My Word Is My Bonus

“Pitcairn’s principal products are forforformulated for the treatment of medical problems associated with what I like to call the fer..four efs - feef...fever, faff...faff...fat,” and here George Aladyce paused momentarily, toying with vulgar impropriety as he surveyed his audience around the boardroom table of Dundas Brothers. His mischievously twinkling eyes lit for a moment on Charlotte Mulder as he continued with an innocent smile, “flatulence and fun...fun...fun...fornication.” Peter was sure that he heard Rod King, sitting next to Hennessy on the far side of the table, exhale gently with relief. George Aladyce was looking every bit the mad professor this morning, his wavy mass of snow-white hair billowing hither and thither like the fluffy cumulus clouds of an English summer’s afternoon. He was in his early fifties, a big shambolic man in the sort of grey tweedy suit that one could associate with country squires or public school headmasters but hardly with a corporate colossus. His jacket pockets bulged and gaped with their assorted contents and his trousers bagged slackly at shiny knees. His dark blue shirt and even darker blue knitted tie made barely more concession to the City environment in which he now found himself than his habitual brown suedes. Generally possessed of a voice replete with round and mellow tones, he was totally unfazed by his speech impediment. In fact he rejoiced in it rather like that old Irish cove who was really a lord of something or other and used to appear on long-gone late-night TV chat shows, telling whimsical anecdotes in a stutteringly lilting brogue. He had an occasional problem with almost any consonant but efs were his speciality. ‘Pitcairn’ itself could on occasions peep-peep-peep for ever before he got it out. Two consonants together seemed to help, unless, of course, they were ‘ph’. Thus flatulence and frigging plopped out first time without exception; but ‘pharmaceutical’ and ‘fart’ and ‘fuck’ and ‘faeces’ could fibrillate furrily fur ever. Indeed every word commencing with an eff and proceeding with a vowel was likely to hang there for such an interval that Peter had a suspicion from time to time that the opportunities for innuendo had become too amusing for George to be interested in any possible successful therapy. He was standing at the far end of the boardroom where the projection screen had been lowered from its concealed compartment in the ceiling and an oblong panel in the table had opened to reveal a projector with a carousel for 35mm slides. ‘The Four Fs’ had read the previous slide, now replaced by one which listed the offending conditions. A discerning eye might have detected that this slide did not quite match the layout of the one before. Those around the table more familiar with George’s style might then have concluded that the presentation now under way had originally been designed for audiences sufficiently robust to appreciate George’s four ‘F’s in all their original anglo-saxon magnificence.