'Cameron, Cameron,' Eddie says, looking pained at my expression and rubbing his chin with one hand. He looks tired. 'You're a good journalist; you write well, you meet deadlines and I know you've had offers to go down south with an even wider brief and extra money, and both Andrew and I give you more leeway than some people here think you deserve. But if you ask to do a Saturday special on whisky we do rather expect it to have something to do with the cratur itself, rather than read like a manifesto for Class War. It's as bad as that television piece you did last year.' (At least he hasn't mentioned the results of my little foreign trip.) He leans over and peers at the print-out. 'I mean, look at this: forcing Ernest Saunders to drink so much whisky his brain deteriorates to the "bovinely spongy state he claimed it was in at the end of the Guinness trial"; that's -'
'It was a joke!' I protest.