Anyone who saw Channel 4’s excellent programme, the Complainers,
could be forgiven for watching it and identifying any number of people
in the ad industry who relish a good whinge.
It certainly seems BMP DDB has its own resident Victor Meldrew - in the
form of Dave Holmes, its joint deputy creative services director. Holmes
is in the process of having his Chiswick home renovated and has been
giving his builders a bit of a hard time over some uneven painting and
the fact his fireplace went in at a slant.
He realised that things had gone too far when friends at the agency
e-mailed him after the show to suggest that he was the Complainer.
What’s more, we heard that he turned round to one of his builders and
said: ’I don’t care whether you think it’s even, I work in an industry
where if something is just one millimetre out, the whole thing has to be
redone.’ The fireplace was then reset for the third time. Sad, really.