“Cathy, I think you need to listen to Mr Maskell, this is your chance to do so much for the conservation of all those little furry things, plus so much more besides. Just think, without this we could lose even more species. With it, we may even manage to improve things.” Tom was obviously sold on the idea.

“So why don’t you make his silly programmes then? You could be the new Sir David Attenborough, instead of me.”

“He isn’t as sexy as you m’dear, and despite its vulgarity, it sells things, including conservation.” Maskell interjected.

“I think I’ve heard enough of this,” I said coldly and walked towards the door.

“Cathy, please sit down,” Tom said in a firm but gentle manner.

“What for? I disagree so fundamentally with what has been said. It’s sexist, it’s patronising, it’s flesh creeping and I want no part of it.”

“My dear girl, you have passed all our tests. You said she would turn it down, Tom and we didn’t even get to the filthy lucre.”

“What is going on here?” I demanded.

“Okay, this is what we’d like to happen,” Mr Maskell explained, “we really would like you to finish your film and for it to be shown on terrestrial television. We’d also like you to make some other documentaries.”

“Why me?”

“Sadly the reasons I mentioned just now are true. You will attract an audience who enjoy seeing a pretty young thing standing around and talking to them. Bettany Hughes gets far better audience figures then Simon Scharma. We have a message to sell, you’re the best one to do it.”

“Tell him, Tom,” I said quietly, “before this goes any further.”

“Tell me what, Cathy?”

“The bad news.”

“Oh the sex change, not a problem.”

“Don’t be silly, how can I sell conservation when initially I’ll be bigger news than it?”

“It will boost the initial programme.”

“Is nothing sacred?”

“Your history is in the public domain, as soon as you’d made the film with Des, and it had got on the box, the tabloids would have been all over you like a rash. Instead we use it to sell the message; I admit I don’t like it particularly, but we have to play the hand we have, and you’re the ace up our sleeves. Sex change beauty, Cathy Watts, will double our audience figures and hopefully it will also encourage listeners to support the conservation of dormice. By the time we make the second and show it, the heat will have died off and people will just accept that the rather attractive woman narrating their programme, is an expert in the subject not just a bimbo.”

“I don’t know, it isn’t your life that’s being sacrificed, is it?”

“I have another proposition for you as well.”

“I’m not sure I could cope with any more of your offers.”

“You’ll like this one.”

“I doubt it?”

“Promise.” He actually looked sincere, but I wasn’t going to believe him anyway. “How would you like to run a parallel breeding prog on harvest mice.”

“That’s Geoff Grantham’s subject, why not ask him?”

“We did, he doesn’t want it.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“Honestly, Cathy, I am not. He said he’d help you, but he doesn’t want to do it himself.”

“I suspect they’re difficult to breed in captivity.”

“I believe that might have been one reason why he wasn’t prepared to do it. However, we want you to do a programme on them as well, so that will be the second one, to go out some time next year. Then we’ll do one on the red squirrel, and finally, one on the pine marten.”

“There are people who are far better qualified than I am to talk on these animals.”

“They may know more about them, they aren’t better qualified, and as a respected expert yourself, you’ll be able to talk with these people in their own language, they’ll tell you things the rest of us wouldn’t understand, and all you have to do is simplify it for the lay audience.”

“So I get to do the dumbo thing, do I?”

“Not at all, you’ll be the communicator, teaching us things about these mysterious animals, which will make us want to protect them.”

“I don’t do schmaltz.”

“It won’t be that sort of thing. We want you to help these experts make their points intellectually, but in terms the man in the street can understand.”

“These experts are all well established communicators, they don’t need me.”

“You will be the common thread linking all of the programmes. After the pine marten, we may look at commissioning some more.”

“I need to think about it, I don’t feel very comfortable with the whole idea, especially as it might be about the time of the first or second one that Simon and I may get married.”

“Simon Cameron, so you’d be Lady Catherine, eh. Why can’t you marry him now and we could use the publicity to float the dormouse prog.”

“No way, how dare you? Is nothing sacred to you?”

“To me, dear lady, in a word–no.”

“I thought so. I’m not at all sure I want to be involved in this, at all.”

“But it will bring you fame and fortune.”

“It could, except I don’t want or like those things.”

“So Lady Cameron–see it just trips off the tongue, it’s so sweet.”

“I’m not married to him yet.”

“Well hurry up then.”

“I can’t until we’re ready, and besides I have to do two years to qualify for my ‘female’ status with the gender recognition panel. I obviously can’t marry him until that happens.”

“Is that it?”

“I nodded.”

“Okay, if I get you your gender recognition, would you do it then?”
“You can’t hurry the process of law,” I protested.

“Watch me.” He pulled out his mobile, he pressed a preset number and a few moments later he was talking over the loud speaker on his phone to somebody of importance because they agreed to his queries. “Sam, can we get someone’s gender recognition hurried up?”

“Let me know who, and we’ll work on it.”

“Okay, will do. Bye.” He switched off his phone and looked at me. “Does that say anything to you?”

“Not really, I don’t watch telly.”

“Grrr, you don’t make this any easier."

This is friday's episode, couldn't post earlier the site appeared down.