The last thing you need when you pop for a swift half after work is
to end up in the slammer.
Just ask BMP DDB's Unilever account director, Jonathan King, and the
agency's PR manager, Lucy Sterling, who had a bit of a nasty surprise
during a recent drinking session. Sterling, self-confessedly "lashed",
was with King in the none-too-salubrious Tiroler Hut. While fumbling
around for her bag, she realised she had unearthed a purse, stuffed with
£500 in cash - dodgy? Well, this was Paddington - which was not
hers. Oops.
Unfortunately this case of mistaken bag identity was only realised as
its owner came steaming over screeching for Her Majesty's finest in
blue.
Despite inebriated protestations of innocence, our luckless souls were
marched off to Paddington Green station, the infamous maximum security
terrorist hellhole. Excessive? Surely not.
Poor King and Sterling were unceremoniously dumped into cells and left
for the night - with only one telephone call allowed between being
shunted around for DNA prints and recorded interviews. And who should
Sterling use her precious call for? "I rang work to say I wouldn't be in
the next day," Sterling says, piously.
Indeed, the sanguine lady puts a brave face on the whole affair. "I did
it for the agency," she says selflessly. Hmm. What's that about all PR
being good PR?
