Conspiracy Theory

There’s a conspiracy afoot and it is happening right under our noses. A dastardly plot to undermine this nation’s building trade and its going on right there on our television screens, one night a week (more if you have one of those channels which is solely devoted to home improvement shows). The perpetrator? None other than the doyenne of such shows, the one and only Sarah Beeny.

Now, I am saying nothing new when I observe that Ms Beeny appears to be in a permanent state of pregnancy. The fact that the size of her stomach oscillates wildly during the course of any given programme has been commented on many times before. What always puzzled me was why this happened. (Note, I said ‘why’, not ‘how’. I know how babies are made. Man inserts appendage, gives woman massively disappointing time, withdraws and then goes down the pub for the next 19 years.)

The thing is, you see, that Beeny made her name – and presumably a shedload of money – as a property developer before she became a television presenter. Building sites not generally being regarded as a location conducive to child rearing, I assume that during this time she was in sufficient control of her fertility to avoid squeezing out sprogs mid-project. In which case, why does it keep happening now that she is on television?

My initial theory was that it was a gimmick dreamed up by the show’s producers to keep interest in her show alive now that there is so much competition: “Great series, Sarah. Give us a ring as soon as you’re up the duff again and we’ll set up another one.”

The problem with this approach is that it does give the impression that the poor woman is pregnant 365 days of the year. Every year. Except that, of course, it might not actually be a problem. Suppose that it isn’t really an impression at all. Suppose that La Beeny actually is pregnant almost all of the time, that no sooner has her cervix slammed shut after one baby than she is dragging her poor husband into the bedroom and demanding that he impregnate her again. And again. And again. Until there is a whole army of Beeny babies growing up and ready to wreak havoc on the world of property renovation.

At the time of writing Sarah Beeny is 35 years old. With the aid of modern science, that gives her another 30-odd years of breeding. Even at one baby a year, by the end of those 30 years there will not be a builder left in the UK who isn’t related to her in some way. By the end of the century the whole world could be hers, or at least her grandchildren’s. No path will be laid, not a floor tiled or a bath masticked, without it being done by a Beeny descendent. And if you are not carrying the Beeny gene, well, you’ll never work in the building trade again. You won’t convince me that this is a good thing.