To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 10.50
Subject: Re: Sighting
It’s for your own good.
From: Kazu Makino
To: Bill Geddes
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.01
Subject: Donald
Just got a very panicky text from him. I think he’s a bit drunk. He’s about to take off and I’m worried. Anything we can do?
From: Bill Geddes
To: Kazu Makino
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.04
Subject: Re: Donald
Nothing I can think of. What’s the flight time to Rio?
From: Kazu Makino
To: Bill Geddes
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.06
Subject: Re: Donald
13 hours.
From: Bill Geddes
To: Kazu Makino
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.09
Subject: Re: Donald
Cross your fingers and hope.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.13
Subject: Re: Sighting
From: Harvey Harvey
To: Comfort Ajegbo
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.19
Subject: Are you OK?
Hello Comfort
It’s been nearly a week since I sent you my bank details and I haven’t heard from you. Also, my credit card was refused when I tried to top up my Tube card this morning. Could your late father’s evil associates somehow have tampered with the account? Or with my Tube card? To be honest, I’m really worried. I’ve been scouring the internet for news, but I haven’t found anything. My mum says no news is good news, and I hope she’s right. Please write soon and let me know that you’re all right.
Harvey Harvey
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.22
Subject: Re: Sighting
Fucking Ada. Bit late to suggest you sit down and come up with a sensible budget plan. One thing strikes me: what are you doing with a John Lewis store card?
I could advance you a bit. Maybe 5k, but it’s not going to help much. I think you need to look into clearing the lot with a consolidated loan.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.26
Subject: Re: Sighting
I’m thirty-seven. I felt it was the right time of life to get a John Lewis account. It’s a rite of passage. And their curtain fabrics are excellent.
Took out a consolidated loan last year—just before credit totally crunched. Did I not mention it? £50,000. The monthly repayments are mental.
From: Brett Topolski
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.30
Subject: Re: Sighting
Four options:1. Declare bankruptcy.
2. Leave clothes in pile on Brighton Beach and swim for your life.
3. Get part-time work—bar, call center, etc. It’ll have to pay about £375/hour though.
4. Vince reckons he knows people who could give you some freelance, but I suspect it involves flying to bad places and swallowing condoms full of smack.
Soz, mate, but you’re fucked.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.34
Subject: Re: Sighting
Don’t I know it? Just got bits and bobs from eBay coming in— beer money really. Only reason I’m not at home in bed right now is that I’ve a feeling the bailiffs might tip up today.
From: Neil Godley
To: Sally Wilton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.39
Subject: Stationery supplies
I am extremely nervous of bringing this to your attention, given the rough treatment I had at the hands of the police the last time I reported a theft. However, I feel duty bound, whatever the personal consequences.
A few minutes ago I went to the basement stationery cupboard to stock up on green and buff folders and found it completely empty. Not so much as a bottle of Wite-Out! Clearly there is a hardened criminal at work in the building, Sally, and all efforts must be made to bring him/her to justice.
Neil Godley (Accounts)
From: Sally Wilton
To: David Crutton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.48
Subject: Theft
Can you come to the basement stationery store ASAP? What you will see makes a watertight case for the type of security measures I have long been arguing for.
From: Milton Keane
To: Dotty Podidra
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.49
Subject: Lattes all round!
Free to join me and Sooz in Starbucks? I’m going to do the big reveal. Off with the bandage to unveil the new improved, 25% more macho Milton!
From: Dotty Podidra
To: Milton Keane
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.51
Subject: Re: Lattes all round!
Love to, but have to escort DC down to basement. Honestly, what am I? His blinking guide dog?
From: Ted Berry
To: Liam O’Keefe, Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 11.57
Subject: Vodka trip
As my new top team, how do you fancy joining Bill Geddes and me on the plane to Holland tomorrow? We’re off to visit the Ketel One distillery in Schiedam. All the vodka we can drink, I suspect. The only downside is we have to do some bollock-stomping advertising in return. Lemme know how you’re fixed. And if you’re good, I’ll take you sand yachting on the beach at Scheveningen.
