Inconceivable (7 page)

Dear etc.,

Q
uite astonishing development at work today. I’ve been to
Downing Street
. I didn’t meet the Prime Minister, but it’s still amazing. It completely took my mind off my sperm test.

It happened like this. I’d just sat down to another morning of brooding over the lack of direction or passion in my career, leafing through another pile of scripts, wondering why the hell I can’t seem to find it in me to write one myself, when Daphne said that the Channel Controller was on the line. Well of course I was thrilled, he could only be phoning personally to accept my dinner invitation! I was mentally leafing through Delia as I grabbed the phone and had already decided on the salmon mousse to start when it turned out that Nigel had called about something even more exciting! He was phoning from Barcelona, where he was (of course) attending an international television festival. Perhaps the single greatest perk of being at the Beeb is the international festival circuit. The BBC don’t pay you much, but they do let you lig. Even I get to go to a few. Lucy and I had a fantastic weekend in Cork last April, except that she thought she was ovulating so I wasn’t allowed to drink. Controllers, being an altogether superior breed, of course, virtually spend their lives at festivals. You can always find them in some exotic location bemoaning the fact that
Baywatch
is the most popular Programme in the world and that cartoons are the sickness at the heart of children’s broadcasting.

Anyway, this was why Nigel was calling from Barcelona.

But oh, such news! It turned out that the Prime Minister’s office had been on to the BBC about the PM appearing on
Livin’ Large. Livin’ Large
is our current Saturday morning kids’ pop and fun show and every week they have a sort of interview spot where the children get to ask questions of a celebrity. Now, unbeknownst to me (surprise, surprise) our PR people had had a brilliant idea. (I must digress here to remark that the fact that our PR people had had a brilliant idea was shocking news in itself and evidence of how much things have changed around the old place. BBC press and public relations used to consist of an office with a large enthusiastic woman in it whom everyone ignored.

Now it’s a huge and entirely separate company called something like BBC Communications or Beeb COM, whose services I have to hire. It’s quite extraordinary. In order for me to ensure that BBC shows are plugged in BBC publications I have to pay BBC money to BBC Communications. It seems loopy to me, but George assures me that it’s cut away a lot of ‘dead wood’.) Anyway, BBC Communications’ idea had been to ask the Prime Minister if he would like to appear on
Livin’ Large
and take some questions from ‘the kids’, thereby cutting through all that cynical adult bullshit and plugging in to the pure unsullied enthusiasm of youth. Astonishingly, it seemed to me, the man was considering it.

The problem for Nigel (the Controller) was that Downing Street (which is a vigorous, ‘can do’ sort of a place these days) wanted to meet
today
! and no other later date would do because the PM’s diary is chockablock with summits and Cabinet crises right through till Christmas. Nigel had of course tried to get a flight back from Barcelona but there was a football match, or the French air-traffic controllers weren’t letting anybody out of Europe today or something. Anyway, the upshot of it was that I would have to go to the meeting!

Well, I spent the rest of the morning phoning my mum and Lucy and everybody I knew and trying to get my tie ironed. Of course, one might have thought that in the heart of one of the largest television studio complexes in the world getting one’s tie ironed would have been easy. To get someone from wardrobe would, one might imagine, have been the work of a moment.

Unfortunately ‘wardrobe’ no longer exists as such. It’s a separate company called Beeb Frox or else something equally awful, and one has to negotiate with it. This Daphne, my wonderful secretary, duly did, and came back with a quote of £45. It seemed a bit steep to iron a tie but apparently Beeb Frox claimed it would scarcely cover their paperwork. I told Daphne that seeing as this was the Prime Minister and all, she’d better get on with it, but it turned out not to be that simple. In order for my office to generate a payment from finance (BeebCash Plc) I needed first to prove that I had secured the most competitive tender for the work. Daphne said that she was required to approach a minimum of two outside costumiers to see if they would iron my tie more cheaply than Beeb Frox. Only when we had three estimates to compare could we commission the work.

Meanwhile, it would also be necessary to decide out of what programme budget the ironing of the tie was to come. Clearly this would have to be
Livin’ Large
, but if that was the case their Line Producer would have to sign the chit. Also,
Livin’ Large
was not made in house but by an independent company called Choose Groove Productions. Incidentally, I must add here that this does not mean that Choose Groove Productions make
Livin’ Large
in any practical sense, oh no, the BBC make it, with BBC staff in a BBC studio, paid for by BBC money, the only difference being that some bloke with a ponytail in Soho takes a thirty-grand-an- episode production fee and gets to stick his company logo on the end of the programme. It was to this lucky recipient of the BBC’s forced entry into the marketplace that Daphne would have to go to get budgetary authorization for my tie to be ironed.

In the end, Daphne flattened the tie underneath a pile of old copies of
Spotlight
for a stick of my KitKat.

So anyway, to get on with the story, this afternoon there I was, fronting up to the gates of Downing Street and being saluted through by a policeman. It was like a dream. I walked up the street with my briefcase, just like cabinet ministers do on the news, and in through the famous door.

I must say it’s bloody dowdy inside, or at least the bits I saw are.

Amazing. The entrance hall is like a rundown hotel. Nobody could accuse any of the previous fifteen administrations of wasting money on decoration because I swear that the place hasn’t had a lick of paint since Chamberlain was waving his bit of paper about.

While I was waiting I noticed an old plastic carrierbag chucked on the threadbare carpet against the skirting board. I remarked to the amiable old doorman that I hoped it wasn’t a bomb and he said that he hoped so too but that it probably belonged to somebody.

