Batty meeting

Dave ponders whether cowboys and ping-pong tables are the norm for a serious business get together

I recently met up with two distribution execs, who suggested we get together at the London offices of their PR firm.

On my way there, walking past the organic delis, nightclubs and behatted meejah types of trendy Smithfield had already made me feel old and confused enough.

But my Hoxtonite-mare got even worse when I entered the office. They'd eschewed the pot plants and gone for a giant model of a cowboy on a bucking horse.

Is this one of those, like, ironic things that always sails miles over my head? Or do they just really like cowboys? (Perhaps it's a comment on the quality of their work…)

And, in the meeting room, the firm had opted against the legs-and-a-flat-surface model that is the basis for most office tables.

Instead I found myself leaning across the net of a ping pong table to hand out my business card. Should I have brought my own bat?

This strange and worrying development opens up a whole new can of worms when it comes to meeting etiquette.

But, having read the PR company's web site, I should've known to expect such a totally outrageous paradigm. "We are redefining what ‘results' mean," says the blurb.

. What about the classified football results? Talking shop over a ping pong table is one thing, but if they tinker with the whole 90-minute win-lose-draw concept, I'll really be miffed.