High life
Medical notes
Taki
Ino longer suffer from a social disease. The fact dawned upon me on Monday, when I suddenly realised that three weeks had elapsed since I'd been to a nightclub. It all has to do with drinking, needless to say. When I go out I drink, and when I drink I tend to miss things Freud used to clear up his rather cluttered mind with, therefore I no longer go out. It is as simple as that. Mind you, the doctor who cured me of the disease of having to go out every night is hardly the typical Harley Street physician. In fact he's not even a doctor, but a Customs and Excise controller at Heath- row Airport. As the other good doctor almost said, there is nothing that can concentrate a man's mind on not getting
wrecked like the prospect of 90 days in the pokey.
Speaking of doctors, I saw one earlier in the week and managed to make a complete fool of myself. When this most eminent of professors told me to lie on the bed and unbutton my trousers I did as I was told. The trouble, was, however, that I heard wrong. I thought he said to jump on the bed, and proceeded to do just that. After jumping up and down for about five minutes — while the professor watched in amazement — he asked me to stop. Do you do this often?' was his only comment, to which I answered, 'Yes, almost every day.' After the physical check-up was over he and I discussed my past and the reasons for my heavy drinking. It all has to do with my forthcoming appeal, details of which I am not about to bore you with. After about two hours I left the hospital and that is when it hit me — the realisation that I had forgot to explain to the good professor that I had misunderstood him. In fact, the more I think of it the worse it gets. Just imagine. A grown man who has just been informed he is suffering from alcoholic hepatitis suddenly starts to jump up and down on a bed while holding up his undone trousers. The professor must surely think that it's time for the people in the white coats to come round and collect me. Worse, his report will be read out in court.
Well, it was bound to happen. And being Greek doesn't help. After all, if Captain Nolan can misunderstand a com- mand, so can the poor little Greek boy. Needless to say, the periodic check-ups I've been having have done me a world of good. For the past two months I've been getting up early in the morning, running in Hyde Park, doing some writing, and then beating the hell out of the punching bag in my gym. I have even found time to read, although reading all about Geoffrey Wheatcroft's G spot can become boring. Almost as boring as being told that I have an extremely enlarged liver and that I must stop drinking at once.
Ironically, I found out about my liver while literally having my head examined, and even more ironically, it was during a time I was drinking little and taking care of a body that has taken more abuse than a Ukranian dissident. I am the second Spec- tator contributor to be told he must stop drinking immediately, the other one being Michael Heath. I do not count my low life colleague because his liver has been in a jar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolo- gy for the past 15 years, making him a cheat of sorts. (A drinker without a liver is like Achilles without his heel.) Not that I plan to stop imbibing right away. I learned early in life to resist all temptation lest there are no temptations left to be tempted by. I've already given up happy dust — if I give up drink the next thing they'll want is for me to stop sex — which would make me hot favourite to become the next editor of Private Eye, but no thanks. If the worst comes to the worst, and I keep a date with the Kray twins and Lord Longford, I will have to give up drink anyway, so why rush things. Like W. C. Fields, I was once in an Arab country and was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water, and believe me it was extremely unpleasant. (Fields ended up in hospital after two days without booze, where — as he admitted afterwards — he took a turn for the nurse.) My immediate project is to stay sober enough to write a 10,000-word piece for the American Spectator on why Anthony Lewis — an American journalist who covers Hollywood — advised Mondale as badly as he did, with the by now known disastrous results. My second is to write a long letter to Sir Ian Gilmour offering my services as a political adviser. (Sir Ian needs a bit of advising. He actually thought that my dismissal of those Yankee pundits as clowns last week was bit over the top.) My third is to have a good time, as I have four weeks to go until judgment day. And having a good time means drinking. As Oscar Wilde said, after the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world. Well, I will refrain from the third glass for the next month.
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