Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (10 page)

Thursday 6 March

Another call from the TV company, this time from an
Emma, who wanted me to make some props for next
week. Props? What sort of props?

'You know, management-consultant props – pie
charts and easels and all that sort of stuff.'

'But we don't do props as management consultants,'
I replied. 'We do PowerPoint presentations.'

'Well, can you put some of the PowerPoint stuff on
old sort of stuff?'

'Old sort of stuff?'

'Yes – easels, flip charts.'

'But I'm telling you, that's not how it's done.'

There was a tone of mutual exasperation.

'Sam,' said Emma. 'You must understand that we
need something large and visual.'

'Why?'

'Because that's how TV works, that's why. TV is not
about subtlety, it's about black and white, making
difficult things easy, and making easy things even
easier.'

'Lowest common denominator, eh?'

'Whatever that means,' said Emma, thereby proving
my point.

'OK,' I sighed. 'You'll have your flip charts and pie
charts and stuff charts.'

What I find surprising is just how ad hoc everything
is. Back at Musker Walsh and Sloss, projects would take
weeks and months to come to fruition, whereas these
people in TV are just kind of winging it and making it
up as they go along.

They have a lot to learn.

Friday 7 March

Spent all day trying to make pie charts and flip charts
and diagrams and whatnot. When the children were at
school/playgroup I drove into a stationers in town and
bought all the type of stuff that I suspected the Emma
wanted, and then proceeded to draw out all my
PowerPoint slides. In the end, I have to admit that they
looked pretty good, although some of my pies looked
like they had been baked by an amateur.

The children wanted to help when they got back, but
I managed to stop them. It would have done no good
having their squiggles all over my Domestic Evaluation
Signifiers graph, or indeed my Activity Ratio Index pie
chart.

Peter looked a bit winded when it became clear my
refusal was absolute (rather a rare occurrence) and he
folded his arms and asked, 'But what are they
for
,
Daddy?'

'They're for the TV programme I am making.'

'Yes, but why?'

'It will show the family what to do.'

'What family?'

'The family I am trying to help,' I replied, keeping my
patience.

'Why do they need help?'

'Because they are a bad family, and Daddy is going to
make them into a good family.'

Peter gestured towards my charts.

'With these?' he asked, his little voice largely
incredulous.

I looked at my handiwork.

'Of course,' I said, trying to sound more convincing
than I felt.

'But you don't use these charts with us,' he observed.

'That's right.'

'Why?'

My first reaction was to say, 'Because they don't
work', but instead I said, 'Because we are a good family,
and you don't need this sort of help.'

'But Daddy . . .'

Peter paused. I could almost see the cogs in his head.

'Yes?'

'But Daddy, if you are going to help the bad family,
who is going to help me and Daisy and Mummy?'

'I'm not going away for very long – just for a few days
– and Halet will look after you.'

Peter looked a little sad.

'I don't want you to go away,' he said.

'It won't be for very long, and Halet is very nice.'

'No she's not!'

I bent down and gave Peter a hug. He was close to
tears, which almost made me cry as well. Now I am really
feeling guilty about everything.

Sunday 9 March

Right. I think I'm all set. I've got all my bags packed,
Halet arrives at 7.30 tomorrow morning, and I'll be
leaving at 9ish. We'll all go down to Peter's school
together, and then I'll be off to the Midlands, where I
shall either meet my doom, or enter into TV nirvana,
or both. Perhaps I shall be killed on camera, and my
entire life will be relegated to one of those comedy TV
moments, forever to be repeated on some snuff
website.

Sally picked up on my nerves over supper.

'It's not too late to pull out, you know,' she said.

'It is,' I replied, sucking up some spaghetti. 'I've
signed a contract.'

'Oh, I didn't realise that.'

(Neither did I.)

'Yes, and besides, I don't want to let everybody down.
Most of all myself. I really want to give this the best shot
I can.'

Sally held my hand and looked into my eyes.

'Listen,' she said. 'I know I've been down on this
whole thing from the start, but I don't want you to think
that I don't support you.'

I didn't know what to make of this.

'So you do support it or not?' I asked, slightly too
aggressively.

