Ben Elton - Inconceivable

Tom leapt on this like a thirsty man hearing the bell at closing time.

“I agree,” he said. “Accents are the key and I think we need to stress right from the word go that wherever possible those accents should be genuine.”

Everybody nodded wisely at this, although Tom himself could see problems.

“The BBC is, however,” he continued, “an affirmative action employer. We have quotas and we’re not ashamed of it.”

The problem was that a vast percentage of BBC senior staff are of course from either Oxford or Cambridge, people unlikely to possess overly strong regional accents. The choice, the meeting felt, was pretty stark. Either BBC executives stop giving jobs to their old university friends, or some of those friends will have to pretend that they come from Llandudno.

“I’m not entirely unhappy with that,” said Tom. “If we’re going to teach the kids to speak badly let’s at least have people doing it who know the rules that are being broken.”

Dear Penny

I got my period today. One more infertile month to add to the long long line of them that stretch back into my distant past. Sam and I will go and see the people at Spannerfield tomorrow. He’s dreading it, I know, although strangely he seems to have suddenly become a lot more interested in the process. During the last day or two he’s asked me really quite a lot of questions about ovulation and LH surges and things like that. It’s good that he asks, but I’m sure he’s only trying to be nice. Still, that’s better than nothing, I suppose.

Dear Sam

We’re going to Spannerfield tomorrow. I’m pretty nervous and a bit depressed about it. I’ve been using some of these feelings in my script (just as Lucy always wanted me to, I might add), and it’s working out rather well. Interestingly, the film is going to be less of an absolutely full-on comedy than I originally thought. Not that it won’t be funny. You couldn’t avoid it with that many knob gags at your disposal, but it’s also going to have its serious side.

I tried a bit out on Trevor and George today. I was really nervous because I’ve never attempted anything but jokes with them before but I wanted to give Colin (that’s the name of my lead bloke) something of what I’m feeling. I’m going to paste the speech straight across from my Film Document because I think it’s relevant to this book too.

COLIN ( Reflective. Depressed ): “So it seems that we’ve reached the end of the fertility road and we’re going to have to try IVF. I know it’s a positive thing and all that, but it just feels so sad and… well… grown up… Funny how the penny finally drops that you’re not young any more. That moment when all the cliches that affected your parents and their friends start happening to people you know. All those dreadful, embarrassing, failure-type things that were for older people. Alcoholism [Trevor nodded wisely at this], divorce, loneliness, money-troubles… or childlessness like Rachel [that’s the girl’s name] and me, childless and trying for a test-tube baby…”

I must say when I read it out to them I thought it sounded far too mawkish and indulgent, but George and Trevor were very supportive. They think that a bit of emotion will really add depth to the piece and that it will play well against the comedy, which I agree with absolutely.

They still love the comedy. George nearly fell off his chair when he read the bit about me taking in my sperm sample and having to dig it out from down the back of my trousers in front of the nurse. He thinks I made it up and simply will not accept that it really happened.

Dear Penny

Well, we’ve had our meeting at Spannerfield. Our new consultant’s name is Mr Agnew and he seems very nice. He explained that there are two more tests he’d like to carry out before we commit to an IVF cycle. A hysterosalpingogram (HSG) for me and another sperm test for Sam. His old test is no good because apparently the Spannerfield IVF people always test the sperm themselves. The hysterosalpingogram is an X-ray of the uterus and Fallopian tubes. This involves injecting dye into my cervix (again), which I am so looking forward to. Sam’s test involves him having another wank. But, yet again, he is the one who’s kicking up a fuss! I can’t believe we’re back to all that again. I said to him, I said, “My God, Sam, it’s not the end of the world! I’m asking you to have a quick one off the wrist, not fuck a hedgehog!” He laughed a lot at that and jotted it down on a piece of paper. I don’t know why he did that but somehow I thought it was quite touching.

Dear Sam

Lucy says it’s just a quick one off the wrist like the last time. Oh yes, just like the last time, except this time they won’t let me do it at home! I have to go and masturbate at the hospital! Christ, I can’t imagine a more horrible prospect. Unfortunately I made the mistake of saying this to Lucy and she said that she could imagine a more horrible prospect as a matter of fact… having long telescopes pushed through your bellybutton, having dye injected into you, having your gut pumped full of air and photographed internally, and above all having every doctor in Britain staring up your fanny on a day-to-day basis.

Well, if she’s going to play the woman’s card then there’s nothing I can say, is there?

She said a great line about a hedgehog which I’ll definitely use.

Dear Penny

Carl came into work today. He had to sign some contracts. We hardly spoke. He smiled a nice smile but then went straight into Sheila’s office. It’s what he said he’d do in his note and absolutely the right and proper thing, but I can’t deny it gave me a jolt. A very large part of me desperately wished he’d stopped and had a chat, you know, just about inconsequential things. Of course, I must never forget that the last time we saw each other we kissed, long and hard, in fact. And Carl is right: that’s a fire which must definitely not be fed. All the same, I did wish he’d felt able to say more than a perfunctory “hello”. Except he is right, I know that. I mean basically I’ve already been a bit unfaithful to Sam. I mean not really, of course, but a bit, and that’s terrible. Let’s face it, if I discovered that he’d been pashing on with someone at work, even if it was only once, and totally out of character, I’d still be pretty bloody angry, to say the least. I don’t know what I’d do but I do know I’d be terribly upset.

Dear Book

Well, I must say that this morning has to rank as one of the more gruesome mornings of my life.

Communal masturbation in West London.

Actually that makes it sound better than it was. It makes it sound friendly and inclusive, like a dance or a musical. Dale Winton and Bonnie Langford in Communal Masturbation in West London .

It wasn’t friendly or inclusive at all.

My God, it was grim. They say they’ll see you any time between nine and twelve but Trevor told me to get there at least fifteen minutes before the place opened, as a queue develops. Trevor is an old hand at the sperm test game (ha ha ha), because when he donated to those lesbians they insisted that he have his sperm checked out first. Actually Trevor felt slightly offended about that and accused them of social engineering and trying to create a lesbian master race. The lesbians said that before they wasted a perfectly good turkey baster they wanted to check that his sperm weren’t all immotile, two-headed or dead. Charming, I must say, but I believe people can be very frank in the lesbian community. It comes from years of having to be politically and socially assertive.

Anyway, there must be a lot more wankers around than in Trevor’s day, because although I slunk in at eight-forty there were already four blokes ahead of me. All sitting about in this depressing waiting room with posters about the dangers of smoking all over the place. I can’t imagine why they have such an obsession with smoking in a masturbating facility. Perhaps some blokes have been having a cigarette after they ejaculated?