Stories abound of Lace’s “party” style of management, including an incident in which Grey’s cleaning company came close to resigning after vomit and excrement were found in the agency bar following a staff knees up Nice.. Clive James has a lot to answer for. It is clear that his treatment of his business partners should be filed under “S” for “shabby” rather than “U” for “unlawful”.Friends of Lace say he has done nothing wrong. “He was planning to leave advertising, and was simply surveying the future possibilities,” said one. And it’s true he has been conspicuously successful in addressing Grey’s image and performance – attracting new clients for the first time in years, as well as a slew of talented new senior staff.But in the words of one observer, “he did seem to run the place like it was the 1980s”.

I am not a natural entrepreneur.”Langdon blocks other questions about his colourful career but acknowledges that he was asked to leave McCann-Erickson after he suggested that a third name should be added to the agency’s title – his own. “I now know that I am better suited to the environment of multinational agencies, where I can work with big clients facing major issues. However, he recently issued an apology of sorts through the advertising magazine, Campaign “I’ve made a bit of a pig’s ear of this one,” he said. “But I feel really sorry that I unwittingly left the door open for him to go back to my old agency.”At this point, it is worth mentioning that this newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Simon Kelner, is godfather to Wnek’s son This may, in part, explain Langdon’s reluctance to comment. “Here we are trying to present ourselves as serious business people, and this stuff just confirms people’s worst stereotypes of us. It makes us look like a bunch of flash wide-boys who’d sell their grandmother for twopence.”Meanwhile, the acrimony, particularly between Wnek and Langdon, escalates Wnek is incandescent at being dumped by Langdon “I’m delighted he’s out of my life,” he says.

What’s more, clients are going to be much more wary of doing business with start-ups.”Rupert Howell, the chairman of McCann-Erickson, is similarly angry. “Whatever the truth of these incidents, they make us look feckless, irresponsible, shallow and greedy,” said a senior advertising executive. “It looks like even the best part of a million pounds a year doesn’t buy loyalty, and close friends will betray each other at the drop of a hat. But, to bring the story full circle, Lace – a former lunch partner and prot? of Wnek, is now using the offices of Ben Mark Orlando to plot his next move.Although the saga has kept adland amused for weeks now, senior industry figures are appalled at the damage the episodes have done to the standing of the industry.

But, to add insult to injury, he left to take the job that Wnek had vacated four months previously, chairman of Euro RSCG London – although a spokesman from Euro RSCG’s New York headquarters assures us that the two positions are different and that Langdon is assuming a newly created one.Langdon was lured to Euro by his old ally, the US advertising grandee Jim Heekin, now chief executive of Euro RSCG Worldwide, who had worked closely with him at McCann-Erickson until both were ousted, last year.Three days after the news of Langdon’s flit, Garry Lace “mutually parted company” with Grey following a police investigation into a mysterious “prank” e-mail tip-off to senior industry figures. The note claimed Lace was about to set up in business with one of his clients – Drew Thomson, the managing director of the Air Miles company It’s a charge Lace denied and continues to deny. To leave his colleagues in the lurch was considered poor form. The new agency launched without fanfare in November last year, under the slightly soppy-sounding banner of “Ben Mark Orlando”.The hitherto separate stories of Ben, Mark and Garry congealed into a sticky mess a fortnight ago, when it emerged that Langdon was quitting his new enterprise after just 116 days.