Flippers and Clippers

How the City really works.

I’m often accused of having worked in the City. I suppose it’s an obvious conclusion to draw as I’ve written satire about the corporate world for several decades. But the reality is that I’ve never had a proper job in my life. If I appear to know about things like business and finance, it’s because I’m a journalist. We journalists like to create the illusion that we know things, and it’s possible that we’ve acquired a few rudiments of knowledge over the years, but the most important thing we know is the phone numbers of people who actually know stuff. These people are successful in their fields and have the expense accounts to match. They take us to lunch, we tap them up for information, we write up the information and pass it off as our own. Well, that’s my working model anyway.