London and the South-East

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DIETER FLOSSMAN HAS been on Paul’s mind a lot these last few days. Managing his software firm in Stuttgart, it is unlikely that he thinks about Paul at all when they are not actually speaking on the phone. Paul, on the other hand, thinks about Dieter all the time. While he waits on the platform of Hove station in the morning; throughout the slow, stopping journey; when he sinks to the Underground at London Bridge, and when he is lifted out of it at Holborn, Dieter is foremost in his thoughts. Exactly a week ago, with very little fuss, after a single short, sharp pitch, he sold him a full-page, full-colour ad in the automation systems software section of European Procurement Management. (Dieter did not know, of course, that his ad would be the automation systems software section of European Procurement Management.) Paul faxed him an agreement form, which Dieter said he would sign in time for the positioning of his ad to be discussed at Paul’s ‘pagination meeting’ at the end of the afternoon. Paul went to the Penderel’s Oak. It was his first sale in some time.

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