From: Bill Geddes
To: Kazu Makino
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.09
Subject: Re: Donald
Any word?
From: Kazu Makino
To: Bill Geddes
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.13
Subject: Re: Donald
He’s only been airborne for 45 minutes. I’ve been checking the news sites. No reports of air rage/forced landings.
From: Bill Geddes
To: Kazu Makino
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.15
Subject: Re: Donald
Yet.
From: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
To: Dotty Podidra
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.35
Subject: What have I done?
Milton looks like some dreadful East End boxer. His nose is as flat as a pancake with a bulbous bump at the bottom. Even when the bruising goes down, he’s going to look horrendous. He thinks it looks great, but he’s still on sedatives and I think he’s delusional. He’ll never get on BB now. His whole look is completely camera-unfriendly. He’ll kill me when he realizes I’ve shattered his dreams!!
From: Dotty Podidra
To: Susi Judge-Davis-Gaultier
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.37
Subject: Re: What have I done?
Have to write a scary e for DC. We’ll get together over lunch and I’ll take a look at Milton. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.
From: David Crutton
To: All Staff
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.41
Subject: Come in, you thieving bastard, your time is up
I’m prepared to turn a blind eye to the traditional theft of paperclips and HB pencils, but this has gone beyond a joke. The basement stationery cupboard is barer than Old Mother Hubbard’s and I am officially livid. I WILL catch the thief, even if it means making each and every one of you overpaid, underemployed twats undergo lie-detector tests/waterboarding.
Be very afraid, you light-fingered toe rag because I will have your bollocks/tits in a mangle.
From: David Crutton
To: Sally Wilton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.44
Subject: Bringing this investigation to a speedy and successful conclusion
I’d like you to look into the possibility of performing CIA-style rendition of certai
n key suspects to former Soviet Bloc nations, where investigative techniques are less beholden to our flabby
Western concepts of civil liberties. I’m sure we could dress it up as “essential business travel.”
From: Dotty Podidra
To: Paula Sterling
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.47
Subject: Padded cell for two!!
OMG, you should see the last two e-mails DC made me type. He’s completely lost it too. Think him and JC must be having a competition to see who can turn into the maddest fascist crackpot!!
From: Zlatan Kovaćević
To: David Crutton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.48
Subject: Re: Come in, you thieving bastard, your time is up
I know certain people who will be of use in this difficult occasion. I can arrange them to come in today. If you give them office for their use, I guarantee to you that they will have a name for the thief by the end of week. The only thing they will ask in return is for you to use your very great influences to make International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to drop certain outstanding warrants of arrest.
From: Róisín O’Hooligan
To: David Crutton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.49
Subject: Re: Come in, you thieving bastard, your time is up
Probably not the best moment to tell you that the Arsenal/W. Ham tickets only just delivered by Ticketmaster have gone walkabout from the front desk. And before you have a go at me, I know my legal entitlements to toilet breaks.
Róisín
Reception
From: Dotty Podidra
To: Sally Wilton
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.54
Subject: “accident”
Could you get your bucket-and-mop guy up here again? Glass and coffee grounds everywhere. I think he was aiming for the kentia palm, but double vision meant he got my workstation.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 20 January 2009, 12.55
Subject: Crutton is back!
He fell off a rock wall last week. Reckon the knock on the head did him the power of good because he is once again at his splenetic finest. Suddenly everything seems right in the world.
eBay.co.uk
Stationery Cupboard
Item specifics: complete contents of stationery cupboard. Former property of cutting-edge London media company, so well stocked with “trendy” items such as acetate pads, heart-shaped Post-its, Magic Markers and handmade Japanese papers. Also included: usual mundane stuff—Wite-Out, staples and such like—as well as a full stock of toilet supplies. Would suit ambitious media start-up. Or small branch of Ryman.
eBay.co.uk
Premiership Tickets
Item specifics: Arsenal vs. West Ham United, Emirates Stadium, 31 January. 4 tickets, upper tier, West Stand. Face value £48 each. Would suit committed Arsenal fan, slightly suicidal West Ham fan or corporate tosspot who wants to impress clients with his willingness to “get down and dirty” with hardcore home support.
