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“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 Pe
I simply ca
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 Cha
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 “fa
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.
After about half an hour Cuthbert started crying and when I say crying what I mean is attempting to reduce London to rubble by the sheer force of sonic vibration. Melinda breastfed him at the table, which I thought was very right and feminist of her, although I do wish she hadn’t burped him quite so vigorously afterwards. Most of it hit the floor but I fear a splash or two of milky vomit may have landed in people’s food.
Actually, I had thought that you weren’t supposed to burp them any more.
I can’t deny, though, that it all made me feel broodier than ever. Despite Cuthbert not having a volume-control button and his indiscriminate vomiting and his slightly moth-eaten-looking patch of coarse black hair, looking at him did make me just long for one of my own. Particularly when I saw his little Peter Rabbit jumper. It was just so sweet. All my life I’ve looked forward to rediscovering Beatrix Potter via my children, so that did hit me rather hard. I must say, though, that I didn’t much like the baseball cap Melinda had bought him from OshKosh. It had “Yeah, I know I’m cute” written on it, which I thought was a bit sickmaking (and sadly not entirely true).