Ben Elton - Inconceivable

“This is your big chance!” they said. “Commission yourself. Write a script and green light it. The man’s crying out for ideas and he’s asking us to find them. You’ll never get an opportunity like this again! It’s gamekeeper turned poacher.”

For a moment I was almost seduced, but then I remembered two things. Firstly my current relationship with the Controller does not lead me to imagine that he’d accept a script with my name on it. And secondly, even if he did, what script? I haven’t written a thing in years. I’ve forgotten how to write and even if I hadn’t I have nothing to write about.

Trevor said he’d always thought that a gay alcoholic in recovery would make a great subject for a movie.

“But that’s your story, Trevor,” I said.

“And a monumentally fucking dull one it is too,” George added.

Of course they’re both right. Nigel’s new initiative is an opportunity I should be seizing with both hands. But I just can’t do it. They say comedy is about conflict and pain. Where’s my conflict? Where’s my pain? I’m a boring bloke in a boringly happy marriage. Apart from my own monumental lack of talent and an impending sperm result there isn’t a cloud on my horizon.

Dear Penny

I simply cannot believe it. Sam handed in his sample three days ago and since then he has been jumpy as a kitten. He pounces on the post in the morning even though he knows the result will take five days. He grabs at any envelope that comes through the door, ones containing offers to join bookclubs, others containing enquiries about whether we want to sell our house. He tears them all open in terror that they might also be concealing a failed sperm test certificate. I swear that’s what he thinks he’s going to get, a certificate, possibly with a ribbon on it or a red wax seal, saying “sperm test FAILED”. I’m afraid it seems that nothing, absolutely nothing, turns a man into a wanker so much as having to take a sperm test.

Anyway, my blood test result came through with the second post and it seems my body has passed that particular hurdle, insomuch as the indications are that I ovulate. Hooray and whoopidydingdong. There are now only fourteen million things that could be wrong with my sad, dysfunctional tubes. Sometimes it really is hard to be a woman.

I had to send off loads of signed pictures of Carl “Will you fuck me for a sandwich?” Phipps today. I have very mixed emotions about that whole episode. Obviously I’d never do anything about it, I mean obviously. Nonetheless it’s quite flattering. At thirty-four and married it’s rather nice to discover that one could still get laid if one wanted to which one doesn’t and one certainly wouldn’t even if one did.

When I told Sam that my blood test indicated healthy ovulation he acted most unpleasantly. Instead of being pleased that at least one part of my body functions as it should, he immediately took it as proof that he’s going to fail his sperm test and that he’s some kind of sexless eunuch. It really is most thoughtless of him to be so self-obsessed, and not very attractive. I must confess to having briefly entertained the unworthy thought that Lord Byron Phipps, the brooding, smouldering Tenant of Wildfell Hall, would not be so ungentlemanly or uncaring of a lady’s distress.

He would also have more faith in his testicles.

Sam

Still no news on the sperm test.

Also still no word from Tosser about giving me a job.

However, I’ve also still heard nothing further from the Channel Controller about my sensational faux pas over the mixed-up letters and am beginning to dare to hope that I may have got away with it. After all, Nigel isn’t such a bad bloke, is he? He’s trying to drag the Beeb into the twenty-first century and all that, isn’t he? And he’s got a sense of humour, hasn’t he? He’d see the funny side, on the quiet. I mean when he was an Arts Editor I remember he did that documentary on Ken Dodd. Marvellous stuff. Really, really marvellous earthy, populist stuff. It compared Dodd to a Shakespearean clown. They did a bit of Dogberry and Verges from Much Ado to illustrate the point. Hilarious, particularly when they duelled with loaves of French bread, absolutely hilarious. I must tell Nigel how hilarious I found it. Yanton Nabokobovich did the interview, I recall, and called Doddy a true subversive. “Isn’t every joke really a small revolution?” Yanton enquired. “An act of rebellion undermining the status quo?” “If you like, missus! Ha ha!” said Doddy.

Brilliant telly.

Of course Nigel’s got a sense of humour and he’s a bloody good bloke as well. Old Nige won’t let me down.

Had a fascinating debate with the Complaints and Standards people at the Weekly programme briefing. George was in the chair and we were debating acceptable names for vaginas. Amazing. There we were, five men earnestly debating whether “fanny” was an acceptable term to use before nine o’clock. I told Lucy about it and she went back on her old thing about men being intimidated by fannies. She pointed out that there are any number of words for penis that can be used pretty much with ease on the Beeb – knob, willy, percy, portion, member, todger, tackle, dangler, sausage, John Thomas, Dick Dastardly, meat and two veg and Uncle Tom Cobblers and all. However, when it came to female genitalia almost everything was too rude. She’s right, of course. “Vaginas” are ruder than “penises”, even “fanny” is on the edge. “Muff” might pass, but again only just. The meeting was quite stumped. In the end we came up with “fou fou”, which is a term somebody’s mother used. I can’t see our tough young lady comediennes buying “fou fou”. We’ll be lampooned in the media section of the Independent before we know it.

Still no news on the sperm test, or did I mention that?

Dear Pen Pen

Drusilla came into the office today and caught me having a cup of coffee. She says caffeine is the enemy of womankind and insisted I drink a cup of squeezed lemon juice to purge myself. Then she asked if I’d given any more thought to the business of the Primrose Hill ley lines, because there’s a full moon next Thursday and the long-range weather forecast is good. The woman is out of her mind.

I also had lunch with Melinda and baby Cuthbert. He really is gorgeous and I’m sure that the slightly disconcerting impression of a permanent scowl will disappear as his mouth gets bigger. We ordered our salads (followed by cake) and inevitably Melinda produced her photos. Even though Cuthbert was sitting right in front of me in the flesh (and such a lot of flesh too, great folds of it), Melinda insisted that I look at nearly two hundred pictures of him. Which was nice (because he really is gorgeous, although slightly like a miniaturized Reggie Kray), but a tiny bit tiresome. How I wish we lived in times when the taking of a photograph was a rare and precious thing. When five or ten images sufficed to cover a person’s entire childhood. Nowadays people take millions of shots on computerized cameras and then reel them off on their home printers ad nauseam. Besides which, now that video cameras come with little playback screens it’s possible for people to show you their ghastly videos as well, sometimes while they’re actually recording them. Melinda didn’t go that far, but she had had an entire set of prints done for me, which really is too much.

I did think about showing Melinda a picture of Gertrude (just the one from the Big Issue, not the glossy one) but decided I wouldn’t. I thought that she might think it sad. Not that she’d have any reason to.