‘Hey, Fi. Yeah, you can help. Organize a meeting between our team after lunch. We need a brainstorm.’ I smile. We both know the smile is business. She grins back and I’m relieved. She probably hasn’t slept with him yet. I normally know about such things long before the participants do. I consider warning her but decide not to. She’ll either think I am jealous or too old to know better. Advice, by its very nature, is there to be ignored.

Our office is a huge glass building that seems to rise endlessly upwards. It’s turned inside out like the Pompidou Centre. There is an odd mix of ritz and tat. Diet Coke and watery hot drinks from vending machines are consumed around Conran aluminium tables. There are plants oxygenating the room but I suspect the nod towards green and leafy is a losing battle. Since television studios are some of the few places left in London where people can still smoke, most feel it is obligatory. A dense smoky haze fills our days. People don’t move around much, they stay at their desks. This suggests that there is a substantial amount of genuine industry but not much communication. Calling a meeting indicates the seriousness of my issue. Through the glass partition I see my team congregate. It’s like watching a bunch of anxious relatives waiting by a sick bed. The analogy is frighteningly close to the reality. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that they possibly realize as much; everyone appears slightly nervous and sweaty. They are trying hard to look as though they are not trying at all. Their names are Thomas and Mark (the creative team), Jacquelyn (production secretary), Diana (marketing manager), Graham (sponsorship and advertising manager), Deborah (PR officer), Richard (broadcast strategy and scheduling manager) and Fi. Because we work in TV they are known as Tom, Jaki, Di, Gray, Debs, Ricky and Fi. There was nothing we could do with Mark.

The team look at one another to discover a suitable expression to draw their faces into. They are trying to decide whether to look racked with professional concern, coolly indifferent or bright and optimistic. The problem with my industry is that a very large part of it is populated by those who refuse to leave their student years behind them. They dress like students. Everyone is ill-looking thin. Dressing down is an art form. The merest hint of trying, an iota of personal pride, will be condemned. Everyone looks as though they do too many drugs, and smoke and drink too much. It’s fair. Besides looking like students, the attitudes are similar, too. It is only students who could have arrived at the concepts of ‘essay crisis’ or ‘no milk in the fridge crisis’. These are not crises. Crises are earthquakes, famines and tidal waves. My team understands that the cancellation of the Christmas karaoke act is a crisis but have no concept that twelve weeks of plummeting ratings is a crisis. If they do get the concept and panic about it for fifteen minutes or so, they can’t hold the concept. It’s usual that mid-brainstorm or meeting, someone suggests that we need to go to the pub for a ‘break from the intensity’. On our return the original subject of the meeting is forgotten and the debate has moved on to whether salt and Linneker are a better flavour crisp than cheese and onion.

I don’t feel like this. There is nothing more important than my job.

I never enter a meeting room without first thinking through exactly what I want to say, how I want to say it and what effect I want to have. Fi being keen and ambitious, whilst slightly threatening and nauseous, is useful. She’ll really want to crack this. I’ve slept with both Mark and Tom, although neither of them knows about the other. (FYI, Mark is better-looking, Tom is better in bed. He tries harder.) It should be easy to keep their attention. Especially as by happy chance I am wearing an unnecessarily tight T-shirt and bootleg jeans that cling in all the right places. I haven’t slept with Gray so the outfit will be doubly effective. Debs and Di like to keep in with me as I occasionally give them tips on hair conditioners or the latest ‘must have’ fashion statement. Ricky’s gay so he does the same for me.

‘Afternoon,’ I breeze.

‘Afternoon,’ they mumble sulkily. For a nanosecond I think they are going to add ‘miss’, but they don’t.

‘What’s this?’ I ask, pointing sceptically towards a cardboard box in the centre of the table. It’s overflowing with balloons, Christmas decorations, crayons, sticky-backed plastic, old magazines, a toy trumpet, several Comic Relief noses and a cappuccino.

‘Oh, that’s my coffee,’ says Di, reaching into the box and rescuing her drink. She takes a huge slurp, oblivious to my disdain.

‘Yes, that’s clear. What is the rest of it?’ I fear Debs has been let down by her childminder again and had to bring her five-year-old son into work. I hope not – Bale just isn’t in the mood.

