Our latest unpaid intern Persephone (but dim), is one of the growing band of delicate souls who have an allergy. We know this because we got her to help with the launch of our ‘Nutters are normal’ generic campaign. Slightly non-PC, I admit, but designed to demonstrate that nut-lovers aren’t sandal-wearing weirdos and thus boost sales. Anyway, as the giant peanut butter fountain splutters into life in Trafalgar Square for the photo op, Perse almost literally explodes. On-the-spot resignations have rarely been messier.

Our new girl Elysée (even dimmer and so named, she tells us proudly over coffee on her first morning, because she was “conceived under the table at London’s oldest Greek restaurant”) has thus been drafted in to help with the Austrian wines pitch. Apparently sales have soared by 53% in the past year, which must mean they sold over half a bottle more. We’ve designed a whole integrated campaign using the slogan ’Austrian wine, More Than You Bargained For’ “so we’ll see how that goes down with the strudel-munchers”, barks Karoline (with a K), seemingly oblivious to past scandals. More worryingly, K is convinced our clients should mimic Rowse honey and use irrelevant comparisons to demonstrate success. That it sells more than Marmite is like saying it’s bigger than pork scratchings. So far, though, we haven’t found anything that our clients outsell.

Meanwhile, it’s day eight of the great goats cheese shortage. Rioting has so far been confined to Crouch End, but there’s a fear it could spread as far as my Hampstead flat, so I’ve stocked up with dry white wine in case I can’t get out to the offie (Austrian? Certainly not at £9.95 a bottle). Bottoms up and man the barricades.

Topics