“Carl, it’s Lucy from the office. Just who the hell do you think you are? I think you’re horrible! Do you imagine I’m a slut? Do you think I’m some old slapper who you can just… just… knock off when you choose? Well, let me tell you that just because you’re quite good looking doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with you, all right? I’m a married woman so you can just bloody well forget it! Oh, by the way we need an answer on that soap powder ad script we sent you. Goodbye!”

I felt a lot better after that. Great news about Cuthbert.

Dear Self

Now I really am hurt. I felt so mean this morning about everything that I sent some roses to Lucy at her office. I sent rather a saucy message too. I said she was beautiful and that I must have her. I thought she’d be pleased. I thought when I got home tonight she’d leap on me. But no, nothing. She didn’t mention it! She just carried on writing her book and when she’d finished that all she did was go on and on about how much she hates their new actor, Carl Phipps.

I think she fancies him.

Anyway, then I thought perhaps the flowers didn’t arrive, so I asked her if she’d had any surprises on her desk that morning.

I swear she went white.

“What?” she said. “What do you know about it? Who told you? Have you been talking to Sheila?”

“I haven’t been talking to anyone,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you got my red roses this morning.”

Did I say that she went white before? Well, it must have only been pale because now she went white, she actually shook and clutched about herself for support. It’s this bloody baby business, she needs a rest.

“The roses… you sent me?” she said.

“Yes, with the saucy note. Did you get them?”

“Oh, yes,” and her voice sounded like that of a dying hamster, a hamster dying of a sore throat. “I got them.”

Then she became almost hysterical.

“Why?!” she shouted. “Why did you send them?! My God, and that note! It was stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Well, that was it. I walked out. I’m actually writing this in the pub. I mean, all the times she’s gone on about me not showing her any affection (“Show me some affection,” that’s all she ever seems to say, particularly when I’m trying to watch the telly) and now, now I try to do something sexy and romantic and she screams at me.

I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to say this. I know I’m not supposed even to think it, but bloody women!

Dear Penny I want to DIE. I JUST want to DIE.

Dear Sam

My first day in the new job today, which meant a ridiculously early 5 a.m. start. Lucy brought me a cup of tea which was very nice of her although frankly I’m not sure she’d been to sleep. She kissed me and thanked me properly for the flowers. She said she was sorry about last night and it was just the tension of everything what with the looming laparoscopy and all. I told her not to worry and I think that we put the atmosphere behind us, although I can’t say that things feel particularly close at the moment.

My new office is located at Broadcasting House, which I like. It’s so old and truly BBC. It’s also in town rather than miles out west and very easy for me on the tube.

My new job is awful. My principal responsibility seems to be the Radio 1 breakfast show. This is because what used to be primarily a pop show is now much more a light entertainment programme with a bit of music thrown in. They have a sensational new signing at the moment, a bloke called Charlie Stone, who is supposed to be the absolute last word in post-modern youth broadcasting, which means he cracks knob gags in places where knob gags were previously considered taboo, i.e. at seven-thirty in the morning on the nation’s number one radio show. He’s actually very good in a completely indefinable way, which is what star quality is, I suppose. He’s both hip and mainstream at the same time, which is a very tough trick to pull off. Of course he gets an enormous amount of complaints. Which I believe the Channel Controller finds very encouraging.

The Controller’s name is Matt Crowley and I had been emailed to meet him at the studio to “check out” Charlie’s show live.

“He’s at the very cutting edge of post-modern zoo radio,” my new controller assured me. “Satirical, confrontational, anti-establishment and subversive.”

Which of course as always means knob gags.

When I arrived Crowley was already there (bad start) and we stood together behind the glass wall watching Charlie and his posse entertain the waking nation. I joined him at the end of a song called “Sex My Sex” from a singer called Brenda, who is incredibly pretty and is always appearing in her bra on the cover of Loaded.

“All right,” said Charlie, “that was another very sexy waxing from the very sexy Brenda. It made me want to reach for the knob… To turn up the volume, I mean! Teh, what are you lot like? And what a very sexy lady Brenda is, what a very very sexy and of course talented lady. She makes my tackle taut. How could she not? She makes my luggage leap, my stonker stand, my hand pump hard and she bucks up my old boy. Sorry if that sounds sexist, but I’m sworn to speak only the truth.”

I was pretty astonished actually. It’s so long since I listened to Radio 1 I hadn’t realized how blokey it had got.

“And speaking of sex,” Charlie went on, “tell me, lovely listeners, when did you first feel sexy? I want to hear about your first bonk. Yes, I do, and we know you’re dying to tell. Did the earth move? Who ended up on the wet patch? Did you smoke afterwards or just gently steam? Think about it and give us a bell.”

Matt turned to me with a pleased proprietorial look.

“Brilliant, right?”

“Oh, right,” I assured him.

“So, here’s how it is, mate,” Crowley continued. “I may be your controller, but he’s your boss, OK? The Breakfast Show is the station flagship. It’s his show and you work for him. He’s a radio genius and your job, your number-one occupation, is to stop him getting poached by Virgin or Capital.”

Later on, alone in my new office, I made a decision.

A big and terrible decision, a decision I never imagined myself making, a decision I hate myself for even thinking about. But I’ve done it now and deep down even though I know I’m wrong, I know I’m right.

Dear Penny

I’ve taken the week off work. After the way I’ve shamed myself with Carl Phipps I may never leave the house again. I mean, what must he think of me? How must he feel? He kisses a girl, she kisses him back and the next thing he knows he’s being foully abused on his answerphone and told that the girl will not give him one when he hasn’t even asked her to in the first place! My God! Every time I think about it I want to kill myself.

What am I to do? I’m bound to see him sooner or later. Perhaps I’ll give up my job. After all, now that Sam has been transferred to radio (Sam keeps saying “the shame of it” but I don’t see what’s so wrong with radio), the threat of our immediate financial ruin seems to have lifted somewhat. If I left the office I’d never have to see Carl again. I must say it’s tempting.

Cuthbert is out of danger and home, by the way. Melinda brought him round and he projectile vomited all over me and an antique cushion cover. Melinda said that the doctors had warned that this might happen and I wasn’t to worry because Cuthbert was fine. A slightly insensitive thing to say, I thought, as I mopped up the bile. I mean us non-mothers do have lives too and we do care about our cushion covers. Still, I mustn’t be mean. Any mum who’s been through what Melinda has recently been through with Cuthbert is entitled to place him at the centre of the universe and exclude the needs and feelings of all other beings.