From: Sally Wilton
To: All Staff
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.03
Subject: Resource-saving ideas
Until the stationery cupboard is restocked, it is important that we all muck in to make sure our existing supplies last for as long as possible. To this end, here are some handy tips:1. Reuse envelopes. You can make your own attractive and “branded” address labels out of compliment slips.
2. Each time you reach for your stapler, ask yourself, could a reusable paperclip adequately do the same job?
3. Creatives, do your layouts really need to be so big? With careful planning, you can fit up to twenty-four “ideas” onto a single sheet of A2.
4. Creatives, is that “idea” actually any good? Honestly, most of what you do is uninspired and/or unoriginal and committing it to paper will merely serve to make you look “busy.” Go on, be tough on yourselves and only draw up the absolute “gems.”
5. Print out letters and documents on both sides of the paper.
6. And since lavatory supplies have also gone missing, please use both sides of the toilet paper.
7. Soap and paper towels are also in extremely short supply. Ask yourself: do I really need to wash my hands? As a rule, ablutions are only essential after No. 2s.
Who knows, perhaps this period of enforced austerity will cultivate long-term habits of frugality that will save both company money and the precious resources of the planet! Thank you for your cooperation.
From: Comfort Ajegbo
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.06
Subject: Re: Are you OK?
I am so glad you write to me, Harvey Harvey, because everything is not OK here. I am encountering trouble arranging the transfer of funds into your account. My contact at FirstBank of Nigeria pic is insisting on dotting all the Ts and he is demanding that you turn up in person to vouch for the veracity of your banking arrangements. I know I have asked much of you already and it is beyond all reasonableness to expect you to undertake such a journey, but I am a forlorn and pitiful woman and you are my one and only hope in this world.
I will naturally understand if you say no to my request and I will place my fate in the hands of God, who is great and ineffable in His wisdom.
Yours in hope,
Comfort Ajegbo
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Brett Topolski
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.08
Subject: Going Dutch
MMT is taking me on a vodka trip to Holland tomorrow. Reckon I might stay there, blend in with the potheads, lie low for a bit. Ten years should do it. Situation getting distinctly hairy around here.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.12
Subject: Vodka trip
I know we’re now officially Ted’s Top Team, but let’s get a few things straight before we head for Holland.
1. I am not sharing a room with you.
2. If there’s any opportunity for R&R, I expect you to find your own entertainment. Actually, I think it’s best if you stay put in your hotel room. The “pleasures” of Holland don’t suit the mentally “fragile.”
3. If you have any bright ideas for vodka campaigns, best you run them by me first. I’ll vet them for Ted-friendliness /general sanity.
4. Bagsy first on the sand yacht.
From: Harvey Harvey
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.13
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
Thanks for the tips, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to Holland. I have to fly to Nigeria ASAP.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.17
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
If I hadn’t intervened with Ted last week, you’d be jobless right now. If you piss off now to Darkest Africa, I’d say you’re doomed. By the way, why are you pissing off to Darkest Africa?
From: Harvey Harvey
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.22
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
It’s a life-or-death situation. A Nigerian woman got in touch with me and she’ll most likely die if I don’t help her.
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.24
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
Don’t tell me, she’s a young heiress who’s promised you a significant wedge of her inheritance if you provide her with your bank details.
From: Harvey Harvey
To: Liam O’Keefe
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.27
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
Unbelievable! Have you had an e-mail from her as well?
From: Liam O’Keefe
To: Harvey Harvey
Sent: 20 January 2009, 13.30
Subject: Re: Vodka trip
&nb
sp; Everyone’s had an e-mail from her or someone very like her. It’s a fucking scam, you muppet.
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