefore keep my trap shut?
From: Neil Godley
To: David Crutton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.23
Subject: N Godley
Dear Mr. Crutton
I find that I can no longer work with Nigel Godley, my so-called colleague. His persistent insults aimed at my sincerely held religious convictions have become unacceptably offensive. Unless you are prepared to “let him go,” I will be obliged to tender my resignation.
Yours sincerely
Neil Godley (Accounts)
From: Nigel Godley
To: David Crutton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.23
Subject: N Godley
Dear Mr. Crutton
The situation with my so-called colleague, Neil Godley, has become untenable. His deliberate and repeated slurs on my deeply held religious beliefs are causing me unbearable stress. Unless you are prepared to “let him go,” I will have no other choice than to offer my resignation.
Yours sincerely
Nigel Godley (Accounts)
From: David Crutton
To: Sally Wilton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.24
Subject: Rethink
Scrub my last e-mail. The Godley situation appears to have resolved itself.
From: David Crutton
To: Neil Godley
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.25
Subject: Re: N Godley
Dear Mr. Godley,
Due to restrictions imposed by various labour statutes, I am unable to dismiss your brother. With great regret, I therefore accept your resignation.
Your sincerely,
From: David Crutton
To: Nigel Godley
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.26
Subject: Re: N Godley
Dear Mr. Godley,
Due to restrictions imposed by various labour statutes, I am unable to dismiss your brother. With great regret, I therefore accept your resignation.
Yours sincerely,
From: Janice Crutton
To: Beverly Crutton, Sarah Franks, Geraldine Crutton and 17 others ...
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.27
Subject: The Crutton Chronicles, Volume 9 [continued]
David and I are so proud of Tamara. Unlike so many of her peers, she has reconnected with the true meaning of Christmas. She has given up much of her holiday to work (unpaid!) at a center in Walton-on-Thames for victims of this devastating recession-mostly former employees of Woolworth and Lehman Brothers. As I write, she is retraining one-time pick ‘n’ mix assistants and investment bankers as call-center workers. Honestly, if Petra Rosebud grows up to become half the fine young woman her sister is, I will consider my life to have been a complete success!
[saved as draft]
From: Milton Keane
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.33
Subject: I feel like Romford tonite!!!
Att: dreemzz.pdf
Hello old friends and former workmates!! You’ll be thrilled to learn that I’m making an exclusive personal appearance tonight at DREEMZZ, “Romford’s second most popular nite spot” (see attached flyer for details). I’ll be performing “Razzle Dazzle” (as seen on BB10) and signing my new book, St
raight from the Heart—My Fabulous Un-gay Life! Would love all my old friends to be there. But do come early. It’s going to be absolutely rammed!!
Important note: despite the theme of the evening, I am appearing purely in my capacity as a popular CELEBRITY (245th on Heat’s Most Wanted) and not because I am in ANY WAY gay.
See you there, ravers!
From: Milton Keane
To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier, Dotty Podidra
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.36
Subject: Cry for help
You have GOT to come tonight, girlfriends. They’ve only sold 15 tickets. Obviously there’re no queers in Essex. What the heck was my rubbish agent thinking? There’ll be tumbleweed blowing across the stage when I do my number!! Save my life. Please, please, please, please, please come!!!!
From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
To: All Staff
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.44
Subject: Interns
Is there an intern free to take Ted’s crampons to the “honer?”
From: Kazu Makino
To: Donald Gold, Bill Geddes
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.46
Subject:
Plane (not Air Force 1) gets in tomorrow at 7.30am. I’ve promised my mum I’ll meet her in Home Ware at M&S for a mind-numbing Christmas-present splurge. Managed to negotiate myself a 90-minute lunch furlough before she drags me back to Suburban Family Hell (AKA Surrey). Fancy hooking up for a bite? I have bribes: White House china. Only a few items, but over time and with enough trips home, I can build it up to a complete dinner service.
Kazu Makino
Special Advisor to the First Lady on the Environment, Foreign Affairs and Shoes
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington
DC 20500
From: Harvey Harvey
To: Liam OKeefe
Sent: 22 December 2009, 11.48
Subject:
Hi Liam. I’m very nervous about tomorrow. Have you got the rings yet? And my psychiatrist is coming. He wanted to be my best man because we do go back such a long way, so he might be a bit funny with you. Also, Comfort wants to know if Lorraine will be happy wearing a traditional Nigerian bridesmaid’s dress.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.03
Subject: Re:
No, Harvey, let me explain. Again. *You* buy the rings. My job as best man is simply to look after them for you. Don’t worry about your shrink. I’ve got some top psychiatry jokes in my speech that will put him at ease. And Lorraine will wear pretty much anything, so long as it doesn’t involve peepholes.
