Tomorrow night's Friday play at 9.00 pm on Radio 4 is a dramatisation of Joshua Ferris's excellent novel "Then we came to the end". Told in the first person plural, it's the story of the decline of an American ad agency that is going under in the downturn, losing clients and firing staff. The agency employees waste their time bitching and politicking as things get weirder and more desperate. The characters and situations are immediately recognisable and Ferris obviously wrote it from first-hand experience of the business.

Just the sort of topical feelgood story to enjoy at the end of a year most of us would agree has been hard work and not much fun. From what I remember of how the book ends up, it might be worth tuning if only to console yourself with the thought, 'At least things haven't got that desperate and crazy here…yet.'

If you missed it by the time you read this, or you can't pick up R4 where you are, you can listen online here.

It's Christmas so the urge to wear something vaguely
racy is upon us. Some black, a little bit of lace, even some see-through. Maybe
all at once? Then, disaster strikes! What if you and your very near desk
neighbour have the same urge, at the same time? The only thing to do is to
acknowledge the error and have your picture taken for the blog. This is Anna and Ray, luckily they are friends otherwise violence may have ensued.