Inconceivable by Ben Elton Page B

complicated than any stupid horrible little knob and that if my sperm proved acceptable our infertility would henceforward be her ‘fault’ and I would blame her! This was of course followed by more tears.
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘a: I don’t care whether we have kids or not and…‘ I didn’t get to b, because she called me an insensitive shit, redoubled her wailing and weeping and ran out of the room.
    I hate seeing her cry. It really makes me sad. On the other hand I do think it’s a bit much that I can’t worry about my sperm count without her turning it all back on to herself. I mean, I’m in on this too, aren’t I? Or aren’t I?
    But life goes on. There is after all more to it than my bollocks, although I do tend to forget that fact with a sperm test pending.
    But turning to other subjects, I’ve been thinking about the conversation I had with Trevor and George at Quark about our job titles. Perhaps I should be moving on from the Beeb? After all, there’s so much independent production going on and what with my Beeb experience, I’d probably be in huge demand. Of course I would. And I must say that I quite fancy a bit of that indie cash that’s swilling about the place. Honestly, I see children making five times what I make and all because they’ve rented three square feet of carpet in Dean Street, a secretary with a nice belly button and commissioned a witty documentary about chalet girls on the piste or something equally blindingly obvious. I mustn’t get resentful, but on the other hand I must get off my arse.
    Of course what I’d really like to do is write an original script myself but since even coming up with an initial idea seems to be beyond my creative powers I might as well do my present job but for a decent salary, which means the indie sector.
    Only eight days to go until the big test and I am definitely feeling quite relaxed about it. In fact, it’s actually seven days and thirteen hours, so what’s the problem?

Dear Penny,
    I can’t believe it!
    Sam thinks about is his sperm test. I mean for God’s sake! From what I can gather, as a younger man he practically had a degree in masturbation. His horrid hand was never still! Even now I suspect he occasionally indulges in a sly ‘excuse me’ when I’m not around.
    All in all masturbation is clearly a much-loved hobby to Sam and yet here he is, moping about as if he’s been sentenced to be hanged by the scrotum until dead.
    What’s more, he’s
    desperate to get a good result! Terrified that he might be found to be lacking in the tadpole department. This is unbelievably selfish of him because basically and in reality what this means is that he’s desperate for there to be something wrong with my body. I mean, that’s what it comes down to, surely? When he prays for a full complement of the damn stuff he’s actually praying for me to have shrivelled tubes, or blocked follicles or nodules on my whatsit or something equally ghastly. Because, let’s face it, it’s either him or me. We can’t blame Mrs Thatcher for everything like we used to when we were young.
    And this is the
    whole point. There is basically only one thing that can go wrong with a man. N.E.S. Not Enough Sperm. That’s it and once you know you know, and you can start to deal with it. I imagine there are creams or possibly vitamin supplements of some kind.
    But with a woman! Well, a woman’s plumbing is like…well, I don’t know what it’s like, I’m trying to think of something really complex but also very beautiful. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, for instance, or Paul Simon’s
    Graceland album. There’s a hundred things to be checked and every single one of those checks involves a gang of doctors placing something up one’s doodah not dissimilar to the equipment they used to build the Channel Tunnel! How could he wish that upon me?
    There was a documentary on this evening about orphans of war.
    I wanted them all.
    Every single one, disabled, dying. There