I’ve spent four hundred quid too much. No wonder she was so keen.
As I close down the computer, I’m absolutely seething. I was right the first time. Bartering’s a stupid, rubbish system and there was a reason it went out of fashion and I’m never doing it again, ever. What’s wrong with money?
D R J AMES L INFOOT
36 H ARLEY S TREET
L ONDON W1
Rebecca Brandon
The Pines
43 Elton Street
Oxshott
Surrey
17 February 2006
Dear Rebecca
Thank you for your letter of 15 February.
I am indeed a specialist in the heart and lungs and was sorry to hear of your symptoms. However, I think it unlikely they have been brought about by ‘shopping cold turkey’.
I do not agree that it is imperative that you ‘buy a few little things for the sake of your health’. Nor can I issue you with a ‘prescription to go shopping’.
I suggest you visit your local GP if symptoms persist.
Kind regards
James Linfoot
CENTRAL DEPARTMENTAL UNIT
FOR MONETARY POLICY
5th Floor
180 Whitehall Place
London SW1
Ms Rebecca Brandon
The Pines
43 Elton Road
Oxshott
Surrey
20 February 2006
Dear Rebecca
Thank you for your letter of 16 February.
I can understand your unhappiness at your unfortunate recent bartering experience. I will indeed, if I get the chance, warn the Chancellor that ‘bartering is not the way to go after all’. Please do not worry: he has not already embarked on ‘swapping all our stuff with France’s’.
If it is any consolation, the inefficiencies of illiquid financial instruments have always been a source of frustration to investors. Coincidentally, I am currently writing a paper entitled ‘A History of the Valuation and Pricing of Illiquid Investments since 1600’ for The British Journal of Monetary Economics. With your permission, I would like to use your example of bartering disappointment as anecdotal ‘flavour’. I will, of course, credit you in a footnote if you so wish.
Yours sincerely
Edwin Tredwell
Director of Policy Research
ALARIS PUBLICATIONS LTD
PO Box 45
London E16 4JK
Ms Rebecca Brandon
The Pines
43 Elton Road
Oxshott
Surrey
27 February 2006
Dear Rebecca
Thank you for your demo CD: ‘Becky’s Inspirational Speeches’, which we have listened to. They were certainly very lively and some of the anecdotes most amusing.
You assert that your ‘profound and spiritual message comes across loud and clear’. Unfortunately, after several careful listens, we were unable to detect exactly what that message was. Indeed, there seemed to be several messages in your text – some contradicting the others.
We will not therefore be releasing a twelve-part set and advertising it on the TV, as you suggest.
Yours truly
Celia Hereford
Director (Mind-Body-Spirit)
ELEVEN
It’s happening. It’s actually, definitely happening. The party invitations have gone out! No turning back now.
Bonnie emailed the final guest list over yesterday, to my secret-party email account. As I ran my eye down it, I suddenly felt a bit nervous. I’d forgotten how well connected Luke is. Some really important, grown-up people have been invited, like the chairman of Foreland Investments and the whole board of the Bank of London. There’s even someone called the Right Reverend St John Gardner-Stone, who sounds petrifying and I can’t believe he was ever a friend of Luke’s. (I quickly Googled him – and when I saw his massive bushy beard, I believed it even less.)
Two hundred important people coming for a party. And I don’t have a marquee yet. No one else responded to my barter ad, and there’s no way I can afford one from a posh hire company. My stomach clenches with anxiety every time I think about it. But I have to stay positive. I’ll get one somehow. I just have to. And I’ve got the canapés and the pound-shop table confetti and I’ve made forty pom-poms already …
Could I make a marquee? Out of shopping bags?
I have a sudden vision of a perfect patchwork marquee, with hundreds of designer names shining all over it …
No. Let’s be realistic. Pom-poms is my limit.
On the plus side, my latest fab plan is to get the party sponsored. I’ve written loads of letters to the marketing directors of companies like Dom Perignon and Bacardi, telling them what a great opportunity it will be for them to become involved with such a glitzy, high-profile event. If just a few of them send us some free stuff, we’ll be sorted. (And obviously I’ve sworn them to secrecy. If any of them blab, they’re dead.)