‘It’s the creativity box,’ pipes up Fi, enthusiasm oozing from every pore. I look at her, waiting for a more meaningful explanation. She tries, ‘It’s to help stimulate more creative thoughts.’ Even if I hadn’t read Fi’s CV I would know by this comment that she had an idyllic childhood, went to the best public schools for young ladies and had a father who adored her. How else could she be this happy with life? I think I’ll piss on her parade.

‘Remind me, Fi, which industry do we work in?’

‘TV.’ She looks cautiously around the room, unsure where this questioning is going.

‘And wouldn’t you agree that TV is generally considered a creative industry?’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘We’re not bloody management consultants, we don’t need sticky-backed plastic to prove we are capable of ideas.’ I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to. She sheepishly drags the box off the table and tries to hide it behind the more conventional ideas aid, the flip chart. The others disloyally look away, distancing themselves from her. That doesn’t impress me either.

‘OK. You have read the brief. We have to come up with a hero show, something that will draw in the viewers and the advertisers; interest of the press would be a bonus. Mr Bale has articulated the problem here, rather succinctly, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ I read, ‘“We need a ‘bang-those-bastards-and-their-new-shows-in-to-the-ground-idea”.’ The team treat themselves to a nervous giggle. I’m tough, but Bale is a tosser and our common loathing of him unites us again. I roll up my sleeves and sit on the side of the table, smiling and allowing the good humour to penetrate. ‘So what’s the competition doing?’

‘ITV are concentrating on their main stable of shows, successful soaps, quiz games that make people rich and buying in blockbuster films that earned a fortune in the box office. Here’s their schedule for the next four months. The docusoap features heavily too,’ says Ricky. He’s done his homework efficiently. Unfortunately the news is depressing. The room falls silent again; the good mood has evaporated.

‘What about Channel 4’s scheduling this year?’ asks Fi hopefully.

‘Just as strong,’ adds Ricky, embarrassed to be twisting the knife. ‘They have everything. Arts, music, drama, comedy, entertainment, lifestyle, leisure, documentaries, film premières and something called “4 later”.’

‘What’s that – porn?’ asks Mark.

‘I don’t expect they even need porn,’ answers Tom.

I read the descriptor. ‘It’s porn,’ I assure. No one knows whether we should be glad that C4 have resorted to this or depressed because it will be a crowd pleaser. I clap my hands. ‘OK, to business. No idea is a daft idea, any thoughts, please?’ I pick up the marker and stand with my pen poised in front of the flip chart.

Silence.

‘Come on,’ I encourage. ‘Don’t let those schedules intimidate you. I really think you can overestimate a period drama with high production values, big stars and great plots. I think they are too highbrow. Let’s catch another niche market.’

Fi gets it. ‘Drama is too expensive for TV6. Entertainment is cheap.’

‘Exactly,’ I bolster. ‘With entertainment the main outgoing is people’s pride and common sense.’

‘What about a game show?’ offers Tom. The look on his face suggests that he thinks he’s just invented electricity.

‘Good,’ I assure. He’ll be the first to go, when the P45s are being dished up. ‘Now try and think of what type of game show.’ I consider whether, if the worst comes to the worst, I could retrain as a primary school teacher. I have all the core skills.

We bandy a few game show ideas around but they’ve all been done before. Often on bigger budgets than we have available. We talk it round and round.

‘We could diversify. We could buy a publishing house or a football team,’ suggests Gray. He’s thinking of the free tickets that he could blag for his friends.

That’s a stupid idea,’ comments Di.

‘Gary, the commercial director, likes it.’

‘I think it is a great idea,’ says Di.

‘Can we keep to the point, please,’ I instruct. It’s getting hot and late. I call out for more coffee and Coke. The rest of London’s workforces teem out of their offices and escape into pubs for a long cool lager. This isn’t an option for my team.

‘How about a “fly-on-the-wall” programme?’ asks Jaki. ‘They are cheap and popular.’

‘Absolutely. On which subject?’

‘The police force?’ offers Mark. ‘We could expose their ruthless tactics and racist tendencies.’

‘They do a pretty good job of that themselves, without TV,’ points out Jaki.

‘The fire brigade?’ offers Ricky. I know he’s simply getting hot and sweaty over the idea of them swinging down their pole. He’s a sucker for uniforms.

‘Been done.’

His disappointment is criminal.