From: Donald Gold
To: Kazu Makino
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.05
Subject: Re:
Hooray!! Lunch with my heroine, Kaz! I’ll get us into the Ivy. They’ll surely bump some no-name Britain’s Got Talent reject for a member of the First Lady’s personal staff. Hurry up and get here.
Don xxx
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Creative Department
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.18
Subject: The Big Night Out
As if I need to remind you, I’m hosting Double H’s Literal Stag Do tonight. Tailored to his highly specific brief, here is the evening’s thrilling itinerary:
NB1: No shooting, garrotting, cudgeling or otherwise harming the deer, Zlatan. They belong to the Queen, and she will have you beheaded. She still blames your lot for kicking off WW1 and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
NB2: Unless one happens to be taking a shortcut through the park on her way home after a hard night’s writhing to music at Spearmint Rhino, we will see no strippers tonight.
It’s going to be an educational blast, people. Personally I can’t wait.
Liam
marquee.co.uk
Working Title unveils plans for
Dordogne movie
Working Title has announced that its adaptation of the runaway bestseller Dordogne Twilight will begin principal photography in spring 2010. Russell T. Grant has completed a script that Tim Bevan, the company’s co-chairman, has described as “Jean de Florette meets Naked Gun.”
Gérard Depardieu has been cast in the role of Papin and Helen Mirren will play Celine. The starring role has gone to Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan said: “I have spent my career playing basically decent, heroic types, so it’ll be an exciting challenge to inhabit the skin of a gross, narcissistic and utterly delusional fuckhead.”
From: Janice Crutton
To: Beverly Crutton, Sarah Franks, Geraldine Crutton and 17 others ...
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.21
Subject: The Crutton Chronicles, Volume 9 [continued]
Last and least, me! I’m near the end of my maternity leave, so after Christmas I’ll focus on recruiting a nanny. Hopefully there won’t be a repeat of the Tamara experience when her first word was something that would get you imprisoned in the Philippines! Ideally I’d like a nice French girl so that Petra Rosebud has a head start on a useful second language. Seriously, many of the tots round here are fully bi- and even tri-lingual by the time they get to nursery! I suspect, though, that I’ll have to pay a premium for French and will end up with Czech. C’est la vie, as they don’t say in Brno! And then it’s back to work, where I suspect the Crossrail negotiations are exactly where I left them four months ago.
One piece of sad news. After 18 years and about 5,000 sacks of lams, Courtney passed away in October.
I’ve attached a pic of the four of us (plus my bump) on our recession-conscious holiday in Devon. Strangely, apart from the rain and the stodgy food, it was exactly like Tuscany—full of London lawyers and media types!
That’s all from us. I hope you’re all well. And I wish you wonderful Christmases and moderately prosperous New Years.
All our love,
Janice, David, Noah, Tamara & Petra Rosebud xxxxx
From: Pertti Van Helden
To: Janice Crutton
Sent: 22 December 2009. 12.22
Subject:
Christmas is comed and the gooses is getting stuffed! I very exciting about your imminating arrival. I invite the whole thirty-seven of the Van Helden extending family to join for a Christmas Eve feasting to celebrate the present of my top English friends. Tell to David also that I arrange the special journey to Ivalo. I make appointment for doctor which marinade him in the reindeer shits. It is treatment to make miracle cure of scars in the face and also hand areas. I have one thing I must ask. Is Tamara the normal teenager liking the dancing? If you tell me yes I am arrange her go tanhukurssi. It is the special course to make dance in the Finland folk style.
I have make many of the incredulous plans for your trip and I am explosive with the thrillingness.
Pertti Van Helden
TheHeroicHerring.com
From: Janice Crutton
To: David Crutton
Cc: Dotty Podidra
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.26
Subject: Final warning
You have four minutes to get out of the office.
Dotty, please remind him about the Sudocrem. And have a lovely Christmas.
From: Dotty Podidra
To: David Crutton
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.27
Subject: Janice
Just checking you saw her e-mail?
From: David Crutton
To: Dotty Podidra
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.28
Subject: Re: Janice
I fucking saw it. Putting my fucking coat on. Happy fucking Christmas to you too.
From: Janice Crutton
To: Pertti Van Helden
Sent: 22 December 2009, 12.33
Subject: Re:
We’re thrilled to be coming too, Pertti. David especially can’t wait to see you again, having had a super time with you recuperating from his injuries. Noah, too, is looking forward to seeing Veiko again. He tells me he
has learned all the chords to “Nuns with Clocks” (have I got that right?!). Even Petra Rosebud seems thrilled at the prospect of flying to Finland for her very first Christmas.
I won’t tell David about the wonderful therapy you’ve lined up. He’s excited enough already and I don’t want to thrilled him! And yes, Tam likes nothing more than to dance the night away. Book her in.
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