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label is the design. The label has to be visible -
the bigger the better."
      "That's why these
companies are diversifying - you can now buy Armani for the home, Ralph Lauren paint.
You'll soon be able to buy their food." I think of the Harvey Nichols’ coffee
and chocolates I bought the other day for Lauren's mum when we went over for lunch.
      "Everything must
have a label, otherwise we're just not interested," says Piers.
      "So 2cool2btrue.com
is a label."
      "Exactly," says
Piers. "Think of an ultra chic, upmarket website."
      "Like Armani.com?"
      "Armani.com is just
the web presence of the company."
      "Well Mercedes must
have a pretty cool site."
      "But again, it's
the just the website of a smart car company, not a smart website in its own right,"
says Piers.
      "2cool2btrue.com
will be the web equivalent of Armani, Prada, Rolls Royce, Wallpaper*," explains
Guy.
      "You'll be proud
to have it on your Favourites list."
      "Your boss will be
impressed when he sees you visiting it at work."
      "What will you sell
then? Clothes?" I ask, playing with a beer mat.
      "A whole lifestyle
experience," says Guy.
      "People will be able
to live 2cool2btrue."
      "They'll want to
live it."
      "People like you."
      "People who want
to be like you."
      "Very flattering."
I offer, mainly just to halt the tide for a second.
      "Nothing of the sort,"
says Guy, "It's just effective marketing. 2cool will be the smartest, coolest,
hippest thing in cyberspace and you will be the human face of it."
      I gaze up at a sign saying
'Bar Snacks'. 'Cod Almighty: tasty bite size cod pieces battered served with our
own tartar sauce' £3.95. Vegetable lasagne served with chips and salad. Dressing
of your choice. £4.95'
      A large screen TV is playing
American football at the back, slightly out of focus. An old man with a pint of
mild is trying to watch it, brow creased with confusion and irritation at the mystifying,
blurred images. He reaches over almost painfully to tap ash into a huge grubby plastic
ashtray emblazoned with the name of a type of lager. Pubs, when he was a lad, had
pianos, ham rolls under a glass dome and busty, blowsy landladies - not big screen
all sports cable television and Australian backpackers wearing the T shirts with
the pub's corporate owners' logo and a name badge.
      Glacial Purity. Six pounds
a bottle.

 

 
 
 
    Chapter Four

 
      "I think it sounds
like an excellent opportunity. Pass me the balsamic vinegar," says Lauren.
      "It does sound quite
exciting, doesn't it?" I do as she says. "But I'm just a bit wary - it
all seems a bit too clever, somehow."
      "That's probably
what somebody said about television - or the internet," says Lauren.
      "And half a dozen
other crack pot schemes we've never heard anything more about."
      "Oh, Charlie, this
isn't balsamic vinegar, it’s washing-up liquid."
      "Is it? Sorry. Here
you go. I am interested - just a little bit sceptical."
      "Well, nothing ventured,
nothing gained. I think this is an opportunity staring you in the face," says
Lauren, picking some basil leaves off the plant in the window sill, which is now
bathed in the low, evening sunlight. "Check it out - if the worst comes to
the worst you just go back to modelling."
      "True."
      "Anyway, I had some
interesting news today," she says, in a bashful, little girl kind of way.
      "Oh, do tell,"
I say, aware that we've been talking about me for the last half an hour.
      "We-e-e-ell, you
remember that audition tape I did for the shopping channel?"
      "Oh, yeah, did you
get it?"
      "Not that particular
one but I'm actually quite glad. That is a bit naff, I think. But anyway, they showed
it to this other producer and he thought it was great. He thought I had real screen
presence."
      "Oh, that's brilliant,"
I say, coming round from the other side of the work top where we are both cooking,
well where Lauren is cooking up dinner and I'm cocking it up.
      "He said I was,