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You have been my guardian angel this week. Thank you, precious girl.

One more job before I bid
adieu.

Two cabs please. One to take my bits and pieces home. The other to carry me to the Groucho. I am in dire need of a correctly served martini and some civilised company.

And call Celine to tell her I’ll be a little late – a meeting with David, you know the drill. Ask her to lay out my standard business
trip requisites along with the leather suit bag and the smaller Mulberry case.

That is it, you are free of me. Try your best to relax next week.

	Susi Judge-Davis – 1/7/00, 5:53pm
to:	Simon Horne
cc:
re:	taxi!

Cabs will be ten mins. Celine is briefed (I should warn you she sounded a tad frosty). And thank you, I’d love to relax next week, but I’ll be keeping my eye on this lot. I’d so hate them to let you down. I’ll miss you so . . . Sx

	Nigel Godley – 1/9/00, 2:21 pm
to:	All Departments
cc:
re:	have a break!

At last, I’ve finally capped my Bic for the weekend. Now I’m going to put my feet up in the boardroom to watch the
EastEnders
omnibus. If you’re in today, I’ll see you there. – Nige

	[email protected] 1/10/00, 4:20am (8:20am local)
to:	[email protected]
cc:
re:	DATELINE MAURITIUS: DAY 1

There we were descending into Bahrain for our stopover when I heard this pop from 16F. It was LOVE bird Linzi in a lot of pain. One of her implants had ruptured. Something to do with the air pressure. The captain had to do “is there a doctor on the flight?” – there were four and then they had a shit fight to be first to write it up for the medical rags. When we landed she was rushed to hospital. Vin was well gutted. He’d earmarked her to provide executive stress relief. Now our cast is down to five.

Got to Mauritius and things definitely started looking up. Customs pulled Horne out of the queue and found his personal pharmacy – didn’t believe they were prescription. They took him off somewhere and he turned up at the hotel six hours later, bandy as a man who’d just been strip-searched. He went straight to his suite and we haven’t seen him since. Hopefully he’ll stay there for the duration – wanker.

This place is fucking amazing, no word of a lie. Martine
McCutcheon is here – you should see her in a thong bikini – scary. Better still that French bird who was in
Betty Blue
and the old one2one ads is staying. Vin hit on her at the bar last night and she told him “go fuck yourself” with the sexiest accent you ever heard. Never seen the brush off give a bloke a hard-on.

Vin, Mel and Nathan have buggered off in a Mini Moke to look at locations. I’ve just had breakfast on my verandah (can you believe it, this place has five stars and they’ve never heard of Heinz Salad Cream). I can hear Mandi (38DD-25-36. Hobbies: aerobics, dancing, tractor pulls – no, honestly) waking up. She’s still upset about Linzi’s exploding breast and she’ll need some comforting. In the words of the awesome Jay-Z, it’s a hard knock life.

What happened to you Friday night? Did you get off with that Bosnian barmaid? Vin was so wasted he nearly didn’t make the flight. Had to put him through crash detox in the Heathrow Club lounge.

	[email protected] 1/10/00, 4:48am (8:48am local)
to:	[email protected]
cc:
re:	jobs

	David Crutton – 1/10/00, 8:22am
to:	Zoë Clarke
cc:
re:	great start

Where in fuck’s name are you? Didn’t Rachel make it clear that now you work for me your start time is 8:00am? You are no longer part of
the please-yourself hippy commune they call the Creative Department. I’m going to a meeting with our bankers now. When you finally arrive I’d advise you to spend time reflecting on your new responsibilities.

	Pinki Fallon – 1/10/00, 8:45am
to:	Creative Department
cc:
re:	new system

I’d like to try a new way of working this week. I propose a daily get-together where we can review work-in-progress in a more constructive, less confrontational way. This might lead to a greater sense of collective ownership of our ideas. The first session is at 12:30 in the boardroom. See you there. And give our new girl, Lorraine, a big smile. She’s sitting where Zoë used to be . . .