'I support you, but not the idea,' she said.

I smiled.

'Spoken like a true civil servant,' I replied.

'Spoken like a true wife. I want you to prove me
wrong, I really do.'

'Don't you worry – I will. This thing is going to be an
enormous success.'

Monday 10 March

11.30 p.m. Somewhere in the Midlands in a terrible hotel

Everything started so well. Halet turned up on time, we
got the children to school OK, and my drive up here
was fine. I met Dom and one of the Emmas and the rest
of the crew at the hotel, and Dom explained that today
would be all about watching how the family get on and
how they behave, etc. – just observation. I'd need to
stand around looking incredibly wise and jotting down
notes on a shoddy
WonderHubby
clipboard that had been
specially made. We'd stay with the family through to
bed time (if there was such a thing), and then head off
for a well-earned drink back at the hotel.

That was the plan, anyway. Things didn't go quite so
smoothly as that.

The house, which was on a reasonably smart council
estate, looked in pretty good nick. The grass was a little
long, and one of the window panes was cracked, but
that was about it. Perhaps they weren't such animals
after all.

The only person who looked disappointed was Dom.

'What's the matter?' I asked.

'It's not what I wanted,' he said.

'Oh?'

'Not scruffy enough.'

He turned to Emma.

'Ems, could you sort out some rusty old bicycles
and an old bath or something to put out the front
here?'

Emma scribbled everything down on her pad, which
I noticed didn't have '
WonderHubby
' emblazoned on it.

'But . . .' I started.

'I know what you're thinking,' interrupted Dom. 'But
remember, the greater the difference before and after,
the more chance we have of getting the series
commissioned. You'll just have to trust me on this.'

'OK,' I sighed, wondering how well the natives would
take it, and hoping that such liberties would only be
taken with the pilot.

While Emma scampered off with one of the gofers
(there seemed to be a hell of a lot of people attached to
the crew), Dom rang the doorbell, and after a few
seconds this enormously fat woman appeared at the
door. It was impossible to place her age – it could have
been anything between thirty-five and sixty-five.

'Yeah?'

'Hi there Debbie,' said Dom. 'How are you?'

'Are you trying to sell me something?'

'No! We're the TV people – the ones making the
programme about you.'

'Which programme?'

Dom looked at the house number.

'This is number 23, right?'

'Yeah.'

'And you are Debbie Lampert?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, you must remember that we're filming you this
week.'

'I know all that,' said Debbie, 'but which programme
are you from?'

'
WonderHubby
,' Dom replied. 'The one in which we're
going to try to help you look after the kids.'

'OK,' she said. 'That's good to know, cos we've also
got a couple of other programmes coming sometime
this week.'

Dom's eyes did the Tube logo thing.

'Which ones?'

Debbie wracked whatever brains she had.

'Well, there's
Pimp Your Lounge
for one, and the other
one is
Bridgette Cassidy's Move That Arse
.'

'
Bridgette Cassidy's Move That Arse
?' we asked in unison.

'Yeah,' she smiled. 'Don't yer know it? It's on Sky. It's
brilliant. Bridgette Cassidy comes along and gets rid of
your arse.'

'How?'

Debbie shrugged – or rather wobbled – her
shoulders.

'I dunno. Probably hipposuction or something.'

Dom and I tried not to laugh.

'So when are these programmes coming?' Dom
asked.

'They said this week. Dunno when exactly.'

Just at that moment we heard a kerfuffle behind us,
and we turned to see another TV crew trying to barge
through ours.

'Oh look,' said Debbie. 'Here comes one of them
right now.'

A bloke who looked a little like Dom (at least, they
had the same rectangular glasses) came up to him and
asked, 'Where you from?'

'Pantheon Productions,' said Dom. 'We're making
WonderHubby
and we've got them first. Where are you
from?'

'The news,' said the lookalike, who then turned to
Debbie.

'Hello Mrs Lampert,' he smiled. 'You OK?'

'Good thanks,' she replied, lighting a cigarette. 'What
you here for this time, Bob?'

'Little Ted again, I'm afraid.'

