Since it was the graduate sales training manager of Edge (an Oracle acquisition) who had dragged me all the way down to London to “discuss possibilities”, he should have understood that he was obliged to turn down my offer to pay for the cost of lunch for me and my assistant. When KW weighed in and instructed me to “settle with the receptionist on the way out”, I decided that I would simply forget to do so. It was none of my business that the company had not yet made a single sale. Having invited us as their guests (who had travelled far to join them), they should have taken better care of us.

As we were leaving my assistant’s glove got caught up in the lift mechanism with my hair and we almost suffered a fatal accident.