Ben Elton - Inconceivable

Because here, I’m afraid, is the terrible thing (none but you must ever know, Penny). I did not withdraw my hand! Not for a moment, anyway, or perhaps even a bit longer than a moment. A minute or two, possibly, not more than three, I’m sure of that. I left it there and we just sort of, well, looked at each other and his eyes went all melty (just like his close-ups in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall when he really was very good). He looked like the dispossessed lord of a bleak moorland estate. I swear his aftershave smelt of heather. God knows what I looked like – an electrified rabbit with a rash, no doubt.

Anyway, time felt as if it had been frozen as I became lost in his eyes. Then, and I don’t know if I imagined it, but I think, in fact I’m sure, I felt his finger playing in the palm of my hand which, as far as I know, is silent code for “I would not be averse to rogering you, ma’am.”

If this is true, I just can’t BELIEVE the man’s cheek. He knows I’m married. Married to a good, solid, honest, ordinary, boring, far better man than he, if not quite so dishy, bloke.

Anyway, after a bit I did take my hand away, thank God. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t. I think he would have kissed me. His face certainly seemed to be a lot closer to mine than it had been a moment or two before. And then short of making a scene I don’t know what I would have done. He is our biggest client, after all. I probably would have had to kiss him back, which would have been terrible! Anyway, instead I thanked him for the lunch in an extremely cold “not today, thank you” voice and said that I had to get on with my work. To which he shrugged, smiled a knowing little smile, picked up his fan mail and left.

I must say, I feel most peculiar.

But also very angry.

Yes, all right, he’s good looking and famous but that doesn’t mean that every girl is going to fall at his feet for a glass of champagne and a cheesy nibble! I love my husband, dull, sexless bore though he may be. What is more, I want to have his children, something which is not proving easy, and I can do without arrogant actors trying to interfere with my already unbalanced hormones.

Dear Sam

No news on sperm.

No reply from Tosser re him giving me an important new job.

No further communications from the Channel Controller.

My life is on tenterhooks, whatever tenterhooks may be.

One good thing is that everyone has been impressed by my visit to Downing Street. Except Nigel the Controller, of course, who still hasn’t talked to me about it. Lots of people are trying to get tickets to the show but I’m being ruthless. I say, “You didn’t want tickets when it was just Mr Blob Blob and the two puppet monsters. What’s changed?” and they say, “The fucking Prime Minister’s going to be there! That’s what’s changed,” which I suppose is fair.

I saw Nigel the Controller today and he didn’t remind me about my appalling faux pas over the letters, which I think is a good sign. Mind you, he didn’t really have an opportunity because it wasn’t just him and me, he’d summoned all the commissioning editors in the Entertainment Group (if indeed that is what we are), plus the finance and marketing people, for a big strategy meeting, so there were about ten of us festooned about his office. The subject of the meeting was the BBC’s plans to get into movies, so it should have been an exciting discussion, but with the cloud hanging over me I couldn’t get worked up. What’s more, I was the last to arrive, which is always a dodgy thing to be with a sarky up-himself swine like Nigel.

“Good of you to pop in, Sam.”

I should have told him to stuff it but I didn’t, of course, I started to try and explain. What is it Churchill or Thatcher is supposed to have said? “Never apologize, never explain.” Well, they were right. Nigel didn’t let me get any further than, “Sorry, I was…”

“I see,” he said. “So having wasted our time being late you want to waste more time telling us why. Is that it?”

I couldn’t believe it! The bloke is younger than me . George and Trevor were both in the meeting but they were no help, they just studied their briefing notes intensely.

“Uhm…” I said. Not a brilliant retort, I’m prepared to admit.

“Uhm,” Nigel repeated. “Well, as answers go it has the virtue of brevity, but I think that completes its list of recommendations.”

Some of the others actually laughed at that! Snivelling sycophants. Not George or Trevor, of course, but a couple of the accountancy people and a young woman with pink hair who came over from Sky. I’ll remember you, I thought, but why bother? She’ll probably be my next boss.

Anyway, I slunk into a corner and Nigel got down to some serious pontificating.

“Nobody watches television nowadays,” he said, “or at least none of my friends do. Television is wallpaper. Television is fast food. Television is arse produce. Movies are the millennial art form. Where do you think I’m going with this? Come on, come on, anyone!”

Honestly, it was like being back at school.

“The BBC should be getting into movies,” said the young woman with the pink hair and Nigel positively beamed at her. “Hullo,” I thought, but actually I think Nigel could only ever properly fancy himself.

“Exactly, Yaz,” he said and proceeded with great self-importance to rap out the names of recent British movie hits.

“ Four Weddings, Full Monty, Trainspotting, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Emmanuelle Goes Beaver Hunting…”

This last one took us all a bit by surprise but we let it go.

“British movies have never been more healthy,” he continued, banging his desk. “There were at least three last year that the Americans quite liked. We need to be a part of that revolution. We need to reposition our goddamn asses.”

I swear he said it: “reposition our goddamn asses”.

“We need to be making movies.”

Everyone seemed terribly excited at this idea but I always thought the BBC was a television company and said so.

“Boots is a chemist, Sam. That doesn’t stop them selling chicken tikka sandwiches with yogurt and mint dressing.” This got a big laugh from Yaz, who leant forward to pick up her coffee conspicuously pointing her cleavage the Controller’s way. Nigel didn’t notice, being the sort of man who’d rather harangue his subordinates than look at a nice bosom.

“Jesus Christ, Sam! At least try setting your brain for the twenty-first century! As Britain’s premier media provider, the BBC is perfectly placed to connect up with the real cutting-edge talent that is out there making New Britain hip. Writers, producers, directors, women, the cream of Cool Britannia, the tip top of Britpop. We need to interface with these people. We have the resources to make films, we have the budgets to make films, all we need is the ideas.”

Later, discussing the meeting in the BBC bar, George and Trevor were very excited about it. After all, for people like us who spend our time commissioning new ways of humiliating the public for the early Saturday evening schedules, the idea of making proper films is pretty seductive. I tried hard to join in with their enthusiasm but I couldn’t summon up much jollity. Jealousy really, I suppose. I don’t want to commission films, I want to write one. The idea of going about Soho searching out shaven-headed twelve-year-old film-school fashion junkies with rings through their scrotums made me tired. Unfair of me, I know, but as my mother said, life wasn’t supposed to be fair.

George and Trevor saw things differently. They thought it presented a golden opportunity.