-
Dr. Alfred Jones: Did you get my email?
Bernard Sugden: Yes. What did it say?
Dr. Alfred Jones: Took the meeting. Waste of time as predicted. Now if you don't mind I'll get back to my work.
Bernard Sugden: Dr. Jones.
[holds up a document which Dr. Jones takes]
Dr. Alfred Jones: What is this?
Bernard Sugden: P45.
Dr. Alfred Jones: I'm sorry. I don't, I don't understand.
Bernard Sugden: Oh, well, a P45 is the official document given to an employee when his services are no longer required by his or her employer.
Dr. Alfred Jones: Yes, but Bernard, this has got my...
Bernard Sugden: Or, you can sign this letter stating that you are delighted to assign yourself exclusively to the Yemeni salmon fishing project with immediate effect. Up to you.
Dr. Alfred Jones: But Bernard, you know as well as I do this thing is a bloody joke. Where the hell you gonna get salmon that far...
Bernard Sugden: [interrupts and taps the P45] Just there.
Dr. Alfred Jones: This is blackmail Sugden. This is a bloody outrage.
Bernard Sugden: Fitzharris & Price will be paying your salary while on secondment. Almost double what it is now. I'd say that's a bloody outrage.
Dr. Alfred Jones: Double. Can I have time to think about this?
Bernard Sugden: Nope.
Dr. Alfred Jones: Can I borrow your pen?
Bernard Sugden: Yah. It's my special one with the italic nib.
[Dr. Jones grabs it, scribbles his signature on the P45 and storms out]
-
Tom Price-Williams: Have you any idea what an outcry there'd be if the Environment Agency stripped British rivers of *ten thousand* salmon and shipped them off to the effing Yemen?
Bernard Sugden: Well how many can you spare?
Tom Price-Williams: None! Christ! Bernard. Anglers, they're obsessive crazies. You think Al-Qaeda are a threat, think again mate! I've seen a fly fisherman wade into a river and try and drown a canoeist just for passing by in a Day-Glo jacket. You haven't got a hope in hell of getting these fish from British rivers.
Alex Taylor-McDowall
Extended Reading
Related articles
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen quotes