Anyway, after about ten minutes one of the PM’s ‘forward planning team’ arrived, a young woman called Jo whom I think I recognized from her having been on
Question Time
. She ushered me into a small room with a chair and an old couch and some dirty coffee cups on a table. Here she ‘briefed’ me on the background to this particular ‘outreach initiative’. She told me that the Prime Minister was Britain’s newest, youngest, hippest prime minister since Lord Fol d’Rol in 1753 and that her office had the job of reminding people of this fact and generally demonstrating that the PM was neither fuddy nor duddy.

‘We want the kids to know that their PM is not just the youngest, most energetic and most charismatic premier in British history but that he’s also their mate, a regular bloke who likes popmusic, wearing fashionable trousers, and comedy with proper swearing in it. Which is why we think it’s important to place him on
Livin’ Large
.’

‘God yes, great idea,’ I said, pathetically. It’s amazing how even the proximity to power seduces a person.

‘But in a dignified context,’ Jo added firmly. ‘No gunk tanks or ‘gotcha’s. It struck us that some kind of ‘youth summit’ would be appropriate, you know, the boss chats with the future and all that. It could be an extended version of that section where the celebrity guest takes questions from the kids.’

I said it sounded fantastic and that the BBC would be honoured.

‘But nice questions, of course, not political. That wouldn’t be appropriate. Questions about the issues that matter to kids.

Popmusic, fashion, computers, the Internet, that sort of thing.’

My mind reeled. This was
fantastic
. A genuine television event!

Like Mrs Thatcher getting grilled about the
Belgrano
on
Nationwide
or the
Blue Peter
elephant shitting on John Noakes.

The Prime Minister himself doing an interview with kids on live TV and I was to exec it! Christ! Like I say, I reeled.

‘This means a lot to the PM,’ Jo continued. ‘Dammit, as far as ordinary people are concerned politics is boring! The kids don’t want a lot of old fuddy-duddies telling them what to do. We need to let people know that things have changed. Basically, it’s very important to us that the premier gets a chance to point out that he likes popmusic and that he actually plays the guitar. Will that be possible?’

Well, as far as I was concerned he could point out that he liked liver and onions and played the didgeridoo if he wanted, but I said that I thought everybody knew that the PM played the guitar; it seemed to have come up in every interview he’d ever done.

‘People have short memories,’ said Jo, ‘besides which we need to make it clear that it’s the electric guitar he plays, not some strummy-crummy, clicky-clacky, Spanish castanets type, classical fuddy-duddy stuff.’

Well, I nodded and agreed and wondered if it would be appropriate to kiss her arse and pretty soon Jo signalled that the meeting was over.

And so there it is. I, Sam Bell, have successfully brokered a historic live TV encounter between the PM and Generation Next.

Trevor and I spent the afternoon trying to think of a good hook for the trailers. Trevor kept coming back to ‘The Premier meets the Little People’ but I’m sure that’d just make everyone think of leprechauns.

I must say this business has changed my attitude to my job entirely. I mean, if I was in the independent sector I certainly wouldn’t be meeting the PM. Besides which, it has occurred to me that I could use my newly acquired inside knowledge of Downing Street to write a political thriller. It could be just the inspiration I need.

Good old Beeb, say I. When Tosser offers me a job I’ll turn it down.

Dear Penny,

G
uess what! Sam nearly met the PM today. I could hardly believe it when he told me. Now that’s what I call cool. I’m so proud of him. I’m married to a man who deals with the very highest in the land and from what he tells me he handled it incredibly well. The only thing that made me a bit sad is that if we never have kids then I won’t be able to tell them that their dad once nearly met the PM. Oh well, I really must stop thinking things like that.

Dear Self,

A
nother bit of good news today. They tell me that I can produce my sperm sample at home! Yes, apparently sperm survives for one hour once outside the body (if kept warm) and as long as you can get the stuff back to the clinic within that time it doesn’t matter where you pull one off the wrist. Great news.

Anyway, I went in to see Dr Cooper after work to pick up the sterilized pot (you can’t just hand it in in a teacup). You can get the pots at Boots, but I’m not asking some sixteen-year-old girl for a sperm pot. Dr Cooper decided to take the opportunity to offer advice and consultation. He asked me whether I was aware of the manner in which I should produce my sample. I told him that I thought I could just about remember, I might be a bit rusty (it being as much as three or even four days since I last played a solo on the one-stringed bass), but I was sure that it would all come flooding back.

I must say I’m delighted about this ‘home-tossing’ development, generally much more relaxing I feel. Interesting as well, because this will be the first time in my entire life that I will be able to have a completely legitimate hand shandy. Amazing really, when I think back over all the sly ones I’ve had over the last twenty- five-odd years, all the lies and stratagems I resorted to, particularly as a child, and here I am positively being encouraged to abuse myself by the National Health Service. Ironic. I thought about ringing my mum, just to rub it in, but I don’t think she’d see the joke.

Big Issue

Dearest Penny Pen Pal,

I
think Sam’s quite proud of his pot. He’s put it on the mantelpiece in the sitting room like it was a darts trophy. I hope he doesn’t imagine that’s where he’s going to fill it. The bathroom’s more appropriate. And I’ve told him he’s got to think about me while he’s doing it. Horrible business all round, quite frankly.

I adopted a baby gorilla today. She’s called Gertrude. She was advertised in the

I bought in Camden. You don’t actually get to have Gertrude at home but for £90 they send you a picture of her and a certificate of adoption. There are only 650 of Gertrude’s type left on the planet. What are we
doing
to the world? It’s so disgusting.

Sam gave me a rather patronizing look when I told him about the adoption, which infuriated me because I acted out of ecological concern and for no other reason. Although I must say Gertrude does look very sweet, so small and defenceless, absolutely beautiful little thing. £90 well spent.