I was amused by Mr David Gibson’s letter, published in this magazine a couple of weeks ago, that I should produce a guide to Waitrose wines, as my knowledge of them seems to be extensive. While there is a small part of me that suggests he is being a little cheeky, I shall assume that he is actually making a genuine suggestion.
The problem is that I do not know enough about the subject to produce a whole column, let alone a guide, and my advice can be summed up in few words. That is: go for the ones on offer, and under no circumstances drink _____, which is so disgusting not even I can drink it. I happen to know a few wine writers, and not only do they agree with me on this, but there is also a general consensus that it is amazing a supermarket has the nerve to sell it. I will not name the brand for fear of legal repercussions, but you can identify it by the stylised portrait of a _____ on its label.
The main criterion is cheapness, as you might have suspected. It is time for me to start counting the pennies: the bailiffs are after me again. I can’t say I blame them; it is their job, after all, to go after the likes of me. The problem with having the bailiffs after you these days is that they don’t make it easy for you even if you want to pay up. They used to call me up at the beginning of the month and a man who sounded more like a bailiff than anyone else I have ever met in my life would ask me to read out the long number on my card. He’d get that month’s instalment out of me and, after we exchanged strained but polite mutual civilities, that would be it for another four weeks. For a few blissful months I was all paid up, but then my own incompetence and inertia reasserted themselves and I got the call from him again.
“Ah, I’ve missed our little chats,” I’d say. It didn’t really go down very well. I suppose they’ve heard it all before. So off it was again with the long card number, the expiry date, and the three digits on the back.
These days I wake up to a text threatening me with all sorts and when I call the number to try to settle the matter I am fed into an automated queuing system. I have a horror of these, and theirs are among the longer queues I’ve been in. It rather adds insult to what is already a somewhat stressful business. I used to have a dedicated mobile number for calls to Mr Bailiff during which we could whisper sweet long card numbers to each other, but no longer – and that’s progress for you.
So I’m trying to earn a bit more money these days. Helpful, as ever, are the emails I get from public relations companies alerting me to fascinating things I can write about. These used to begin, “Hi Nick! I hope you’re having a great week!” – which isn’t really the best way to get on my good side as I haven’t had a great week since 2007 – and even then, those were pretty few and far between.
But they have a new technique now and I strongly suspect the hand of AI. “Hey Nicholas,” begins Steph M from presscoveragesource.com, “I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been checking out some of your published articles, and I think that our newest release might be an excellent match for your site.” Oh, how nice! Someone’s being reading my stuff! We writers are nothing without readers. I read on. “It’s about Ibiza-inspired methods to keep your house cool.” Well, I think I wrote about being a bit sticky during a heatwave but on the whole keeping the Hove-l cool is not one of my greater worries. Also sending out such an email in September doesn’t strike me as great timing.
Then Dani K from journalistupdateforum.com got in touch. “Hey Nicholas,” began Dani, “I’ve reviewed some of your newest articles, and I think that our newest release might be a great match for your next article.” And what is their newest release? “Five surprising mistakes that could cut your dog’s life short”, as revealed by “Angelo Sorbello, an animal wellness expert and the CEO of Pet Sprint”. I actually replied to this, saying I didn’t have a dog and hadn’t written about a dog since my friend Yiannis’s dog tried to have sex with me in a pub garden. And damn nearly succeeded, too.
And then Dani from mediaviewtrends.com – the same Dani, or another one? – wrote to me thus: “Hey Nicholas, I’ve reviewed some of your published articles, and I think that our newest release could be a great match for your new article.” Tell me more, I say to myself. Here goes: “From the pool to the gym: the riskiest places for losing your engagement ring”.
My mind, as the immortal beagle (Snoopy) once said, reels with sarcastic replies, and I in fact sent one off suggesting that she was not actually a real person, that I had never written about engagement rings and had no intention of doing so.
Of course, Steph and Dani and Dani are now having the last laugh, because as it turns out their emails have proved to be a great match for my new article, and here it is, although perhaps not in the way they intended. But what can you do? You can’t fight the automated system.
[See also: A severe case of Trump-Harris-debate-itis]
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This article appears in the 25 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, All-out war