At 7:42pm on Tuesday 29 September, in the lobby of Dryden’s on Hill Street, Sir David Beckham was observed standing beside the cloakroom for four minutes and eleven seconds. He was not moving. He was not blinking at the rate a man of 51 should blink. He was looking at Ollie Prance, 24, an intern at the wealth management firm Carker Blythe, who was seated behind an aspidistra performing a repetitive one-handed motion. The waiter who photographed it, Marlon Cusk, 31, has since been sacked for ‘breaching the club’s discretion policy’ and has sold the picture to the Daily Mail for a sum reported as ‘enough to cover his rent until Christmas’. The Mail pixelated the hand. Sir David has not commented. Sir David never comments. Sir David’s silence is now a brand asset valued somewhere in the high eight figures, which is more than you have.
The club has a policy on this and it is laminated
Dryden’s committee met on Wednesday morning and issued a two-page statement on headed paper. Members are reminded that the lobby is a ‘place of transit and light refreshment’, not a ‘place of performance’. The statement does not mention Beckham by name. It mentions ‘a distinguished member’ four times. It mentions Ollie Prance not at all, because Prance is not a member, he is an intern, and interns at Dryden’s are permitted in the lobby only to collect documents and to be looked at. The committee has introduced a new rule: no solitary repetitive activity within sight of the cloakroom between 7pm and 8pm. The rule is printed on a laminated card and placed beside the guest book. It has been moved twice already, once by a baroness.
“The lobby is not a theatre, and the cloakroom is not a stage, and the aspidistra is not a curtain,” said Lady Fenella Quirk, Chair of the Dryden’s House Committee. “We have laminated the matter, and we consider it closed. The laminate is not to be moved.”
Carker Blythe suspends a man for following its own leaflet
Carker Blythe suspended Ollie Prance at 9:15am on Wednesday for ‘conduct likely to bring the lobby into disrepute’. At 11:40am it reinstated him. The reason for the reversal is a four-page occupational health leaflet, ‘Managing Your First Quarter’, issued to all interns in July and still available in the second-floor kitchen. Section 3, ‘Releasing Tension’, recommends a ‘discreet manual exercise’ to be performed ‘where privacy allows’. Prance was where privacy allowed. He was behind a plant. A spokesman for Carker Blythe said the firm takes the wellbeing of its interns ‘extremely seriously’ and that the leaflet will now be ‘reviewed’. The leaflet has not been withdrawn. Prance has been moved to the third floor, where there are no plants.
“We are a wealth management firm, not a nursery,” said Ms Ingrid Vole, Head of Conduct and Lobby Standards at Carker Blythe. “But we are also a firm that follows its own paperwork, which is more than can be said for the committee at Dryden’s. The young man followed the leaflet. The leaflet is now in the shredder. The shredder is on the third floor.”
A spokesman says Sir David was studying a cufflink
Ivo Trunch, speaking for Sir David, said his client had been ‘examining the mechanics of a novelty cufflink at close range in dim light’ and that the suggestion of anything else was ‘a gross intrusion into a man’s quiet appreciation of craft’. Asked why the examination lasted four minutes and eleven seconds, Mr Trunch said Sir David is ‘thorough’. Asked why Sir David did not blink, Mr Trunch said Sir David had been ‘moisturising’. DRJB Holdings, the company that paid Sir David £38.5m in dividends from World Cup advertising, told the Financial Times the matter was ‘not material to the group’s dividend policy’. The group’s dividend policy remains material. The photograph remains on the Mail’s website. Mr Trunch has since blocked three journalists and a nephew.
“Sir David is a man of focus,” said Ivo Trunch, Spokesman for Sir David Beckham. “When he looks at a cufflink, he looks at a cufflink. When he looks at a swan, he looks at a swan. When he looks at an intern, he is looking at the light. The light was dim. The intern was incidental. The cufflink was novelty. You are not.”
He walked briskly the next morning and looked at a swan
At 7am on Wednesday, Sir David Beckham was photographed in Hyde Park walking briskly towards the Serpentine. Witnesses describe a pace of roughly six kilometres an hour, which is within the recommended range. He stopped at the water’s edge and looked at a swan for two minutes and forty seconds. The swan did not look back. It is not known what the swan was doing with its wings. Sir David then walked home, past the Albert Memorial, past a man selling coffees, past everything. He has said nothing about the swan. He has said nothing about the intern. He has said nothing about the £38.5m. This is the correct response, and you should copy it. You will not.
I prescribe, for the nation, a brisk walk to the coast. Any coast. Reduce your egg intake to zero, then lower. Do not stare at anything for more than three minutes. Do not perform manual exercises behind plants, and do not watch anyone who does. If you feel the urge to comment on any of this, walk faster. If you still feel the urge, that is your own fault. I will know. I am in the lobby, medically speaking. I saw the whole thing.