'I thought he was in court,' she said. 'Big Ted took
him there first thing.'

'Seems they never turned up,' said Bob. 'So we just
wanted to see if they were here.'

'I expect Little Ted went to school instead,' said
Debbie, at which point she broke out into a smoker's
hacking cackle.

We all joined in the laughter, and Dom signalled to
the crew that they should start filming, and then Bob
did the same with his crew, and soon we entered into a
very postmodern situation in which both sets of camera
crews started filming each other.

'Do you all wanna come in for a cuppa?' asked
Debbie, and so about 45 of us went into the house,
which stank of fags and chip fat, and made our way
through a tiny hall into a small kitchen where we found
young Epernay, who was sitting at the table reading a
copy of
A-Listers!
(The exclamation mark is not mine.)
Amazingly, she just ignored us, and I noticed that she
was listening to an iPod, which was causing her to draw
out some annoying tattoo on the table at 250 beats per
minute. Meanwhile, both crews continued filming. Bob
kept asking questions about Big and Little Ted, and
wondered how Debbie felt about the fact that they were
earning a name for themselves as a father and son crime
wave, all of which Debbie thought was rather amusing,
as she manifested by her hacking laugh.

After half an hour the news crew left, and everything
felt positively anticlimactic. We all sort of sat there in
silence, until Epernay piped up.

'So what you doing then?'

'We're making a programme about your family,' I
replied.

'What?'

'WE'RE MAKING A PROGRAMME ABOUT YOUR
FAMILY,' I yelled over the headphones.

'No need to shout,' she said.

I studied Epernay's face. Although she was only nine,
it was already showing signs of the unattractive features
she would acquire after years of being exposed to fag
smoke and saturated fats, and not being exposed to sun
and exercise. She was pasty and chubby, and there
seemed little hope. As I looked at her, I started
wondering whether this programme could make a
difference, and whether it was indeed possible for
WonderHubby
to do anything remotely positive. Or were
we just here to take the piss out of poor people, like so
many other TV crews, and then share our footage with
other middle-class people for them to laugh at over
their organic TV dinners? Probably. But then these
people have a choice to be like this. They don't have to
smoke all day. Fruit and vegetables are cheap. Exercise
is free, as is fresh air. And it's not as though they are
ignorant of the benefits of good food and exercise – it's
just that they are lazy. And is there anything wrong with
taking the piss out of lazy people? Probably. But I'm in
too deep now.

'Why are you looking at me like that?' Epernay asked,
pulling me out of my musings.

'Sorry,' I said, shaking my head. 'I was miles away.'

Suddenly a couple of shadows loomed behind me.

'Who the fuck are you lot?'

I turned to see who I could only assume was Big Ted.
He was just as I imagined – a cross between a wrestler
and another uglier wrestler. His hair was short, and
below it was a face that was used to playing host to fists.
He was wearing a tracksuit emblazoned with the name
of the local football team, and even though he may have
been as fat as his wife, he looked as fit as a prop forward.

Behind him peeked Little Ted, who was the thinnest
member of the family by a ton. In fact, he was so thin he
could have hidden behind one of his father's legs,
which is basically what he was doing. He looked feral,
and so unlike his parents that I began to doubt his
parentage.

'Hello,' said Dom, holding out his hand. 'I'm Dom,
and this is Sam, and we're making a programme called
WonderHubby
. Has Debbie not told you about it?'

Big Ted looked down at the hand, wondering what
on earth it was doing there.

'No,' he said.

'I did tell yer,' said Debbie. 'Last week, when you
came back from the pub on Tuesday morning.'

Big Ted shook his skull.

'I don't remember.'

'Think, Ted.'

'I remember,' piped up a weaselly voice that
belonged to Little Ted.

'Yer see?' said Debbie. 'Anyway, where have you
been?'

'To court,' said Big Ted, his eyes wide with innocence.

'That's not what the news said.'

'The news?'

'Bob came round here just now, saying that you never
went.'

'We bloody did, didn't we son?'

'Yeah? And what happened?'

Debbie folded her arms as she squared up to her
husband.

