Low life
Canned
Jeffrey Bernard
well it wasn't all fun and games in old Languedoc. I worked like a dog at times. To write something then learn it and then say it to camera isn't quite as easy as you might think and I for one will regard the people who do this regularly with a, slightly less jaundiced eye in future. Being s television critic is easy. By the way, Ingraliii got it all wrong as usual (Television ' April). I wasn't taken off the show to gut and have a lie down. I was taken of because the producer was daft enough to think that Hattie Waugh would be a hette.,, foil for April Ashley than me. At least lVhss Ashley and I once had quite lot in common. People who make jokes about my drinking never seem to be able to do it as well as me. However, that's by the by. Yes, after five days in front of that camera I begin to see how it is that so Iraq people who spend their lives in front ° them become so hideously self-importarit. By the time I'd got some confidence and the hang of it I was really enjoying myself. What I did find very disconcerting, having n_egligible powers of concentration, was to !Ind rnY mind wandering while actually interviewing someone. This happened in Sete while talking to an English-speaking tycoonof a wine importer. While he was being quite fascinating about the £25 Million's worth of damage caused by local Wine growers equipped with dynamite, plastic explosives and Molotov cocktails I found myself gazing out of the window at the ships and wondering whether the Coach and Horses had run out of Roses Lime Juice again. But what an extraordinary bunch of men those locals who had destroyed so much im- Ported Italian wine. They let us film one of their meetings since our finished product is °MY going to be shown in Canada. A seem- InglY respectable bunch of farmers, they Were presided over by the local communist Member of the European parliament. A devious sod this one with a deep-rooted hatred of the English, who apparently aren't paying their whack in the EEC. It '°w1Y dawned on my wandering mind that these men were your actual dynamiters. More pleasant was a visit to a wine co-op In a fairly remote village. They put on a Fine tasting for us and I find it amusing to watch this business. It's done with a strange Mixture of feeling. There's a sort of grim enioYment and serious relish about wine tasters, they convey the impression that you "nay think this is fun but it's bloody hard Work for us. That over, it was my turn and While the crew were filming the bottling Plant the barman at the bar where local f,1 Weekly have a taste before they buy their weekly gallons allowed me to sample a Pretty wide range of their stuff. I think it vvas then that I broke the confidence bar- rier. But what about the prices? The best seller was a perfectly better than adequate table wine which they knock out at the bc1,111valent of 30p a litre. You can't really biatne them for not wanting to be undercut iY1 Italy at that price, even if trade between he twocountries favours France by 9-1.. But what sticks in my mind was the trivial sound of the last-day row I had with the '‘velku.nd man of the crew. This 20-year-old t "MPersnapper, something of a Chelsea iirendY manque, went on and on about how ne missed the page three nude in the Sun being, Then he said he approved of i;„e.ing, as he had on other locations, blacks r`Ing run down in the streets by Land- }lovers. After that it was back to how much ve liked women with big tits. The ladies of Guardian won't believe it but such talk yakes me angry. Just as I was chastising "witn, telling him not to be childish and 0°ndering whether to bring my left hook pathetic of retirement or not, he played his 7tneic trump card. 'Anyway,' he said, dive had more women than you've had hot th,,nIlers•' 'I think you're underestimating number of hot dinners I've had,' I seDlied. What a silly young man and what a tad end to a lovely week and my first at-
"'Pt at playing God.
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