Lend me your watch and I'll tell you the time

So I'm in Svetlana's Private Bookstore and Vodka bar having a quiet afternoon when the mobile starts vibrating nineteen to the dozen. It's my manager who's just back from the accountants and he's not a happy bunny. Apparently, the Grope net worth is travelling rapidly south and he tells me to drop everything and shoot over to the PR company pdq for a meeting. So I do, leaving Svetlana waving a broom and shouting something at me in russian which I don't think was very complimentary.

When I get there, I'm ushered into the boardroom to find Quentin and an old cove in a pinstripe suit, hanky in top pocket - straight out of Jeeves and Wooster. It transpires he's a management consultant they've drafted in for a bit of emergency surgery on yours truly's failing fortunes. He starts telling me that 'we' need to realign the Grope brand bringing it closer to a higher spending demographic. As you can imagine, I glaze over at this point which is partly due Svetlana's home-brewed vodka and partly because I don't understand what the hell he's on about.

Anyway, he starts asking me a few questions about my career as a mega-star and gradually it comes out that he's a bit of guitar buff with some sort of a collection. Now this is about a snooze making as it can get because I reckon you only need one guitar at time - maybe two if you include an acoustic - and a ukelele . Half dozen stories about how he once fed Eddie Cochran's parrot or somesuch later, Svetlana's vodka's taking its toll and I 've lost the plot. In an attempt to bring things back on track, I ask what the plan is. Old Cove and Quentin start sniggering in a kind of pitying fashion at this. He starts 'dear boying' me and say that they have to perform a full feasibility study before any sort of recommendation can be made. I ask how long and he says three months.

I make my excuses and leave them to their blue sky thinking while I head for the daVinci Codebreaker for a reviving JD on the rocks. I don't know why we can't just put a few flyers on the tube but then I'm not an expert.