A New Studio

Guy moves into an interestingly-located new studio and makes another new enemy.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-fifth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London Luton Airport. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 3rd of February 2025.

We are sponsored this week by The Maywentery Golf Course. Welcoming men of all abilities since 1923. I’m delighted to report that most of Garry’s body has now been recovered. The flooding has largely subsided though the course will remain closed for the foreseeable future so that any remaining bodily fluids can be sucked up and/or given time to evaporate.  I’ve again been asked to read paragraph 7b from all members’ contracts:quote. “Force Majeure. The Member's obligation to pay all membership fees, dues and charges under this Membership Agreement shall remain in full force and effect notwithstanding any event of force majeure that may render the Golf Course, in whole or in part, unusable or inaccessible for the use and enjoyment of golf and country club activities, including, without limitation:
(i) acts of God, such as, but not limited to, fires, explosions, earthquakes, drought, tidal waves, floods, and other natural disasters;
(ii) war, hostilities (whether war be declared or not), invasion, act of foreign enemies, mobilization, requisition, or embargo;
(iii) rebellion, revolution, insurrection, or military or usurped power, or civil war;
(iv) contamination by radio activity from any nuclear fuel, or from any nuclear waste from the combustion of nuclear fuel, radio-active toxic explosive, or other hazardous properties of any explosive nuclear assembly or nuclear component of such assembly;
(v) riot, commotion, strikes, go slows, lock outs or disorder, unless solely restricted to employees of the Club;
(vi) acts or threats of terrorism; and
(vii) any other events or circumstances beyond the reasonable control of the Club, including, but not limited to, inclement weather, natural disasters, acts of governmental authorities, and widespread disease, epidemic or pandemic.

In the event any such force majeure occurrence renders the Golf Course and Club Facilities unusable in whole or in part, the Member shall not be entitled to any refund or abatement of membership fees, dues or charges. The Member's obligation to pay such amounts when due shall remain absolute and unconditional, without any right of set-off, counterclaim, abatement, suspension, deduction or defense for any reason whatsoever, including by reason of any such force majeure event. End quote. That’s a very long paragraph, I’m sorry.

The clubhouse also remains closed, and unfortunately the vending machine near the entrance was stolen at some point on Thursday night, presumably by a disgruntled member with access to a crane.

[Plane taking off]

I’m so sorry about the background noise.

I spoke last week of Ross Manley, the late Chief Colour Officer at Carpet Culture. His fragile little widow, Mrs. Manley, has been in touch, and it’s probably only fair that I read her substantive points out in full, quote:
Ross was not estranged from his family;
Ross was very much looking forward to retirement. The insinuation that he died because of his retirement was wilfully misleading;
Ross’s family and close friends wore black to the funeral. His colleagues from Carpet Culture were the only ones to attend the funeral in bright colours, and this was disrespectful;
Ross was not a weak man; and
Ross wore prescription glasses for reading but otherwise his eyesight was perfectly fine, as were his instincts. End quote. 

We might have to agree to disagree on that last point Mrs. Manley, especially given rumours about how his elderly assailant was able to sneak up on him like that. I am more than happy to put on record that Ross was brutally murdered by somebody on the allotment waiting list - apparently this is quite common in city allotments throughout England given the high demand and low supply of plots, not to mention the abundance of weapons from spades and hoes, to trowels and pitchforks  - and so whilst it is true that had he been at work that Monday his torso almost certainly wouldn’t have been repeatedly punctured with the unknown tool which led to his demise bleeding amongst his beloved vegetables, I do accept that Ross’s retirement, arguably, did not directly cause his death.

But let’s not argue and with respect, Mrs. Manley, you didn’t have to work with Ross during his final years at Carpet Culture. His instincts were catastrophic. During my internship I shadowed the CEO, Michael Pollard, who is now a very good friend of mine. I attended Board Meetings to contribute to carpet strategy and take notes and I can tell you that Ross was a liability. If I may read verbatim from notes I personally took at the meeting on Wednesday April 5 2023, under any other business: [quote Mr. Manley, interrupting, agitated, ]: we have to put carpets in all office bathrooms immediately and tackle the stigma of bathroom carpeting via advertising and social media. It has to be the number one priority for this company or we will not survive. I am an apricot. End quotation. Mr. Manley was speaking way beyond his remit here, I’m afraid, a Chief Colour Officer should not be involved in this type of decision. You’re talking here about a company with carpet revenues in the tens of millions, facing challenges from all sorts of cheap foreign flooring alternatives. I’m sure this was only because of his decades of service to Carpet Culture, but he got his way and carpets were fitted into the bathrooms at the St. Albans HQ, though not other offices, thankfully. And Mr. Manley’s suggestion of urine green colour was vetoed. Carpets are a wonderful thing, but there are a host of hygienic reasons for them not to be used in bathrooms, from spills and splashes and other bodily remnants to issues with humidity and mold. There are rumours that Mr. Manley’s retirement was less than voluntary, shall we say, and I’m sorry to say that I witnessed more than enough behaviour from Mr. Manley just during my few months that warranted his removal.

Today is a momentous day for The Undercover Intern podcast. I speak to you from our new studio which as you can probably hear is really very close to the action at London Luton Airport. We are in fact located in a hut just off to the south of the runway, almost exactly in the center as it goes east to west. I think that this is the second time in the past few weeks that I’ve been late to my own podcast but this time it’s owing to factors very much beyond my control. I did not know, for example, that I would have to go through security to get to the studio. They gave me a yellow visibility jacket but I still had to basically run parallel to the runway in the dark for a mile to get here. Let me tell you, it’s a special category of fear when an easyJet Airbus A320 roars past you on its take-off for Amsterdam. I swear I could have reached out and touched it. I’m not sure if any regular listeners were on that flight but no you were not hallucinating if you just saw your favourite podcast host dive to the ground in fear. From a safety perspective, I cannot believe a studio has been built here, quite honestly. I had to actually cross the runway to get to the studio, and again, why is this allowed to happen? It’s not like crossing a road, you know? It’s like crossing about twenty roads at once. Those planes come so quickly too, and it’s hard to tell if it’s a small plane that’s really close or a massive jumbo that’s a safe distance away. Anyway, I’m here now, and thirsty because they confiscated my water at security. The studio itself is lovely, I have to say. But its location leaves an awful lot to be desired.

I know I’m going to get emails about this episode, and we keep getting sidetracked. I just had no time to prepare again, and I’m very sorry. You deserve better, dear listeners. Mrs. Manley is at least partly to blame. Just let it go, dear.

Next week we’ll have a special guest in the studio to talk about the rise of artificial intelligence, and its implications for internships.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. Legal support from Michael Webb and Accountancy from Graham Cree. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.