'Not much,' said Big Ted, and with that, he slouched
off to his soon-to-be pimped lounge.

Little Ted remained in the room.

'Hi,' I said weakly.

'Hi,' he said moodily, his gold chain swinging from
his scrawny neck.

I recognised his type. All mouth and no shell suit.
The nasty little coward who would mug you from
behind, even if you were a pensioner. The air filled with
a mutually satisfying loathing. What was the posh twat
doing in his house?

'So then,' I said. 'Did your mum tell you about the
programme?'

'Not really.'

I noticed that the camera had started up again. I did
my best not to feel self-conscious.

'Well, I'm the WonderHubby . . .'

A snort, the type of snort that suggested not only
derision, but that the nose was the orifice through
which Little Ted received the majority of his
pharmaceutical sustenance.

'And I'm going to be using the techniques of
management consultancy to show you how to run
yourselves better as a family.'

'Management what?'

At this point Dom stepped in, ushering everyone to
their feet.

'Right, let's do this properly. Let's set this up in the
lounge, where Sam can show you how it's all going to
work. Ems, fetch the flip charts and all that stuff.'

'But there's nothing wrong with our family,' said
Little Ted, sniffing.

My presentation was a disaster. Finally, at around 12
o'clock, we managed to assemble the family in the
lounge, which really did need to be pimped. The
'carpet' was purple, the walls were orange, and the sofas
were a mixture of brown and grey. Along one wall stood
a vast cupboard/display case thing, upon which were
the naffest ornaments human beings have ever created,
such as dolphins playing tennis and angels crying on
toadstools. Unsurprisingly, the room was dominated by
an enormous flatscreen television that somebody must
have paid at least £2,000 for. I reflected that whoever
had bought it must have been missing it.

Debbie seemed to take much exception to our
moving the furniture around, and it took Dom to gently
remind her that doubtless
Pimp Your Lounge
would be
doing a lot worse, to make her shut up. Eventually, the
Lamperts were squeezed onto one sofa, all of them –
bar Epernay – dragging hungrily on their fags. The
room was full of smoke, and as both the windows were
permanently shut – 'There's a lot of stealing round
here,' Big Ted explained – it was impossible to clear the
air.

I set up all my presentation devices as planned, and
began to talk to them about what I was going to do. I
started by asking whether any of them knew what
management consultancy was.

'Nah,' said Debbie, examining her yellowy fingernails.

'Fucked if I know,' said Epernay.

'Language!' hissed Big Ted.

'Management consultants are people who help
managers run their companies,' I explained, doing my
best not to adopt a primary school teacher voice.

'But,' interrupted Big Ted, 'if you need a management
consultant to tell you how to manage your
company, doesn't that mean you're a bit fucked?'

I closed my eyes momentarily. This was exactly the
same question Sally's sister asked me a while back. Why
does everybody think this?

'Do you think we're a bit fucked?' Big Ted asked. 'Cos
if you do, you can fuck right off!'

'Language!' hissed Epernay.

'I don't think you're fucked at all,' I said.

'Language!' hissed Little Ted, at which point they all
laughed.

'I just think,' I continued, 'like most families, you
need to make some improvements. And that's what
management consultants do with companies. They
don't come in and run the company, but they show how
to make everything a little bit better, and hopefully
more profitable. Obviously, the notion of profit doesn't
apply in a domestic-cum-familial scenario, although the
underlying tenets of efficiency maximisation and yield-optimising
techniques are identical in many ways.'

I realised they were looking at me as if I were a freak.

'You what?' said Little Ted.

'You're having a laugh,' said Debbie.

I looked at Dom and Emma out of the corner of my
eye, pleading with them to back me up, but they were
smirking. As was the cameraman, the git.

I then proceeded to attempt to spell out in simple
language what it was I was here to do. I did my best not
to use too much jargon and business-speak, but that's
the problem with management consultancy, you just
have to use it, otherwise you're taking an age to explain
every concept. The family looked slightly bored, and at
one point Little Ted even turned on the television,
which caused Debbie much annoyance.

'Don't be rude to our guest!'

This was accompanied by a slap round the head that
would have felled a reasonable-sized tree.