Inconceivable

the sole reason that they might go on to terrorize entire housing estates and become one-boy crime-waves. Well, the injustice is almost too much to bear. I’d read my child Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh and the only glue it would ever get involved with would be flour and water for making collages.

When I got home I found there’d been a letter in the second post. It was from Melinda sending me photos of when we were round at her and George’s place with new baby Cuthbert. I’m holding him and he looks so sweet and it looks like he’s mine. I look like a mother with a child and I’m not. I nearly cried but I remembered my resolution not to be obsessive so I had half a bottle of red wine instead.

Sam’s sperm test is looming. I had originally thought that he was taking it well but now he does seem to be dwelling on it rather.

Dear Self

I had lunch with Trevor and George from work today and was determined to touch on the subject of sperm. Pick their brains, so to speak. I mean George ought to know something. He produced Cuthbert and I wouldn’t like to meet the sperm that fathered him. Trevor’s gay so God knows he should have some opinions on the subject, having encountered the stuff face to face, so to speak. All in all I had been looking forward to airing my fears re my upcoming (if that isn’t too loaded a phrase) sperm test.

I didn’t get the chance, of course. We talked shop. We always do. It’s a funny thing about this biz we call show: whenever people involved in it get together they can talk about nothing else. I’m as bad as anyone. I believe that in the army they have a rule in the officers’ mess of no talking shop over dinner. It sounds like a great idea but it wouldn’t work for us, we’d just sink into an awkward silence. Telling people in showbusiness not to talk about showbusiness would be like telling the Pope to lay off the religious stuff.

We were lunching in Soho at a posh place called Quark. All restaurants in Soho are posh these days. Those nice, rough and ready little Italian diners are just a distant memory. I’d already made an arse of myself, of course. I arrived first and the waitress (wearing a skirt that was little more than a big belt, why do these girls torment us so?) immediately put this plate of prawny things down in front of me. I said they must be someone else’s because I hadn’t ordered anything yet. Well, she actually laughed at me! Amazing, she laughed and said they were “for the table”, a complimentary pre-appetizer appetizer. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you won’t be charged for them,” like I was some sad tourist way out of his depth and worrying about his budget. God, I felt every type of turd. My own fault, of course. Silly mistake. Particularly for a professional eater of the sacred meal called lunch like myself. I tried to recoup by cracking a little joke. I asked her for a biro so that I could write “Prat” on my forehead and, get this, she fucking gave me one.

Amazing! It’s this worship of all things American, I fear. They have rude, smart Alec staff in New York so we poor Brits who no longer have personalities of our own must do likewise. The thing is that it works in America. Brittle, wisecracking chutzpah is part of New York culture. It’s happening, it’s buzzing. When we do it it just comes across as surly. Manners are now seen as totally out of date, a shameful hangover from our class-ridden pre- meritocracy past. There’s a terrible modern orthodoxy that has developed which says that to be polite and show respect to other people is in fact to diminish your own status. Therefore people assert themselves by being rude. I think it’s sad.

Anyway after the prawny things disaster the half-naked waitress gave me the wine list. Well, I couldn’t face a wine list, not after the prawny mauling I’d just taken. I’d probably have ordered a dessert wine to start and been tarred and feathered and thrown out for being uncool. So I said I’d just have a mineral water and she gave me the mineral water list! I mean, for God’s sake! An actual leatherbound water list! I’ve never seen that before. The world is now officially raving tonto.

Anyway, as I was saying, I’d been hoping to draw the others out on sperm, but before I could even bring the subject up (which takes delicate handling in itself) we got into this terrible row about our job descriptions, amazing but true. It all came up because Trevor was talking about some script or other that he wanted to commission and he said…

“I don’t want to throw my weight around here, but as the BBC Head of Comedy, Television Group South, I feel that…”

Well, he didn’t get any further because George and I both protested that we were the BBC Head of Comedy, Television Group South. I knew that George wasn’t because I knew for a fact that he was Chief Coordinator, BBC Entertainment Group, Television. I’d seen it on an invitation to a party. I also knew that he was angling for the post of Network Regional Channel Controller because I’d read it in the Independent only the previous morning. George insisted that he didn’t care what it said on his invites, or what I’d read in the Independent, that he was BBC Head of Comedy, Television Group South.

“Well, what are you angling for, then?” Trevor asked, and George said that he was very excited about his current position and had no plans to move, which of course means he’s angling for something juicy at Channel Four.

That got us thinking. Because if George did go to Channel Four, and if he is, as he insists, BBC Head of Comedy, Television Group South, then either I or Trevor will be able to take over his job (which we both thought we already had anyway). Now, if one of us takes over George’s job it would leave whatever job that person currently held vacant for the other. We could all move on and hence would all be guaranteed that precious mention in the media pages of the Independent so vital to the profile of us usually anonymous execs.

Trevor insisted that he knew what my job was because he’d been offered it ahead of me (slightly disheartening). Apparently, I’m BBC Controller, Broken Comedy and Variety, which if true is disappointing because only last year I was BBC Entertainment Chief, Comedy Group, London and South East. Which would mean I’ve taken a step down without realizing it and am further away from becoming a Network Channel Controller than ever. Anyway, at this point a bike arrived with a package for Trevor addressed to him as Independent Commissioning Editor, BBC Worldwide, which is a post none of us had heard of. Most confusing.

We all agreed that at this year’s Christmas drinks we really would pluck up the courage to ask the Deputy Director General what our jobs are.

After that the talk drifted on to other things. Trevor and George had their usual row about booze. Trevor no longer drinks, which George strongly disapproves of, particularly since Trevor has been through “recovery” (another thing of which George disapproves) and feels the need to mention his “problem” on a regular basis.

“As an alcoholic in recovery I have no problem with the alcohol on this table,” said Trevor. “In fact I can enjoy the fact that you’re enjoying it.”

“That’s nice,” said George. “Like we give a fuck.”

Trevor protested that he was only saying and George asked him not to.

“Look, Trevor,” he said, “you don’t drink any more, that’s great, not that you ever drank that much in the first place, but now you’re cured, isn’t it time you moved on?”

“But that’s the point, George. You can never be cured. I’m an alcoholic. I’ll always be an alcoholic. I could have nothing to drink for fifty years and I’d still be an alcoholic”

This is the bit George hates most.

“Well you might as well have a fucking drink, then!” he said loudly enough for people at other tables to turn their heads.

At this point I thought I could bring up the subject of sperm to smooth things over a bit but George, having dealt with Trevor’s obsession, moved on to his own, producing some photos of little Cuthbert. I had thought that producing pictures of one’s baby in all-male company was against the law but like everything else that seems to have changed, we’re all carers and nurturers now. I blame those posters that were popular in the late eighties showing huge muscular male torsos tenderly holding tiny babies. Soppy, I call it, but then I suppose I’m not in touch with my feelings or something.

As a matter of record, though, I must confess that young Cuthbert is beginning to shape up a bit. He’s definitely filling out and losing his scrotal appearance. He looked quite jolly in his togs from Baby Gap. George said that Cuthbert’s clothes cost more than his own do, which he thought was obscene. What is the point of giving babies and kids designer clothes? They puke on them, they roll in mud in them, they shit in them. Tonto, absolutely bloody tonto. George says that he’s going to give Melinda a serious talking to. Trevor, on the other hand (who is rather an elegant sort of bloke), thought we were both being Philistines and killjoys and that he wished his