Whisper this, because it may undermine our sweet-natured, pure and wholesome image, but almost all PR girls smoke. Maybe not all the time, but certainly after a glass or two of wine (so just most of the time then).
Even Karoline (with a K) who can only be one small puff (cream or ciggie) away from a heart attack, will whip out the multi-coloured Balkan Sobranies (“my tribute to the ’70s, darling”) when all our clients have left the building. She’s lined up a whole ‘plain packs are perfect’ covert campaign to sell to Big Tobacco when the inevitable happens. Though as long as the name remains on the pack, Heather, our butch bookkeeper (hockey, leather trousers, you know the type) will still be able to smoke her Park Drive unfiltered.
“Why do people get so hung up on names?” asks a foodservice client (more at the Heston Services than Blumenthal end of the market), who has been forced to change his bestselling product description to lamb-flavoured curry, because, like most similar dishes sold in the UK, it doesn’t actually contain any lamb.
At least he hasn’t got the Dead Tractor logo on his pack. “Then I’d have to explain where the chicken comes from and that would just confuse people,” he says, not unreasonably. When we pitched for the scheme PR, Karoline suggested ‘Just About Legal’ as a tagline. This briefly excited Terry from the post room, who promised to help with the research until he realised what we were working on.
Just as well that there are still some cultural oases left in this sordid workaday world. Several of us P&F girls went to the opening of a new show. Christian Louboutin at the Design Museum. Sex on legs. Had to have a fag after that.
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