Rage

And fulminating. I seem to have spent most of the last five days in a permanent froth of impotent rage. There is of course the house move (just don't, is my advice. Not if you live in Brighton. And come into any contact at all with solicitors called H*nn*ngs. **)

We joined the National Trust, thus proving that not only have I reached middle-age, but I'm white, middle-class, and with a sense of superiority over the rest of humanity. Great large spaces for our toddler to run herself into the ground, but even so... is there an excuse?

They provided me with a source of fulmination by creating a stunningly gorgeous water park complete with autumnal woods and sloping meadows that beg you to run down them trilling the theme to a French relationship movie (I may be thinking of "The Man Who Loved Women". Oh, you know; La la lala la, la la lala la, laa laa laa la la lala la. Is it that...?) and have idyllic picnics... except you're not allowed picnics. Not in the beautiful grounds. In the considerably less beautiful field with tables next to the car park, yes; but in the beautiful, perfect for picnics grounds - no.

Rage.

More house rage.

Then BBC Exec rage. True writing stories, the kind world weary pros tell with a tang of cynical venom before they get their fourth refill of the free red.

8 weeks into my latest project. 8 weeks and 4 LOOONG beat sheets (my phrase for step treatments; more bouncy, pointed and direct, don't you think?) into my latest project, and I'm happy, the script editor's happy, the producer's happy. Let's go to first draft. Here comes the Exec Prod. Can't do that story - another BBC show are doing a story in the same territory.

Right.

Thanks. Thanks very much for telling us.

Who else but an Exec can know that? Isn't that an important part of their JOB, knowing what the other in-house Execs are developing? As if that wasn't enough to make my eyeballs bulge...

The gripper. The real knock you out, I can't believe they said that comment; 'It's not special enough. Make it more special' (it's one of two episodes going out when there are usually four, so to market it without seeming like skinflints they're calling them specials. ha.) Without going to the reasonable extent of defining what special might actually mean in this context.

Whiteout. Whiteout, then red dots swirl in a wind of anger before BAM - a hurricane of scarlet rage. Good Execs have a clear vision of what they want to get, and the best ones give notes that help achieve that. The others don't. They make vague but kind of sort of creative sounding noises that obfuscate rather than clarify, meaning they avoid the difficult job of giving clear and constructive notes.

Rage, rage, fury, rage.

We recovered, and as is often the case, producer, editor and me had a panicked meeting fuelled by cappucino and chocolate twists, deconstructed the treatment, and came up with a new structure and story line salvaging about 50% of what we had already. This is all with 10 weeks to shoot.

Rage fury rage.

All so unnecessary.

After seven years getting paid for writing TV I'm finally beginning to work out what it is that Execs do; make the development and writing process an unnecessarily stressful nightmare. Except the good ones, and them you barely notice, because they've communicated what they are looking for so well at the start of the process that they don't need to butt in and start again from scratch with 10 weeks to principal photography.

Glad that's off my chest.

**I wonder if that's enough to stop them suing me for libel? Though they're so incompetently slow that if they did I'd probably be dribbling in a rest home before they got round to it.