Low life
At random
Jeffrey Bernard
The idea last Sunday was to have a picnic with my daughter in a boat on the la” in Regents Park• but the weather was shoo' ing off and our tube train was struck by lightning shortly after I'd collected heti from the thundercloud she calls Mummy was staring out of the window rememberil how ghastly and miserable it all was when was 12 years old and then there was a blue flash, one hell of a bang and the said Win- dow shattered into a thousand pieces. I suf- fered a similar assault by the Almighty on board an aeroplane last year over Baltirn° dre and some very frightened people had t make a forced landing. And I'd always thought that it was only shit that strikes with regular monotony in the same placeThese rather heavy-handed hints fromi
heaven make me wonder if perhaps finally meet the joker in the sky after electrocuted by a cocktail blender.
Anyway, we had our picnic in the dining room and then we settled down to watch Random Harvest starring Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson. The tears really flowed' At the end of the film 1 was mopping thencli up with a napkin stolen from Wheeler's and pretending to my daughter that it wassweat. It seems she likes a love story too and thank goodness she's already over that silly stage of hating boys. (Nowadays they start hating them again when they're about 25.) But I've been reflecting on Random Harvest, and what a daft title it is. I suspected it might be part of a quote but I can't find any reference to it in the dic- tionary of quotes. No, what it is is that there's a nut somewhere in Hollywood who makes up these amazing titles. What about Reap the Wild Wind? That was a John Wayne epic and if I'm not mistaken it was Gail Russell whom he swept into his arms as well as a giant squid. Yes, I'm very keen on People sweeping each other into their arms and the end of the film of Pride and Pre- judice had me literally sobbing when last I saw it. It was much more embarrassing than last Sunday's epic. I'd taken a girl down to My cottage in the country for the weekend and at the end of P and P, when Laurence Olivier swept Elizabeth into his arms Greer Garson again — I actually had to lock myself in the pantry and sob into a tea ,towel so as not to be heard. What a dread- ful projection of self-pity! But those crazy titles. I'd be grateful to any reader who can explain to me the mean- ing of the film title Written on the Wind. I Mean, really. It's even more flatulent than Gone with the Wind. Another gem is a book by Marguerite Stein called The Sun is My Undoing. I remember it was my mother's favourite library takeaway and apart from arm-sweeping I seem to remember it contained another of my favourite hobbies: 'He ripped the thin silk from her breasts.' Not so romantic in a feminist and ecology-conscious society when I suppose it has to be: 'He ripped the thin cheesecloth from her breasts and Moaned, "Let me do the washing up."' Among song, as well as film and book writers there's tremendous confusion about anatomy. A sense of decorum Prevents me from explaining what people really mean when they say, 'You're break- ing my heart.' And what about The Heart is Lonely Hunter? Why shouldn't the pan- creas or duodenum be lonely hunters? I had Intended to call my forthcoming autobiography 'A Downhill Struggle' but on second thoughts I think I'll call it 'The Liver of the Matter'. Sadly, in the latter chapters, I don't sweep many people into MY arms since I'm now far too weak to do so. I have to creep up behind them and ask nicely.
My friend Clive maintains that you can fet most people to bed if you ask them nice- y and it's a beautifully uncynical senti- ,T, ent. Quite false of course. But speaking being too weak to rip the thinnest of silks from rear' the most vulnerable of breasts I'm afraid that this column will come to you from the Middlesex Hospital next week where my boring diabetes is to be restabilis- ed. Another mistake. It's my head that needs restabilising. But I shall take a page out of my friend Eva's book: she, when asked the usual, 'And how are we feeling today?' by the doctor, replied, 'You're the voctor. You tell me.'
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