Low life
Out on parole
Jeffrey Bernard
I sometimes feel as though I am serving time in this flat and that Vera and anyone else who pops in is a friendly warder. But I did manage to get out on parole yesterday for a couple of hours. A nice young woman called Selena came with a car to pick me up to take me the three blocks to the Coach and Horses to be filmed for Joan Bakewell's TV programme which goes out on Sunday week.
The car which took us to the pub was plastered with No Smoking stickers, which irritated me somewhat even for that short journey, and that was what the programme is about. How do I feel about some doctors and surgeons refusing to treat people who smoke? Angry is the short answer to that, although I have never much liked most of the doctors I have met since I had my ton- sils removed in 1938. There are too many trying to erode our liberties. The next thing you know there will be people complaining that they suffer from passive drinking. Hic- cupping fools. Stand up the doctor at St Stephen's who told me in December 1965 `I'm sorry, I'll start reading that again.' that if I ever had a drink again I would almost certainly drop dead.
Perhaps he can't. He's probably dead by now, poor man. No, I am wary of the advice that doctors dish out from their pedestals. There are only three I can talk to. One is my GP, a good Irishwoman, one is the consultant at the Middlesex diabetic clinic and the third is Mr Cobb at Universi- ty College Hospital who models with titani- um. I shall ask him one day to fill the hole in my head with concrete.
Anyway, it was good and interesting to meet Joan Bakewell. I think she is very attractive in all sorts of ways and I wish I could justify hanging a photograph of her in my hallway. I might commit the wives to the airing cupboard this afternoon so that they can gossip among themselves.
Thank God that for the rest of this week we have the distractions of Royal Ascot and the second Test Match. Yesterday, after meeting Joan Bakewell I had another heart-stopping experience when I had a very hefty bet on the French-trained odds- on favourite Kingmambo to win the St James's Palace Stakes. It was a foolish bet although it won.
More nerve-racking than betting more than I can afford though is today's visit from my physiotherapist. She is coming here to take me out for the first time in the wheelchair the Westminster Council have provided me with. I shall feel embarrassed and humiliated. I await the gibes and jokes with some trepidation. Another odds-on certainty will be something about 'legless again'. Thank God Kingmambo wasn't.
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