When we set out for Lapland, cameraman Matt and I were not very confident of what we were going to achieve and thought it might all be a gigantic waste of time and money. Our target was clear enough, an exclusive interview with the infamous “Son of Santa”, Nick Clouse Jnr. But finding the target, let alone hitting it was not going to be easy. We’d met Mr Clouse before of course, a year earlier just after he inherited what was then The Crimble Corporation from his much more famous, white bearded father. He had just announced the controversial re-branding of his Dad’s incredibly successful company as HO3 to a rather shocked business world. We were granted access for a rare interview which unfortunately ended rather badly as Clouse stormed out after some fairly robust questioning of his employment policies.
So this time we were looking to get behind the corporate facade, to find the man behind the CEO and see if he would open up for us in the comfort of his northern lair.
The trip started badly with awful weather delaying our flights. When we did finally touchdown in Lapland, there wasn’t a taxi driver at the airport prepared to take us to the Clouse Homestead. Phrases like “North of the Arctic Circle at this time of night, you must be joking!” being typical of the responses we were getting. Eventually we found a minicab driver skulking around the back of departures who was prepared to drive us across the frozen tundra to the strangely named Grotto de Santa where Clouse was said to live.
When we arrived everything started to look much better. Instead of the expected re-buff from muscular security Elves, we were actually met by the beautiful Christella Bauble, who turned out to be HO3’s new Director of Communications. She seemed to know we were coming and welcomed us like long lost sons rather than a scoop hungry news crew. She invited us into the inner sanctum of Grotto de Santa and guided us to what we soon realised was one of Nick Clouse Jnr’s many private sitting rooms. We were given carte blanche to set up our gear as we wanted, so we quickly rigged the lights, cameras and sound for what we could hardly bring ourselves to believe would be an exclusive interview with the man himself.
Above - The Result of all our Efforts
But sure enough, half an hour after we arrived, Nick Clouse Jnr strolled in looking relaxed and comfortable in his trademark red jersey and corduroy slacks. He greeted us like old friends, as if our last bad tempered encounter had never happened. Soon we were sitting in front of his welcoming log fire, the cameras were rolling and we were chatting amiably about his plans for the company.
Of course, it was all too easy and I should have been suspicious of the presence of Christella Bauble, hovering nervously in the background with her clipboard, and the fact that Clouse would not remove his earpiece should have alerted me to the highly controlled nature of this encounter, however natural and relaxed it may have seemed. This exclusive access, like most such encounters, was a double edged sword. Yes, we got the interview we so desired, but it was all very cleverly controlled by the brilliant Ms Bauble, so that we only got exactly what she and the company wanted us to hear. Of course we got our exclusive – the sensational news about HO3’s plans for Christmas, but we were, if I’m honest, seduced by the mulled wine, and softly burning logs in the fire place, and were in reality, merely a vehicle for Mr Clouse’s formidable communications machine.
